Fork maintenance

I just hit 25,000kms today and I was looking in the owner's book what the next service at 30,000kms involve.
These forks oil changed is a pain. I thought that I could do my engine oil change for less than $100.
Now , I realize that I will have to throw $300 to be in good terms with BMW. I find this very excessive. Why have to dismantle the forks to change the oil ? It sounds probably weird but how about sucking this oil out of the forks ?

 

I sure miss the days when forks had drain plugs on the bottom of the tubes and all you had to do was to remove the lower plug and the fork nut at the top, drain the fork oil, replace the lower plug, refill with 10 wt fork oil and replace the upper fork nut - after fighting the pre-loaded spacer spring tension to get the upper nut threaded. In those days it was so easy that I would change my fork oil ever 4,000 miles.

 

However, I don't miss the leakiness of those fork drains. All that slippery stuff doesn't mix well with front brakes and tires...

 

Those were the days Richard.

 

I checked with my dealer today and it is a 2 hours job. No other way than removing the forks to drain the oil.
$190 labor+ $15 oil + taxes. About $250. Every 30,000 kms . Yes, back in the not so old days, two drain plugs,
60z of oil in each fork and it was a done job. The whole job took 20 minutes and cost about $10.00.

 

I don’t know if you saw my post in another thread but I had my right fork changed at 23,000 miles as previous seal change did not stop the oil weep. We never touched the left one. I just had my 50,000 mile service so the right fork had 37,000 miles and left one 50,000 miles with no fork oil changes. When the mechanic pulled and drained them they were perfectly clean. I plan to have them drained again at 100,000 miles as when I asked the mechanic when we change again I was told I now have a bench mark to work from. These forks are completely sealed so unless there is an oil weep or leak cannot imagine how they can become contaminated.

 

Talking to the service manager this morning, he thought the service for the oil forks was at 60,000 kms.
He said it is not something we do often.
I agree with you that unless there is a leak, we can go a long way before starting to worry about changing
the oil in these forks. For sure BMW love when their dealers are busy in the shop but how much of that needs to be done ?

 

Whenever I change the fork oil in old style damper-rod forks, like I did last month on my 2009 F650GS and 2005 Triumph Bonneville, the fork oil comes out black with small flecks of silver in it. I assume that this is because of wear caused by the parts sliding against each other, especially the spring being compressed against the inside of the fork tube.

The last time I had my 2002 Yamaha FZ1's cartridge (female-slider) forks serviced by my dealer, which was after 18K miles, they told me that the oil that was drained out was really black and smelled bad. (The bike uses a special synthetic 0-weight oil.) The service manager at the time owned the same model Yamaha and he said that seeing my drained fork oil convinced him that he needed to change his own bike's fork oil, which had similar mileage on the clock.

Personally, even though it will likely cost me $300 (our labor charges in the SF Bay Area run around $130 per hour), I plan to have my fork oil changed during the 18K mile service.

 

When you change yours would you be willing to ask the mechanic to pour the old oil in to clear glass bottles separate from each fork so you can get a look at it? It will be interesting to see if yours was different than mine. I'm always learning from others and might change my mind when I do mine again. I'm not sure what bad smelling oil is like and the black color happens quickly. Put fresh oil in your engine and 500 miles later it is black yet we don't change it for 6000 miles. Not challenging you, just learning.

 

With six motorcycles to ride it probably will take me another year to reach 18K miles on my RS. I'll ask about the condition of the oil when it is changed, but I don't have too much faith that my service manager will let me talk to the technician that worked on my bike. They keep the entire service department walled off from their customers (for insurance purposes ) and tend to provide as little information as possible regarding what was performed during a service.

 

I just had the 30,00km service done and they didn't mention fork oil. Now I'm wondering whether they should have...

 

Jim.
Can you ask your dealer if they do the fork maintenance at 30K. My dealer was confused, he thought it was early in the life of the bike.
But it is mentioned in the owner's manual.

 

I just looked at the manual and couldn't find any service info. Where is it?

 

Section 12 in my manual. Here is an excerpt.

 

In my '17 riders manual, pages 188/189, maintenance schedule. #8-Telescopic fork oil change. Saw it in my '16 manual, too.

Frank

 

I was looking at the downloaded manual - nothing at all. Damn, now I have to go out to the garage and take the seat off the bike so I can look at the printed one.

 

I believe the downloaded manual is identical to the printed one. The service schedule is on the pages numbered 186 and 187, which are actually page numbers 188 and 189 if you use the page number box in Adobe reader toolbar. The downloaded 2016 manual is attached.

 

Thanks for that! My 2015 manual (Canadian) doesn't have any of that information: there's nothing between your pages 184 and 188.
I guess I didn't get a fork oil change as I had new seals fitted under warranty last year. My dealer doesn't usually miss a chance to charge me money! Good to have this information.

 

The forks have to be disassembled quite a bit to change the seals (the ones on the bottom of the female tubes). Unless they captured the oil and put it back in, they changed it.

Frank

 

Yes, that's what I meant.