kcain
Guest
I have just completed a 4,000km round trip from Tbilisi to Istanbul (to have the bike properly inspected and serviced) then on to Sofia (Bulgaria) for business reasons and back. I had planned to return by ferry from Varna across the Black Sea to Poti, thereby avoiding condiserable mileage, but because of problems connected with the BMW agents in Istanbul, I had to change plans.
The service at BMW also included changing the tyres and the only ones available were Dunlop which was acceptable to me, though when I picked the bike up there was a strange feeling which I assumed was due to a combination of a new brand of tyre not yet run in combined with the sometimes strange tarmac of the roads in Istanbul. At higher speed things were better, but at 40 - 60 mph there was a considerable oscillation in the bars.
Problems started in Sofia when the battery went flat after 2 days (though I had been charged for checking this) and I then decided to take a closer look at the front wheel and found that there was no balancing weight and that the wheel had some very bad scrapes around the outside edge. Even worse, when the bike was on the centre stand, the front wheel would hardly spin. I therefore arranged to return to Istanbul.
The BMW facility in Istanbul is very expensive, spectacular and modern, but I discovered that they had not invested in a machine to break the bead on bike tyres or to balance the weels and that they had used the machine in the car workshop thereby warping the wheel.
To cut a long story short, they managed to find a new wheel (though I had to spend an extra weekend in Istanbul) and managed to have this wheel balanced somewhere else. Things are much better and the wheel spins freely when the bike is on the stand but there is still a slight oscillation.
Could it be that the tyre is faulty? Could the back wheel have been damaged and be causing this?
Any ideas would be welcome.
The service at BMW also included changing the tyres and the only ones available were Dunlop which was acceptable to me, though when I picked the bike up there was a strange feeling which I assumed was due to a combination of a new brand of tyre not yet run in combined with the sometimes strange tarmac of the roads in Istanbul. At higher speed things were better, but at 40 - 60 mph there was a considerable oscillation in the bars.
Problems started in Sofia when the battery went flat after 2 days (though I had been charged for checking this) and I then decided to take a closer look at the front wheel and found that there was no balancing weight and that the wheel had some very bad scrapes around the outside edge. Even worse, when the bike was on the centre stand, the front wheel would hardly spin. I therefore arranged to return to Istanbul.
The BMW facility in Istanbul is very expensive, spectacular and modern, but I discovered that they had not invested in a machine to break the bead on bike tyres or to balance the weels and that they had used the machine in the car workshop thereby warping the wheel.
To cut a long story short, they managed to find a new wheel (though I had to spend an extra weekend in Istanbul) and managed to have this wheel balanced somewhere else. Things are much better and the wheel spins freely when the bike is on the stand but there is still a slight oscillation.
Could it be that the tyre is faulty? Could the back wheel have been damaged and be causing this?
Any ideas would be welcome.
