stevekdavis
Registered user
If, like me, your 2008 GSA is coming up to 2 years old you may well be toying with the idea of trading up, keeping the bike, handing it back etc if you're on the BMW finance.
I took my GSA to Bahnstormers this morning to get the brake line recall sorted and while I was there I took a yellow 2010 GSA out for about an hour on a nice mix of roads.
The salesman said the main difference is the engine and exhaust note and everything else is the same. Sure enough it sounds much more meaty/roarty than the standard GSA but, and this is a big but, it sounded no better than my bike, a 2008 GSA with Remus headers. In fact to my untrained ears they sounded identical at tick over and when blipping the throttle. They even had the same popping and farting on over run
The new bike gearbox was much smoother with a nice snick into first, but I remember when I test rode a 2008 gas it did that too but when mine arrived it sounded like a box of bolts being dropped when selecting first.
During the ride I did a lot of changes and I could still hear the good old clunk quite frequently. So, better but not significantly so.
The other thing I was told to look for was the smoother accelerating and power delivery. Again, to me it was exactly the same as my current bike, no better at all. Definitely better than a stock 2008 engine but with the headers, no different.
ESA seemed exactly the same, no extra settings, everything else on the bike seemed identical apart from the fuel and temp gauges being swapped and some new faces on the speedo and tachometer.
So, I'll be keeping mine and if you have a standard 2008/2009 GSA, buy some new headers to lose the cat and you'll get exactly the same noise and engine response, IMHO.
Steve
I took my GSA to Bahnstormers this morning to get the brake line recall sorted and while I was there I took a yellow 2010 GSA out for about an hour on a nice mix of roads.
The salesman said the main difference is the engine and exhaust note and everything else is the same. Sure enough it sounds much more meaty/roarty than the standard GSA but, and this is a big but, it sounded no better than my bike, a 2008 GSA with Remus headers. In fact to my untrained ears they sounded identical at tick over and when blipping the throttle. They even had the same popping and farting on over run
The new bike gearbox was much smoother with a nice snick into first, but I remember when I test rode a 2008 gas it did that too but when mine arrived it sounded like a box of bolts being dropped when selecting first.
During the ride I did a lot of changes and I could still hear the good old clunk quite frequently. So, better but not significantly so.
The other thing I was told to look for was the smoother accelerating and power delivery. Again, to me it was exactly the same as my current bike, no better at all. Definitely better than a stock 2008 engine but with the headers, no different.
ESA seemed exactly the same, no extra settings, everything else on the bike seemed identical apart from the fuel and temp gauges being swapped and some new faces on the speedo and tachometer.
So, I'll be keeping mine and if you have a standard 2008/2009 GSA, buy some new headers to lose the cat and you'll get exactly the same noise and engine response, IMHO.
Steve
