FRONT FORKS R1200gs issue

[kebabtomten]

Hi

Had a accident in january was hit by a car on the left cylinderhead was pushed forward and frontal collided with a parked car . The impact was not that hard but I did break my left arm.

Anyways Cannon BMW took the bike in for examination , suprisingly they did not find any major damage on the bike , which was a relief.

seven weeks later i went back on the bike for a slow ride around the area to pick up my ARD cases from Roger , I usually have the ESA on comfort D) it was the worst ever ride I ever had , the bike was very unstable,shaky and just awful I though maybe it was me and so did Roger hehe.

after that it just got worse , motorway riding was a pain in the arse anything over 50-60mph was very uncomfortable.

I called Cannon and told them about this issue and booked in for a 6k service and a check ,left the bike at 8am this morning by 1630 I still had not heard from them. They called and insisted that everything was fine and that nothing was found and I could come and collect the bike ,good?

When I arrived to pick up the bike the service manager ,funny fella, said that engineer had just test driven the bike and that there seem to be a issue with the forks after all??? so they compared my bike with a another "healty" bike
and diagnosed it to "limited movement in the forks".

So I asked can they fix this, they said no it needs to be changed price: £1200 just for the forks !!!!

 

[kebabtomten]

The question

1)Can the forks be repaired or are they just full of it and cannot be bothred?

2)Is there any alternative to the stock bmw forks ?

any one else had this issue and had to change the front forks or is this rare case??

 

[JJH]

Hi I would get second opinion mayby from someone who knows like Hagon or Maxton JJH

 

[John Armstrong]

Have you asked the insurance companies opinion on what to do, as it would appear that the repairers missed some damage

 

[Sgt Bilco]

I`d go straight back to your insurance company with a full report prefarably from a couple of dealers

 

[pathfinder]

perhaps WILLOW could shed some light on the matter.Hello WILLOW are you there?

 

[RickG]

Probably bent one or both of the stanchions so they don't slide up and down in parallel any more. Not only will they stick but also the the front wheel may no longer point straight ahead. Hardly surprising with a bump to the front. Happened to me on a 1100. Should have been picked up by the dealer/insurer's engineer but easily missed if they didn't test ride. Should be able to claim on the same insurance that fixed the rest of the bike as the insurers 'engineer' who assessed the bike as part of the claim is at fault - assuming this is what happened in your case. Get on the phone and tell them what's happened.

It is possible to straighten slightly bent fork stanchions but you need a specialist

 

[JPB]

Sounds like some good advice there. Can't say I'm surprsied to hear of poor performance from Cannon's service dept; I bought my 1200GS there in '06 but after they were unable to complete the brake line recall within half a day (Balderstons managed it in 2 hours) I stopped using them.

Good luck with your insurance company!