Keba
Guest
So, after starting a rant in the rant forum, I have some technical info regarding the engine failure (see post http://www.ukgser.com/forums/showthread.php?t=63813 if you want more info on the rant 
)
Sorry if this is long - I touch type and I do like using multiple words when explaining stuff! I try to add in grammar, paragraphs, punctuation and really bad spelling too.
I've had a very long conversation (2 hours 44 minutes on Friday evening damn those phones with call timers inbuilt I say!) with BMW UK regarding my engine blowing up, and following is the gist (in my laymans terms - I am very much _not_ a mechanic) as I understand it - going off notes that I wrote down while talking to BMW, so not a hazy memory issue, just a me being a non-mechanic one.
The engine on my BMW K1200RS decided to have bits exit stage right at around the 42,000 mile mark - this is while I was in a flow of traffic doing around 65 mph, not accellerating, not braking, just keeping at a fairly constant speed.
The technical bit is that 'big end #1', which is attached to the crank thingie at the front of the engine (i.e. a few inches in front of my legs) wore out and the 'cap' blew through the right-hand side of the engine casing when the big end stopped joining to the crank thingie, as is only expected given the bike was doing around 4.5k revs (going off memory there on what 65 mph is in revs - it might be slightly more).
'big end #2' is very worn - the theory is that it was less worn than 'big end #1' mainly due to it still being attached and not somewhere on the A34. Still, it is dangerously worn.
'big end #3' is not as worn as 'big end #2' - still attached.
'big end #4' is not as worn as 'big end #3' but is still 'worn' - still attached.
I believe big ends #3 and #4 are roughly around the same place as where my legs are, so if they blew its possible (unconfirmed if that is indeed the placement of them) that my leg could have been taken off during the exit stage right procedure that the engine undertook. If anybody knows for sure on that front, please do say.
It took quite a while to get me to understand the above - kudos to the BMW UK guy who was explaining it, as I really don't know how engines work, other than there is fuel, sparkplugs, and a whole lots of moving metal bits.
The guy from BMW explained how this usually happens. I was told basically that if a K1200 engine is laid on its side with the engine running, then there is a possiblity that air can get into the oil pump that lubricates (at very high pressure) the big end joints. These big end joints are done in series rather than parallel, so most of the air if taken up by the oil pump would have been blased at big end #1, with some going on to #2, #3 and finally very little hitting #4. Please remember I'm taking this on hearsay - i.e. I don't have a clue about this stuff, but am good at jotting down notes while on the phone!
So far so good - I was asked (since it was apparant on the left hand side of the bike) if the engine was on when I had my bike on its side. It is true that it was on its side causing some minor scratching, but the engine was not on at that point in time. On a side note, I do turn my bikes ignition on so that I have brakes (servo assisted) and wheel it out of the garage on to my driveway, but I don't turn the bike on till after I've put the bike on its sidestand and have gone back and closed the garage door. I've been led to believe that new engines do not need 'warming up' and that it is indeed bad for them to do so, so I wait till I'm on my bike ready to leave before I use the starter to turn my engine actually on.
This did come across as an attempt to lay blame on myself, and because I was focusing on the panel and the above situtation I was quite happy in the knowledge that I hadn't started the engine at that point during the above panel scratching incident.
It wasn't till the end of the conversation that I remembered (we were talking about other stuff) that I had actually come off the bike early in '04 due to a lot of snow and a very lazy council who didn't salt the roads near my house - add in a man hole cover that I never really payed any attention to before and whoosh, one bike on its side. 20 or so yards later is another man hole cover, so after getting the bike back up, whooosh, I went down and wiped out laying the bike on its other side as well. BMW Battersea did the insurance work, but at no time did they say anything about a potential intake of air into an oil pump. Nor was this mentioned at any of the 5 or 6 services after this that BMW Battersea undertook on my behalf.
Moral to that part of the story is this: don't ride in snow on roads that aren't salted.
The guy from BMW did say that we might have had a slightly different conversation based on the snow incident, and I assured him that we would have - and that the Judge who would no doubt be present would ask why BMW Battersea didn't inform me that this air intake issue was on the cards given BMW Battersea had done the insurance work. We agreed not to have a different conversation... They did have the information to hand if they had looked of course, but they hadn't looked it up, and it wasn't till the end of the conversation that I remembered.
Roll on a good 30k miles or so (probably more, but lets be conservative - I'd only had the bike 3 or 4 months at this point, so wouldn't have done much more than 10k miles), the engine blew up as the air blasting the big end joints caused rapid (well, 30k miles kind of rapidity) deteroitation and a near death experience.
I was asked (both by SPC on the day, and BMW during the conversation) if I'd ever had the oil pressure warning light come on. Apart from the initial diagnostics between when you turn the ignition on and using the starter, it has never been on. Well, OK - after the engine blew up, it went on then too. I wash the bike once every week (maybe two weeks if I'm lazy - never more than that though), and I do the sanity checks like check the tyres for nails, water in the radiator thingie under the seat, and indeed the oil level on the bike. I'm a sad muppet with no life in that respect. I also have the bike serviced at almost exactly every 6000 miles - 42,005 at the last service - just to prove the sad muppet syndrome I face. Its rare between 6000 mile services that I've had to top up the oil, but I have done so probably about half the time. I never fill it up above the top part of the oil window thingie, and I've never let it get below 1/4. The BMW guy did state that it was obvious that the bike had never had low oil, and had never been overfilled (something about blue tinges on some metal bit in the engine for one or both of those situations) and that they were happy that SPC had put oil back in the bike as part of the Service that they had done 40 odd miles before the engine blew up. I was satisified in that respect given the amount of oil on my leggings too
Another little sidetrack - I've only ever had 2 accidents in my entire driving and riding life which has spanned a good 15 or so years now. Both were within one week, and the first was when some idiot changed lanes into me - I ended up taking him to court as his insurance company (or the idiot himself) tried saying it was partly my fault - I won hands down as it was _very_ clear cut who was at fault and the Judge was very clear in his closing remarks on that point. The second accident was the snow mobile experiences near home a week or so later. I didn't come off my bike in the first instance, due to a) ABS (it was raining), and b) I was only doing around 30 mph. I don't think I would have come off in the second instance if the man hole covers hadn't been there due to a) I was doing under 10mph and b) ABS doesn't work too well on icy man hole covers.
Back to the current engine explosion - I was told by the BMW guy to focus on the fact that I didn't actually die, and not to dwell on the other possiblities - I can't actually stop that thought process, and thinking about if I had been going round a corner in the wet, accelerating and at higher revs - i.e. actually stressing the engine, or if the truck that managed to let me pass in front of him when I got off the road hadn't seen me, how injured or dead I'd really be. Not a pleasant thing to dwell on!
So the upshot of the above is this - BMW are replacing the engine, right hand panel, rear tyre, brake pads (even the front which got oil on them somehow), and other bits and pieces that go with that whole process. SPC are doing the labour at no cost. I'm paying a token amount in order to get a 2 year warranty on the engine, as if they do it under 'goodwill' then it has no warranty due to some legal stuffs.
BMW are adamant that they are not going to look at the 16,500 mile clutch wear out issue, even though they stated clutches usually last 30k upwards - I'm guessing the 30k is the boy racer types. They have also stressed that they are already being more than nice with regards to the good will gesture on the 42,000 mile engine explosion replacement and that as I didn't pay for the clutch replacement at 25k that in reality I'm paying for a clutch replacement at 42k. There is some logic there even if I don't agree with it. Personally I'm not happy, as I was already not a happy camper about that situtation _before_ the engine blew up, and I still have this nagging feeling that something else is seriously wrong - I'm guessing a whole new engine could rectify something else that was fundamentally wrong, but I really don't know.
I have missed out some bits and pieces from the long conversation with BMW, and I'll throw them in if needed, although none of them relate to the below as far as I can see:
So, to the Technical question and hence the reason I'm posting in this forum.
I'd like to hear from anybody who is actually qualified to tell me their thoughts on the above with relation to the K1200 ('03 edition) engine - please remember its not a GS and not a boxer engine, so if you don't actually know and are just guessing then please qualify statements in that regard. Specifically the 'air getting sucked into oil pump and starting off a detoriation of a big end causing an engine explosion' issue.
I'd also like it confirmed independantly that a clutch wear out issue is absolutly beyond a doubt _not_ related to a big end wearing out and engine exploding issue.
Over to you guys...
)Sorry if this is long - I touch type and I do like using multiple words when explaining stuff! I try to add in grammar, paragraphs, punctuation and really bad spelling too.
I've had a very long conversation (2 hours 44 minutes on Friday evening damn those phones with call timers inbuilt I say!) with BMW UK regarding my engine blowing up, and following is the gist (in my laymans terms - I am very much _not_ a mechanic) as I understand it - going off notes that I wrote down while talking to BMW, so not a hazy memory issue, just a me being a non-mechanic one.
The engine on my BMW K1200RS decided to have bits exit stage right at around the 42,000 mile mark - this is while I was in a flow of traffic doing around 65 mph, not accellerating, not braking, just keeping at a fairly constant speed.
The technical bit is that 'big end #1', which is attached to the crank thingie at the front of the engine (i.e. a few inches in front of my legs) wore out and the 'cap' blew through the right-hand side of the engine casing when the big end stopped joining to the crank thingie, as is only expected given the bike was doing around 4.5k revs (going off memory there on what 65 mph is in revs - it might be slightly more).
'big end #2' is very worn - the theory is that it was less worn than 'big end #1' mainly due to it still being attached and not somewhere on the A34. Still, it is dangerously worn.
'big end #3' is not as worn as 'big end #2' - still attached.
'big end #4' is not as worn as 'big end #3' but is still 'worn' - still attached.
I believe big ends #3 and #4 are roughly around the same place as where my legs are, so if they blew its possible (unconfirmed if that is indeed the placement of them) that my leg could have been taken off during the exit stage right procedure that the engine undertook. If anybody knows for sure on that front, please do say.
It took quite a while to get me to understand the above - kudos to the BMW UK guy who was explaining it, as I really don't know how engines work, other than there is fuel, sparkplugs, and a whole lots of moving metal bits.
The guy from BMW explained how this usually happens. I was told basically that if a K1200 engine is laid on its side with the engine running, then there is a possiblity that air can get into the oil pump that lubricates (at very high pressure) the big end joints. These big end joints are done in series rather than parallel, so most of the air if taken up by the oil pump would have been blased at big end #1, with some going on to #2, #3 and finally very little hitting #4. Please remember I'm taking this on hearsay - i.e. I don't have a clue about this stuff, but am good at jotting down notes while on the phone!
So far so good - I was asked (since it was apparant on the left hand side of the bike) if the engine was on when I had my bike on its side. It is true that it was on its side causing some minor scratching, but the engine was not on at that point in time. On a side note, I do turn my bikes ignition on so that I have brakes (servo assisted) and wheel it out of the garage on to my driveway, but I don't turn the bike on till after I've put the bike on its sidestand and have gone back and closed the garage door. I've been led to believe that new engines do not need 'warming up' and that it is indeed bad for them to do so, so I wait till I'm on my bike ready to leave before I use the starter to turn my engine actually on.
This did come across as an attempt to lay blame on myself, and because I was focusing on the panel and the above situtation I was quite happy in the knowledge that I hadn't started the engine at that point during the above panel scratching incident.
It wasn't till the end of the conversation that I remembered (we were talking about other stuff) that I had actually come off the bike early in '04 due to a lot of snow and a very lazy council who didn't salt the roads near my house - add in a man hole cover that I never really payed any attention to before and whoosh, one bike on its side. 20 or so yards later is another man hole cover, so after getting the bike back up, whooosh, I went down and wiped out laying the bike on its other side as well. BMW Battersea did the insurance work, but at no time did they say anything about a potential intake of air into an oil pump. Nor was this mentioned at any of the 5 or 6 services after this that BMW Battersea undertook on my behalf.
Moral to that part of the story is this: don't ride in snow on roads that aren't salted.
The guy from BMW did say that we might have had a slightly different conversation based on the snow incident, and I assured him that we would have - and that the Judge who would no doubt be present would ask why BMW Battersea didn't inform me that this air intake issue was on the cards given BMW Battersea had done the insurance work. We agreed not to have a different conversation... They did have the information to hand if they had looked of course, but they hadn't looked it up, and it wasn't till the end of the conversation that I remembered.
Roll on a good 30k miles or so (probably more, but lets be conservative - I'd only had the bike 3 or 4 months at this point, so wouldn't have done much more than 10k miles), the engine blew up as the air blasting the big end joints caused rapid (well, 30k miles kind of rapidity) deteroitation and a near death experience.
I was asked (both by SPC on the day, and BMW during the conversation) if I'd ever had the oil pressure warning light come on. Apart from the initial diagnostics between when you turn the ignition on and using the starter, it has never been on. Well, OK - after the engine blew up, it went on then too. I wash the bike once every week (maybe two weeks if I'm lazy - never more than that though), and I do the sanity checks like check the tyres for nails, water in the radiator thingie under the seat, and indeed the oil level on the bike. I'm a sad muppet with no life in that respect. I also have the bike serviced at almost exactly every 6000 miles - 42,005 at the last service - just to prove the sad muppet syndrome I face. Its rare between 6000 mile services that I've had to top up the oil, but I have done so probably about half the time. I never fill it up above the top part of the oil window thingie, and I've never let it get below 1/4. The BMW guy did state that it was obvious that the bike had never had low oil, and had never been overfilled (something about blue tinges on some metal bit in the engine for one or both of those situations) and that they were happy that SPC had put oil back in the bike as part of the Service that they had done 40 odd miles before the engine blew up. I was satisified in that respect given the amount of oil on my leggings too
Another little sidetrack - I've only ever had 2 accidents in my entire driving and riding life which has spanned a good 15 or so years now. Both were within one week, and the first was when some idiot changed lanes into me - I ended up taking him to court as his insurance company (or the idiot himself) tried saying it was partly my fault - I won hands down as it was _very_ clear cut who was at fault and the Judge was very clear in his closing remarks on that point. The second accident was the snow mobile experiences near home a week or so later. I didn't come off my bike in the first instance, due to a) ABS (it was raining), and b) I was only doing around 30 mph. I don't think I would have come off in the second instance if the man hole covers hadn't been there due to a) I was doing under 10mph and b) ABS doesn't work too well on icy man hole covers.
Back to the current engine explosion - I was told by the BMW guy to focus on the fact that I didn't actually die, and not to dwell on the other possiblities - I can't actually stop that thought process, and thinking about if I had been going round a corner in the wet, accelerating and at higher revs - i.e. actually stressing the engine, or if the truck that managed to let me pass in front of him when I got off the road hadn't seen me, how injured or dead I'd really be. Not a pleasant thing to dwell on!
So the upshot of the above is this - BMW are replacing the engine, right hand panel, rear tyre, brake pads (even the front which got oil on them somehow), and other bits and pieces that go with that whole process. SPC are doing the labour at no cost. I'm paying a token amount in order to get a 2 year warranty on the engine, as if they do it under 'goodwill' then it has no warranty due to some legal stuffs.
BMW are adamant that they are not going to look at the 16,500 mile clutch wear out issue, even though they stated clutches usually last 30k upwards - I'm guessing the 30k is the boy racer types. They have also stressed that they are already being more than nice with regards to the good will gesture on the 42,000 mile engine explosion replacement and that as I didn't pay for the clutch replacement at 25k that in reality I'm paying for a clutch replacement at 42k. There is some logic there even if I don't agree with it. Personally I'm not happy, as I was already not a happy camper about that situtation _before_ the engine blew up, and I still have this nagging feeling that something else is seriously wrong - I'm guessing a whole new engine could rectify something else that was fundamentally wrong, but I really don't know.
I have missed out some bits and pieces from the long conversation with BMW, and I'll throw them in if needed, although none of them relate to the below as far as I can see:
So, to the Technical question and hence the reason I'm posting in this forum.
I'd like to hear from anybody who is actually qualified to tell me their thoughts on the above with relation to the K1200 ('03 edition) engine - please remember its not a GS and not a boxer engine, so if you don't actually know and are just guessing then please qualify statements in that regard. Specifically the 'air getting sucked into oil pump and starting off a detoriation of a big end causing an engine explosion' issue.
I'd also like it confirmed independantly that a clutch wear out issue is absolutly beyond a doubt _not_ related to a big end wearing out and engine exploding issue.
Over to you guys...
BMW did say that if the engine is off and you lay a bike down, then the air doesn't get sucked into the pump, so wouldn't be a cause in that case regardless.
