If I have to pay anywhere near that price, I will be over the moon angry and getting rid of the bike at the first opportunity, I love the bikes but BMW is a company really sucks and deserves to go broke....
I would look for a buyer now. With an hour to remove metal and tupperware, an hour and a half for the fluid changes, an hour to check everything and bleed the brakes and the $150 for BMW transmission fluid plus a valve check... $800 sounds on the cheap side.
Now I am guilty because I don't lift my R18 and I have valve adjustments by the dealer and I simply never tinker with my own brakes... I pay to have those done by a dealer. To own a BMW motorcycle you need to have your own diagnostic device with the ability to clear service warnings and read faults. You also need to spend the 15 minutes for each job to learn how to change your own oil and gearbox fluid and final drive fluid (there are videos all over youtube on each task). The only hard part is getting all the metal off to get to the air cleaner and accessing the air cleaner (it takes me about 90 minutes but I am overly cautious and not a good mechanic)
You can and maybe should do your own maintenance to the best of your ability. Just doing your own fluid changes will nock $500 off that bill.
I have owned BMW motorcycles for 40 years but I am not a fanboy. If you don't do some of your own maintenance or find an independent mechanic the recommended service intervals on the GS or R18 exceed the purchase price of the bike in about 5 years! Just like any European vehicle brand their stand alone dealer model gets interest because dealer principals have captive clients who will gladly shell out millions to get a stamp in their book and "avoid voiding the warranty" which is really useless anyway because BMW NA will deny anything is ever their fault.
anyone who tells you you need to use BMW fluids or BMW parts or BMW this or that to keep your warranty is lying to you. Now this engine is a monster, so I use a serious Motul oil that meets exact BMW standards, but I have put at least 300,000 miles on BMW boxer bikes using 20w50 Castrol GTI engine oil from the shelf at Wal Mart. No wet clutch means no motorcycle oil (except in this one, the engine was defective out of the box so I use a full on racing lubricant from Motul in Germany)
Same with the Gear oil... get it off the shelf at autozone or use my secret (A porsche dealer often will give you Swepco (the same stuff NASCAR uses) if you tell them you have an old Porsche... heck my local Porsche dealer will pump me some even though they know Im using it in my Bike!
Don't buy their filters either. Their filters are made by Mann in Germany and you can get the generic ones cheap. A complete Fluid change with air cleaner and oil filter costs me less than $120 plus half a day of fun in the garage with beer. If you can get the rear wheel off the ground, a valve check is free (and your valves are always in spec anyway) order a bag of crush rings when you buy the bike or have them throw them in with the purchase and you can see maintenance is a snap.
take a picture of each job, with the materials, and BMW can't do a darn thing to your warranty.
One last thing... I am a complete mechanical idiot. If I can do this you can too. I super promise that
. It's a blood bath and I'm pushing through this. I'm concerned my noisey 1800CC sewing machine motor may fail and I want to have a good dealership for reference in case of warranty repair. Next service I will shop around. I got a good deal on it when I bought it here.
