Oil's all gone!

Ironic the germans have such a good rep in the car market but never hear great things bike wise - Esp BMW.

Is it not BMW has the big transmission shaft problem?

I hope you get sorted OK dude, atleast if its a recognized problem you shouldnt need to foot the whole bill.
 
My Ducati's big old V twin burns through oil like you wouldn't believe!

I normally have to top up every few months (around every 300 miles).

I would just keep a closer eye on it to be honest mate.
 
Souleh said:
Ironic the germans have such a good rep in the car market but never hear great things bike wise - Esp BMW.

Is it not BMW has the big transmission shaft problem?

I hope you get sorted OK dude, atleast if its a recognized problem you shouldnt need to foot the whole bill.
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My 1985 bmw k100 has never gave me any hassle. It's seen the last three winters (coming in to it's four now)

Love it :D

bmwhotrod.jpg
 
Just had a call from the dealer. Big end failure. Needs a new engine.

He did say that when they drained the oil, there was a huge amount of copper specs in it. Now, when I pulled the old oil out last week, it seemed to be pretty smooth and black without any metal bits in it.

The dealer's also saying that because I changed the oil myself just before the service, they couldn't have picked up on the problem because (a) they didn't see the drained oil and therefore couldn't examine it for signs of failure and (b) the new oil 'fixed' the problem and clattering noises temporarily making it difficult to diagnose.

I'm currently staring at a bill for £1000's for a new engine now. Utterly disillusioned.
 
growse said:
Just had a call from the dealer. Big end failure. Needs a new engine.

I'm currently staring at a bill for £1000's for a new engine now. Utterly disillusioned.
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ouch! :eek:

I'm afraid your dealers an incompetant halfwit, if i can guess the problem from a description.

VoG said:
The loud rattle under load would have me looking at the crank, the last time i heared that kinda of noise it was on a plain bearing Z750 crank making it's presence known.
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He could & shouldve been able to diagnose the problem by a thorough hands on inspection, as theres more than one way to diagnose shot big ends, he's just using the home oil change as a handy cop out for failing to do the job properly in the first place.

That being said, unfortunatley once youve heard the bottom end death rattle, the engines fate is allready sealed, which it was the very first time you heard it rattle on the 14th Sept. :(

I genuinley feel for you buddy.
 
At the end of the day, if the engine went bang, it doesn't matter whether it did it before or after a service, it shouldn't have happened full stop.

I'll get onto BMW HQ if no luck with the dealer. I'm also going to take a sample of the old oil down to them tomorrow to prove there was nothing there when I drained it, so invalidate their excuse.
 
ide take the old filter in as well, as i wouldn't be at all surprised to see them turn round & claim the oil could be from anything for all they know.
 
I have not seen or heard of a big end failure on a F800 engine? Oh well.
Ring Customer Service and kick off,a 18k engine failing is not fit for purpose.BMW knows those engines are troublesome and should come to the party.
 
Just had both the dealer and BMW Cust services on the phone. They're offering to pay for half the parts cost. Leaving me with a bill of £3,070.

I don't have £3,070. I've literally no idea what to do next.
 
They're offering to pay for half the parts cost. Leaving me with a bill of £3070
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well, you could take there offer of half the parts cost as the first step in the negotiations, try and get them to accept the full parts cost, it'll take a helluva lot of effort & playing hardball on your part, but as you say, you don't have the £3070 any way, so you've got nothing to lose.

or, you could try & track down a sh motor from a breakers, & get BMW/the dealership, to fit it free of charge, which is likely to be a smaller bill for them to right off.
 
Accepting half of the bill is quite an admitance of guilt from them I would say, but as mentioned getting the other half would be very longwinded and not to mention expensive, if its possible at all.

Second hand motor would prob be your best shout in your current circumstances. It will heavily impact the resale value of the bike but if you aint got 3k you are left with a knackered bike that isnt worth anything other than parts.
 
hillbilly2 said:
Do you have full dealer service history?
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I do.

Seems I've a number of choices:

1) Cough up £3k. End up with an 08 bike with a brand new engine with 2 year warranty. Bike worth is probably about £4-4.5k now.
2) Negotiate a p/x with the dealer on a similar bike. Cheapest F800 they've got is a £5k ST ('57, 11k miles) - if I can convince them to give me £1500 for the parts, that's £3,500 outlay for a replacement.
3) Sell for parts and buy something different. I'm working on the basis of a £1500 parts value of the bike sans engine. The smallest amount of money it seems I need to throw at something to get something half decent is around £3k, so I'm looking at finding £1.5k for that.
4) Spend £1000 on a s/h engine from another broken bike and twist dealer's arm to fit it on the cheap. End up with bike only worth about £2.5-£3k with zero warranty options.
 
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1 seems much better than 2, well if you've been keeping the rest of the bike in good condition. The new engine will be the latest version while the '57 is still the silver version?

3 could be a lot of hassle unless someone will just take the whole bike for 1.5k
4 has risks, most likely it'll be another silver engine with unknown history. It should be a fairly low risk though :p

I'd just try to get option 1 for as cheap as possible, try everything.

I'm off to check my f800's oil now :o
 
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the problem with option 1 being, if you had an uninsured accident, would you cough up £3k to repair a bike worth £4.5k?, just doesn't seem sensible to me.

Personally, ide be on the phone to BMW trying to get them to pony up more money cos frankly, that engine bloody well should not have failed like that.

if that doesn't work, then ide damn well write to Watchdog, try & get them involved some how, because the way i see it, your allready screwed so why the hell not, see if BMW can be shamed into accepting responsibilty for there shoddy engineering.
 
Problem is, legally, BMW don't owe me anything. They're 100% within their rights to just walk away. So anything I can get out of them is goodwill.

They were fairly firm in their assertion that half the parts cost was 'fair and generous' and point blank refused to give any more leeway. I'm not sure what more shouting down the phone will actually achieve. Ditto watchdog etc.

I value my time more than any drawn-out victory. At the moment, I'm willing to write off any losses and just buy something that isn't a BMW next time. Which is a shame, because I live next door to a dealer (convenient) and had my eye on a beemer as my next bike.
 
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