6,000 miles service cost is ridiculous!

200 ??? Holy $hit!! .. well speaking for me, that decision was made for me .. asides that I am a DIY guy ... my local dealer folded ... the closest one now is 200 miles away and there is no way I am going to ride 3 hours to go there and pay a boat-load of money and then ride back 3 hours! I hope that in time the knowledge base here grows to a point where everybody that wishes so, can do their own maintenance and know exactly that all the necessary things have been done .. and done right. ;)
 
Tusler said:
My dealer here in Temecula CA quoted me 300 for 6000 mile service and valve adjust, guess i have a good one.
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It all depends on the prevailing hourly shop rate. If real estate is expensive and labor too, it can be quite high. For example, my local Jeep dealer which is only about 5 miles away is $175/hour for labor, while the closest BMW motorcycle dealer (about 40 miles) is $125/hour. Some areas of the country may have even cheaper hourly shop rates.

$50/hour vs $200/hour can result in major variation in overall service cost.
 
Lurchen82 said:
Was quoted $800 for the 6,000 mile service ! That’s if they don’t have to adjust the valves or replace anything else.. mind you that I put 6,000 miles on in 3-4 months.. I’m extremely disappointed that bmw doesn’t have a service manual for the R18 Available.. I don’t think they have any newer 2021 on up service manuals for any of there bikes .. I think it’s time to sell or trade for a different brand..
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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'm at Burbank, CA BMW shop where I bought my R18 FE. Took about 20 minutes to get a quote. For the 6k miles service A little over $900. With a military discount.

I feel like shark bait. A little over 6k miles in and one year of ownership. They got nice shop and waiting area with TV and Netflix...😞. 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.

Hope this shop can stay in business. Living costs are sky rocketing in this area.
 
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0hmerR18 said:
I'm at Burbank, CA BMW shop where I bought my R18 FE. Took about 20 minutes to get a quote. For the 6k miles service A little over $900. With a military discount.

I feel like shark bait. A little over 6k miles in and one year of ownership. They got nice shop and waiting area with TV and Netflix...😞. 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.

Hope this shop can stay in business. Living costs are sky rocketing in this area.
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Indeed, same same in my area..... I want to ride not spend my life at the service counter.... how good can the engineering bee if this bike is so needy ???
 
6K service is oil & filter change plus air filter change as far as parts. Oil & filter is about $100 and the air filter is about $35. Everything else is labor cost, which would also include checking the valves, brakes, tires & spokes, side stand, lights, battery, clutch & draining condensate hose plus reading the ECU. See https://www.ascycles.com/ServiceSchedules/R18-10K-Service-Schedule for more details.

It should cost more than the 600 mile service, while the oil change is the same & 600 mile has the final drive fluid change instead of air filter, but has fewer other checks than a 6K. I can check the valves on my GS or /5 in an hour or less but the R18 has a few more covers to get to see the valves. 1.5-2X first service would be reasonable ball park for the 6K. I’m still another 1500 from my 6K, but my 600 mile service was ~$450 & they also changed the brake fluid. My dealer’s shop rate is $125.
 
buellwinkle said:
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....
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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 :)
 
buellwinkle said:
Indeed, same same in my area..... I want to ride not spend my life at the service counter.... how good can the engineering bee if this bike is so needy ???
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Compared to what?

Harley says change the oil every 5K miles & check valves at 15K.
Yamaha says oil change every 6 months or 4K miles, valve check at 26K
Honda is inspection every 4K miles & oil change every 8K & valve check at 16K
BMW is oil change every year or 6K miles & valve check every 6k (so you do can do them together)

So 4-6K regular service is pretty standard across everyone & things like air filters, spark plugs & brakes are pretty similar intervals amongst all.

So ignoring the break in service, after 12K miles, I've brought the bike in for service 2 times on a BMW, 2 times on a Harley, 3 times on a Yamaha & 3 times on a Honda. While Harley, Yamaha & Honda have longer valve check intervals than BMW, it's also a lot more work to get to the valves & spark plugs on a v-twin, parallel twin or inline 4 than a boxer engine. Maintenance schedules are a tension between catching things before they become an issue & not scaring off buyers with massive maintenance effort. Why do you think Ducati suddenly changed the recommended valve check from every 6K to every 15K on the desmo bikes? It was marketing. But if you have a desmo Ducati, you really should check it every 6k as my friends' Ducatis always need adjustment after 6K.

My R18 is my 5th boxer BMW over 25 years. I've never had to adjust the valves on any of them after the first 12K miles. If I check the valves twice as often as another bike, but I can do it twice as fast, is it more needy?
 
Hey folks....
My 600 mile service cost me around 100 bucks.
Yes, I did it myself.
Motul full syn oil was 62 bucks for a 4L jug from Amazon, 15 bucks for the filter and about 20 bucks for the gear oil. (Royal Purple)
This is the easiest bike to do an oil change on.
The only difficult part is that the engine sits kinda low.
Everything took me less than an hour.
That's me doing it....Im not that fast and much easier on a lift.
Easiest bike....100 bucks...Around an hour.
 
Gerard said:
I paid 230 € for the 10.000 km service yesterday in Toulon, France. Big dealership.
1h30 wait in the lounge with free expresso machine available.
No complain.
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Now that I could do .. travel time from Oregon would be a bitch though ;) ... $hit I guess I just stick with DIY 😆
But it is good to see that there is dealers/shops out there that are not as greedy as others!
 
It would be great if someone could pull together and share a listed check box or DIY worksheet of all of the maintenance and required fluids, torque settings, required tools and such to be performed at the 6K mile mark.
 
Scott Semone said:
It would be great if someone could pull together and share a listed check box or DIY worksheet of all of the maintenance and required fluids, torque settings, required tools and such to be performed at the 6K mile mark.
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I believe Adam Chandler posted this information and there is basic information in the on line owner's manual as well as some U-tube videos-BMWOA, etc.
 
If I was billing myself for a fork oil* change....it would be about $2,000.... so I'll never complain about a $600 service again.

* all up it took me over 5hrs to just get the fork caps off (thread locker....)
 
I’ve booked the annual service next week.

Owner’s manual says 6k miles OR one year. I have 2500 miles on the bike (life intruded on my riding this year).

Do I need the valve clearance checked?
 
Only Big Poodles said:
I’ve booked the annual service next week.

Owner’s manual says 6k miles OR one year. I have 2500 miles on the bike (life intruded on my riding this year).

Do I need the valve clearance checked?
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Nope. You just need to do your oil change. I will take a step back to mention that every 2 years you should do your brake fluid so there are some annual things that are not mileage dependent but valve checks are every 6,000 miles. Not every year.
 
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