Front Discs

[OldCroc]

Hi
I am both new to the GS and this board and not sure that I am in the right place.

I bought a Sept 08 GS from Vines with about 1k on the clock. I have done about 500 miles in the last few weeks and it feels like the front discs may be going. The bike noticeably 'grabs' when front brake applied. I have seen some other references to discs on this board and am wondering if this is a known GS problem. If the brakes/disc are an issue has BMW ever done a recall on safety grounds?

Any advice, leads would be appreciated.

 

[bumpy]

Sorry, I cant help, but I also would like to know what goes wrong, although I have no reason to believe I have a problem with the disc.

But, my bike was in for investigation of the forks and while he was bent down at the front the BMW service engineer seemed to 'automatically' ran his fingers over the discs. Had he spotted something or does he have a disc fettish?

The 1200GS brakes are very 'abrupt' at low speed due to the design of the forks which obviously dont dip on braking.

 

[OldCroc]

Bumpy, I had an R1150R before this and the brakes were aa1 - servo assisted and ABS. The GS definately seems to 'grab' when slowing. I am going to have a good look at the discs later (no fetish - promise) and will let you know. I have just spoken to a mate with a 1200 and he says that he has 3 sets of discs already!!!
My 1159R had 30k miles and discs were still spot on!

OldCroc

 

[Pukmeister]

The front brake lever also operates the rear brake (integrated brakes). Put the bike on the centre stand and spin the rear wheel whilst listening for rubbing noises from the disk/pads and observing or feeling any tight spots.

The rear disk is more likely to warp than the front due to the rigid way it is mounted, but this will still be felt when using the front brake. The front disks have a degree of float on their mounting bolts due to elongated holes and flexible backing washers.

 

[Johnny Davies]

The brakes on the 1200 abs/non-abs are very strong so can feel OTT if you've been riding other types of bike. There has been a few probs with the brakes and discs i.e. rear discs wearing quickly and front discs wearing unevenly and warping, and abs problems of varying kinds.

The fixes have been varied from different discs to new spacer on the front disc bolts, with some folk having to folk out varying amounts of time, effort and cash to sort them. Me personally I've had all three discs (plus pins, pads etc) replaced at a cost of £800 as they started to judder quite badly.

To be be honest its a pain in the arse that these sorts of things have to pop up so early in a bikes history - but they do. My advice would be to take it to a couple of dealers before settling on the fix, not all are very good at pin pointing what is wrong.

Cheers
Johnny