1200GS Mileage...

[liam_dillon]

Have my bike a coming up to a year now and loving it, but will have 12k on the clock soon.
Interested to hear what you consider the optimal mileage for selling/trading in. I would like to keep it for another 2 years at least (that would bring it up to 36k).

Do you think someone would buy a GS with say 48k on the clock for 4+ grand or am i dreaming.

I would also be interested to know at what point things start to go wrong and what kinda mileage will the engine do, 120k?

I guess there are guys out there with GS with unbelievable mileage, would be interested to to know.

(thinking of a weekend trip to Dublin via Hollyhead from around Stansted, anyone recommend any routes, i was just going to get to Wales via motorway and A roads then back roads in Wales)

I'm ranting now, but good luck to those fellas i saw on the M11, GS's pack to the hilt, off somewhere interesting. Jealous.

Liam

 

[Wapping]

I would also be interested to know at what point things start to go wrong

 

[geoff48h]

go wrong from day one..longer you have it the better it gets...as for the resale value dont take it to a bmw dealer he will want money to take it off your hands, they may tell you that it will go round the world, just dont try selling it back to them if you do.

 

[Deleted account 211025001]

..longer you have it the better it gets....

And that's the truth

The engine isn't even fully loosened up at 12,000 miles FFS.

It's a motorbike, not a financial investment - ride the thing and get shot of it when/if you want a different bike

Andres

 

[sherpatensing]

And that's the truth

The engine isn't even fully loosened up at 12,000 miles FFS.

It's a motorbike, not a financial investment - ride the thing and get shot of it when/if you want a different bike

Andres

+1
Ride it and stop worrying.

 

[Sgt Bilco]

+1
Ride it and stop worrying.

+2 As a guide, I`ve done 32k in 18 months and mine`s as sweet as a nut

 

[Dahoum]

And that's the truth

The engine isn't even fully loosened up at 12,000 miles FFS.

It's a motorbike, not a financial investment - ride the thing and get shot of it when/if you want a different bike

Andres

+1
Ride it and stop worrying.

wot they sed

 

[the shepard]

Have my bike a coming up to a year now and loving it, but will have 12k on the clock soon.
Interested to hear what you consider the optimal mileage for selling/trading in. I would like to keep it for another 2 years at least (that would bring it up to 36k).

Do you think someone would buy a GS with say 48k on the clock for 4+ grand or am i dreaming.

I would also be interested to know at what point things start to go wrong and what kinda mileage will the engine do, 120k?

I guess there are guys out there with GS with unbelievable mileage, would be interested to to know.

(thinking of a weekend trip to Dublin via Hollyhead from around Stansted, anyone recommend any routes, i was just going to get to Wales via motorway and A roads then back roads in Wales)

I'm ranting now, but good luck to those fellas i saw on the M11, GS's pack to the hilt, off somewhere interesting. Jealous.

Liam

went to trade my 05 1200gs full bmw service history new mot 2new tyres 12500 mls for 1200 rt ex demo 8000 mls 07 at bishopbrigs only offered me £5500 gs was supplied new by them think its time to go back to a honda

 

[liam_dillon]

It's not something i'm worried about as such, but point taken ride it till u want something different.
I'm still curious thought what the upper range of the engine is, 150k+? or is more likely the electronics would go by then...

 

[Wapping]

It's not something i'm worried about as such, but point taken ride it till u want something different.
I'm still curious thought what the upper range of the engine is, 150k+? or is more likely the electronics would go by then...

Sorry, but it's a meaningless question.

Most motorbikes, be they HonYamDucKwak or BuMW do not clock up 150,000 miles, simply because they usually get written off well before....CRASH! or theft.

What do you mean by, 'The electronics go'? Go where? That the battery or bulbs have failed? Some wires have chafed through? The EWS fries the fuel controller or the rider's brain?

I would guess that the average yearly mileage, even for many 'adventurous' GS owners, is not much over 5,000 miles, 10k at max. So 150,000 miles would take the average GS owner between 15 and 30 years to clock up, assuming they kept the same bike and lived that long. As the GS 1200 will probably not be in production for that long, you will never know.


PS If it's any help. I clocked up 18,000 in one year on a brand new vanilla 1200. Went to trade it in, against a brand new 1200GSA. Much sucking of teeth about its high mileage. Of course it's 'high' when measured against the average mileages most bikes do....just look in MCN's For Sale pages.

So, I bought the GSA anyway and waited patiently to sell the vanilla bike, privately, a year later with 22k on the clock (11,000 average over two years) for £7,700 - so I wasn't complaining.

 

[Hexme]

And that's the truth

The engine isn't even fully loosened up at 12,000 miles FFS.

It's a motorbike, not a financial investment - ride the thing and get shot of it when/if you want a different bike

Andres

+ too, the more you ride it the better it gets!

 

[RickG]

In spite of many of the very sensible replies of the 'just keep it and enjoy', which I do regard as the way to go, you have a valid question.

I get the impression that the 2-3 year trade in value of a 1200 is less than it was when the 1150's were at the same point in their lifespan. This may be due to a perception by the punters of unreliability and clearly the 'new' model will have knocked down the value of the old ones - at least that's what the dealers will tell you. Bottom line is the 'going rate' is set by a number of factors and we're stuck with it, fair or not.

If you do more than 10,000 miles a year you are going to have after only 3 years what is percieved by many as a high milage bike with the consequent affect on it's second hand value. The fact that the engine has barely run in is unfortunately irrelevant to the market price.

I reckon there are few instances where you will benefit from trading in regularly unless you are really are getting something better for your money (like a 1200 from a 1150..) and so financially it makes little sense.

There's another factor, however, and that's the size of your wad, it's interesting to look at the difference in the posts in the 1100/1150 sections compared to the 1200 group. The 1200 owners seem to have more cash, are more likely to deck out their bikes in expensive gadgets, baubles and bling, do a few miles and then change it the next year to having proudly announced to us all 'I'm just picking up my new baby' or some such and seem to shrug off the big hit on their wallet. In contrast the 1150 (and to be fair, many 1200)owners hang onto their bikes and clock up the miles, maybe that's because their options to swap are limited, maybe they are simply wiser as even at today's petrol prices, the thousands of pounds they save by not flocking to the showrooms each spring will carry them a very long way.

In terms of longevity the engine is close enough to it's ancestors to suggest it'll be good for well over 100,000 miles, probably twice that if it looked after as prescribed. I bet there are already 1200's, in countries where petrol is effectively free that have covered many thousands. Check out avdrider as the Yanks always clock up big miles, and if like the others say, you are one of the unfortunate minority to get something like the dreaded EWS or fuel pump controller failure, well fix it and hang in there.

 

[Andrew Lodge]

I think one big factor has been missed out so far, Rick was correct in all his points but the simple fact is that a lot more 1200's have been sold than the previous models.

This inevitably means that there are more of them on the second hand market and like it or not that serves to depress prices as buyers have far more choice.

It is simple supply and demand, there was a time when a used GS would leave the dealer almost the day it arrived and they could name almost any price just below that of a new one. Now most dealers have a row of clean used GS's to choose from.

 

[robb]

went to trade my 05 1200gs full bmw service history new mot 2new tyres 12500 mls for 1200 rt ex demo 8000 mls 07 at bishopbrigs only offered me £5500 gs was supplied new by them think its time to go back to a honda

I'd go to a different dealer rather than a different make.
I recently swapped my 05 with just under 20,000 on the clock and there was almost £800 difference in the trade ins offered by my two nearest dealers.
The lower was just under what you were offered.

Neadless to say I went to last years Ride Dealer of the Year