rear seat loading

[rovert57]

when travelling alone which is better to load the bag onto the seat or remove the seat and use the bare base .

 

[comberjohn]

What weight are you thinking of carrying there? No seat, lowers the centre of gravity if carrying something heavy.
I know it's only plastic but I had the converter kit that allows you to put the vario mounting plate there and then the top box itself.
If BMW reckon it'll take the weight of a loaded top box, it should be fine. The plastic is easily marked, though.
Think Cymarc do a luggage plate for there or you could buy the kit(not expensive) and fix a vario plate to it. Takes seconds to remove if you need the seat again.

 

[Sgt Bilco]

I rarely have the seat on at all and just strap the roll bag on the base.

 

[rovert57]

thinking of a roll bag with tent in, if the seat is not on is the water funneled away so as not to get to the battery etc

 

[sproggy]

thinking of a roll bag with tent in, if the seat is not on is the water funneled away so as not to get to the battery etc

The seat doesn't offer a watertight seal against anything so it makes no difference to where water reaches whether it's fitted or not. So don't worry about it. Plenty of people (myself included) run without a pillion seat. It's fine.

 

[comberjohn]

Yep, no worries about the water. Many is the time I didn't have the box on and no issues. Water drains away.