Hello all,
Thought I’d summaries my experience of the 12,000 mile service.
Bit of background… Following an off on my now dead Honda SP1 in July of this year I was told by the better half to get off sports bikes. So off I trundled down to Allan Jefferies for a bit of a nosy. Whilst there I spotted an ’07 GS1200 non ABS, heated grips with full luggage and 9,000 miles. After a bit of bartering, but still paying a premium for buying from a BMW dealer, the bike was mine. The bike is used daily and since July I have clocked up a further 4,500 miles. As it had its 6,000 service at 9,000 I decided to try and pull the service schedule back inline and get the bike serviced 1,500 miles earlier. Well I’m glad I did! The reason(s) why…
Summary of work done
1 x warranty - replaced rear disc as original had warped
1 x warranty – rear calliper sticking
1 x warranty - set of new rear pads – these were non existent after 4,500 miles probably down to the warped disc and sticking calliper
1 x warranty - gearbox bearing replaced
1 x recall - FPC
4 x sparkplugs
For a bike with only 13,500 miles on the clock I was surprised at the amount of work needed, especially the gearbox! However, is it normal that the sparkplugs needed replacing at such a low mileage
? What would cause plugs to wear out so fast considering that they are scheduled to be changed at 24,000 miles?
Summary of service from Allan Jefferies
Bill came to £223.70. Had an f800gs for 1 week whilst gearbox was being done so no complaints there. I found Michael in service ok and relatively pleasant to deal with. However, his sidekick Dan Scott could do with going on a customer service course. He reminded me of the ‘computer says no’ sketch from little Britain – not really bothered with helping you and when effort was required he let you know that effort was required! I had no progress calls from the service department whilst my bike was with them although I did call then at 16:00 most days for an update.
They replaced the sparkplugs without informing me first and then tried to charge £17.00 +VAT labour and £29.92 +VAT for the plugs. I though this was unreasonable as sparkplug checks form part of the service so was given a discount on labour/parts.
I have an Autocom and Garmin 660 which I installed. It took me ages to route all the wires correctly so that everything was functional and looked neat butfrom the looks of it the system had to be removed whilst the bike was stripped to get to the gearbox. All I can say is that they have bodged the re-installation of both the Autocom and Garmin – it looks like a right dog’s dinner with wires all over the place. I hope that this isn’t typical of their work and that they spent a bit more time putting my bike back together after the gearbox fix!
So all in all I’m left feeling that the BMW service experience is a bit average for which I'm disappointed... The warranty will be up for renewal in 7 months and, if I decide to keep the bike, will be renewing it as it’s probably just paid for itself in one swoop.
Would I go around the world on this bike? Yes, but the route would be plotted taking BMW dealer locations into consideration!
Thought I’d summaries my experience of the 12,000 mile service.
Bit of background… Following an off on my now dead Honda SP1 in July of this year I was told by the better half to get off sports bikes. So off I trundled down to Allan Jefferies for a bit of a nosy. Whilst there I spotted an ’07 GS1200 non ABS, heated grips with full luggage and 9,000 miles. After a bit of bartering, but still paying a premium for buying from a BMW dealer, the bike was mine. The bike is used daily and since July I have clocked up a further 4,500 miles. As it had its 6,000 service at 9,000 I decided to try and pull the service schedule back inline and get the bike serviced 1,500 miles earlier. Well I’m glad I did! The reason(s) why…
Summary of work done
1 x warranty - replaced rear disc as original had warped
1 x warranty – rear calliper sticking
1 x warranty - set of new rear pads – these were non existent after 4,500 miles probably down to the warped disc and sticking calliper
1 x warranty - gearbox bearing replaced
1 x recall - FPC
4 x sparkplugs
For a bike with only 13,500 miles on the clock I was surprised at the amount of work needed, especially the gearbox! However, is it normal that the sparkplugs needed replacing at such a low mileage
? What would cause plugs to wear out so fast considering that they are scheduled to be changed at 24,000 miles?Summary of service from Allan Jefferies
Bill came to £223.70. Had an f800gs for 1 week whilst gearbox was being done so no complaints there. I found Michael in service ok and relatively pleasant to deal with. However, his sidekick Dan Scott could do with going on a customer service course. He reminded me of the ‘computer says no’ sketch from little Britain – not really bothered with helping you and when effort was required he let you know that effort was required! I had no progress calls from the service department whilst my bike was with them although I did call then at 16:00 most days for an update.
They replaced the sparkplugs without informing me first and then tried to charge £17.00 +VAT labour and £29.92 +VAT for the plugs. I though this was unreasonable as sparkplug checks form part of the service so was given a discount on labour/parts.
I have an Autocom and Garmin 660 which I installed. It took me ages to route all the wires correctly so that everything was functional and looked neat butfrom the looks of it the system had to be removed whilst the bike was stripped to get to the gearbox. All I can say is that they have bodged the re-installation of both the Autocom and Garmin – it looks like a right dog’s dinner with wires all over the place. I hope that this isn’t typical of their work and that they spent a bit more time putting my bike back together after the gearbox fix!
So all in all I’m left feeling that the BMW service experience is a bit average for which I'm disappointed... The warranty will be up for renewal in 7 months and, if I decide to keep the bike, will be renewing it as it’s probably just paid for itself in one swoop.
Would I go around the world on this bike? Yes, but the route would be plotted taking BMW dealer locations into consideration!




.