2011 R1200R big vibration at 4000rpm and up after dealer replaced clutch

[natrab]

Hello all! Been having quite a time dealing with my girlfriend's R1200R and we've spent quite a bit of money on it with more problems just cropping up.

Currently, the bike gets very serious vibration at anything over 4000rpm. This happens both in gear and in neutral. Everything else about the bike is now functioning well and it rides great if you short shift and never get above 4k. The bike has 48,000 miles on it and I just did its major service. Everything went well and the engine is absolutely in sync (dealer worked hard on getting it perfect). In fact, at 4k RPM with my carb sync tool hooked up, it's dead even even though it's vibrating heavily.

So onto its history. Bike was purchased used at 36k miles by my girlfriend. She rode it for about 6k miles without any problems. After a while, she noticed an intermittent problem when in slow traffic where the bike would have a rough idle when pulling in the clutch and would occasionally stall. Diagnosing that problem went beyond my expertise and I took the bike in to our dealer who said the computer diagnosed a faulty throttle position sensor. It was replaced and that problem appears to be gone. However, at the same time, the dealer noticed oil seeping from the bell housing and surmised that there was a leak on the counter-balance shaft seal. We had them go ahead and fix it and they tore the bike down and found they were correct, so the seal was replaced along with the clutch assembly. Bike came back and immediately had problems with a really rough idle. Returned to the dealer and found that there was a tear in the intake boot on the left side (where they had worked on the TPS). So that was replaced and the throttle was carefully synced and the original problem is completely gone.

All we are left with now is this new vibration issue which did not exist before the bike went to the dealer. I am once again beyond my expertise in diagnostics and will probably be bringing the bike back in for them to look at. Since the clutch was just replaced, I wonder if something is misaligned or off balance with those components, however I'm not sure why it's not noticeable until 4k rpm.

I'm hoping someone out there has had similar symptoms or experience with them and has some advice.

Thanks in advance!

 

[willhawks]

Vibration over 4000

Are all the bolts which were touched torqued properly? How about engine/trans mounts? Bolts on the clutch itself? Splines lined up? Make em fix it right.
Best!
3hawks

 

[fordtech50]

I would have to say that it's something they caused. Could be anything to do with clutch installation. They should make it right even if that means taking the whole thing apart again. This is why I am the only one to work on any of my vehicles. I realize that it's not an option for everyone. Hope they get it right. Please keep us updated on the status if they find and correct the problem. Am curious as to what it is.

 

[pglaves]

That kind of vibration right after a clutch remove and replace tells me the clutch was reassembled in a manner putting the three heavy parts out of balance. BMW used to mark all of the pieces so arranging the marks as close to 120 degrees apart as possible made a sufficiently balanced assembly but stacking the marks near each other wouldn't. Some folks now claim the parts are not marked any more, but others say they still have bought parts with balance marks.

In any event I would be fairly certain that the tech put this clutch back together out of balance. It will eventually damage the main bearings - at least the rear one - and maybe the transmission input shaft bearing. Not to mention riding it isn't any fun. It needs to be corrected. Have the dealership service manager and tech ride it and experience the joy.

 

[natrab]

Thanks for all the advice. I spoke to the dealer today (they are very reputable and have always been very reasonable with me) and they sounded very concerned. We will be bringing the bike back in Saturday and getting a loaner while they take a look at it. I'm assuming if it's something they were responsible for that they will cover the costs like they did with the intake boot. Their service writer kinda of agreed over the phone that it sounds like something related to the clutch install or else something like a motor mount.

In the meantime, my girlfriend has still been riding the bike as it's her only transportation and we both commute to work, so hopefully there won't be damage to the bearings. We will ask them to check them all if they have to tear it down again.

 

[pauls1150]

A motor mount? Right...

Clutch is likely; maybe the wrench thought the original driveshaft assembly was not phased correctly and re-oriented it?

 

[Gil F.]

A friend had the rear seal and clutch replaced on her 2012 R1200R and it came back from the shop with a vibration issue at all speeds. I wish I had more info on how it was resolved but I can only relay what she was told; the mechanic had never done this job before and didn't realize that the clutch components only went together one way and there was a locating device (pin?) that he misaligned. This caused the clutch to be out of balance which caused a lot of vibration. Costly lesson for the mechanic as he tore the bike back down twice before finding the problem.

 

[natrab]

So they are pretty confident in their clutch job and they think it may be a coil going out, so they are going to try replacing all the coils and seeing if that resolves the issue. Will find out tomorrow...

 

[pauls1150]

Throwing parts at it hoping to luck out...
Does it start easily every time?
Does it idle well, even just sitting there for an extended time (to get the heads & coils hot, with a fan on the exhaust ports)? You mentioned a rough idle earlier.
While coils are a known issue, if the answer to both questions is "Yes", I'd be reluctant to point at a coil; maybe the shop will temporarily loan a set just for testing purposes...? Murphy's Law very clearly shows that everything will work just great during the troubleshooting process.

 

[racer7]

The defined rpm condition of the problem isn't supportive of it being a coil but It doesn't hurt to swap them for a test.
I expect you'll be right back to tearing it down to inspect the clutch install. Paul's original note is a solid explanation and its sure wouldn't be the first time someone did a poor install. One of the reasons a careful amateur mechanic can do as good a job as many pros in that the amateur is a lot more likely to read the factory repair manual and follow it.
In my 50 yrs of wrenching my own stuff as an amateur, having pros do special jobs for me on both street and racing machinery, and inspecting work done by pro for others I find that about 1/3 of pro jobs I inspect do not meet my stds and I have long since ceased to be amazed by the types of errors I find.

 

[natrab]

So the good news is we bought a new F700GS for my girlfriend, which she likes immensely better than the R1200R and will be a keeper.

The bad news is the coils did not fix anything (as we suspected). So they reluctantly informed us that BMW gave them the go-ahead to replace the clutch again with a brand new one in hopes of fixing the vibration. We've been a bit less than pleased with how they are "handling" us as they keep trying to insinuate that this is a "rideability problem" and something that could possibly be normal for a "used" bike. I find that ridiculous as I could assure you that anyone who has owned a modern boxer would say something is wrong with this bike if they sat on it and gave it a ride.

So now we wait. Thankfully my girlfriend has a new bike to ride in the meantime because they dealer told us they had to take their loaner back for other customers...

 

[cide1]

So your bike is still down and they want their loaner back? I would hit the roof!


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[BobbyB26]

Over the past few months, a vibration has slowly been getting worse. About a month ago we were out on a weekend run and the vibration got to the point where I knew for sure that something was wrong. At about 4500 rpm (sound familiar?) I could clearly feel it through the handlebars.

I started with the obvious and them moved onto swapping out coils....no joy. Valve, sinch...no joy. Finally brought it into BBRP in Bellingham as I figured I needed more experienced eyes on the sitch. They figured it out. Apparently there's a bulletin out that says some of the RT's have a ground-to-motor bolt/nut that works it's way loose. If this info is out there somewhere, I wasn't aware of it. They cleaned and re-tightened....more gooder!

Seems like this is one of those items we should all add to our list of things to make sure about. My wifes 08 RT has been starting harder lately....I think I'll start with that ground wire first....

 

[natrab]

It's hard to believe two months have gone by since I started this thread. The dealer has had the bike for the entire two months and we've had a back and forth about them opening it up to take a look at their clutch job. They have had every mechanic they have look at it and suggest other little things they think it could be (down to something as silly as replacing the mirrors because our original complaint was that it was vibrating so much we couldn't see out the mirrors).

We pushed and pushed and they finally ordered the parts and opened it up to do another clutch job. Their service writer called me like he was the hero of the day to tell me something about rivets being loose on the clutch plate they installed and that it was a defect with the part. So they will replace the clutch and it should all be back to normal. I'm happy for resolution, but pretty upset at being treated like an idiot through this whole ordeal and being told everything from "It's normal for an older bike to have vibrations" (it's a freaking 2011) to "I couldn't feel anything wrong" or "It's a used bike..." It's been a complete runaround and they have completely lost me as a customer. Ironically my RT is just hitting 85k miles and will need a clutch job soon and I'll be taking it to a different dealer.

They supposedly have a video to show me what was wrong and I'll be happy to link it once they send it to me.

 

[brianhinton]

Please do attach a video if you get one


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[natrab]

So our big saga is finally resolved. Dealer made some big mistakes and is taking actions to correct them in the future. They have bought the bike back from us and it is finally repaired.

In the end, the clutch plate was not defective. From what I understand, the counter balance weight was installed incorrectly (while it is keyed, apparently this is still possible), which is what caused the excess vibrations, making the loosening of the rivets on the clutch plate a symptom of the problem and not the problem itself. In the end, they replaced the entire counterbalance shaft, seals and clutch assembly.

 

[pglaves]

So our big saga is finally resolved. Dealer made some big mistakes and is taking actions to correct them in the future. They have bought the bike back from us and it is finally repaired.

In the end, the clutch plate was not defective. From what I understand, the counter balance weight was installed incorrectly (while it is keyed, apparently this is still possible), which is what caused the excess vibrations, making the loosening of the rivets on the clutch plate a symptom of the problem and not the problem itself. In the end, they replaced the entire counterbalance shaft, seals and clutch assembly.

Wow!