Don’t start it unless you are going to ride it!
                 By Ron Schmidt

The first of 2008 did not start well for Mr. GS. His beautiful, low mileage 2003 R1150GSAD was towed into the shop; the left side covered in burned oil.  The cylinders and heads are now yellow, the exhaust blue/purple all the way past the 180 degree bend. I suspect the oil level sight glass is somewhere in his garage. 

Jason is replacing the sight glass and renewing the engine oil as I write this article. Mr. GS could have taken his sweetie out for an expensive fancy dinner for what this is going to cost. When Jason is done, he’ll push the starter button and the GS might start. Or, it is possible that the Hall generator will be cooked and it will also need to be replaced. That repair will run about the same as a nice, long, riding/camping weekend, including gasoline and meals out. We won’t know if the overheating has caused other damage, but there is opportunity for substantial havoc to have been played.  Sometimes the cylinders can warp and leak. Now we are talking about that same camping weekend only spending the nights in a 4-star motel, with room service. Or, the engine crankcase material around the cylinder studs could have been softened from the heat, and the studs could pull out in a 100 or 5000 miles. The repair money for that could have bought a nice used F650GS. The anxiousness of not knowing for a while is priceless.

So, Mr. GS will get off easy compared to one of my customers in L.A. His RT caught fire.  That removed the angst of wondering if the crankcase might fail sometime.  But, his garage burned to the ground, along with a fine European automobile.  The new garage was nice, though.

We see the same “I just started it to let it warm up, since I’m not riding it during the winter” fiasco several times every year. Bike is started, phone rings, owner forgets bike is running. Fiasco ensues. Article is written to Beehive Beemer members.  Every year it is the same!

So, once again guys and gals, Don’t start it unless you are going to ride it! Even if you are going to stand right next to the machine and monitor it, you do more damage from the introduction of condensates than you do good by running it.

We have a nice paper written on winter storage prep, what and how to do it.  Come by the shop and we’ll give you one. For FREE! Much cheaper than MR. GS’s repair. Certainly more fun too.