Thinking about a BMW K1300?

11th October 2018 | Comments Off on Thinking about a BMW K1300?

BMW K1300S, K1300R & K1300GT Review

If you are in the market for a new K1300, this is our small K1300S, K300R and K1300GT review along with some input from a survey. Hope this write-up help you decide if you will take on one of the amazing motorcycles.

The K1300S, K1300GT, K1300R Running Costs.
You may think that running anything with a BMW badge will come with a hefty price tag, at least when it comes to replacement parts, but you would be wrong and the running costs of the BMW K1300S, K1300R and K1300GT are reasonably low. Also, the fuel consumption is not too bad, on average the K1300 series run at 45mpg which sounds fairly reasonable considering the size of these bikes, but these engines do prefer super unleaded which needs to considered when attempting to calculate the running costs. Service costs can range from £150 to £350 depending if the service is minor or major.

The K1300 Performance
Something worth mentioning is that all these bikes have similar engines, so it’s the real difference is down to riding style and the aerodynamics of the bike, for example at high speeds the K1300S will have less drag than the others models in the rage.

What goes wrong with the K1300?
We looked at a survey from over 1089 K1300 owners, 923 had no issues with their bikes. I would say this is a fairly good result for the model range, especially when this is still a new bike which does have teething problems. The BMW K1300GT reliability is what you would expect from a BMW, but there were still problems. So what about the problems that were there? the most common issue seemed to be around the switchgear, starting issues, immobiliser failing, air box (causing fast idol issue), fuel gauge issues, the BMW K1300GT Windscreen had rattling issues and battery problems, as you can see these are not major issues, but problems non the less which should not be there, especially when these bikes are fairly expensive. Some other more serious problems we found included clutch issues, cam chain tensioner problems, gearbox problems, leaks from shaft drive and some suspension faults. If you have already purchased your BMW and want to attempt to save some money by repairing those problems yourself, take a look at our downloadable BMW K1300 workshop manual. 

What about the tyres?
The BMW K1300GT have 120/70-17 on the front and the rear tyres are 180/55-17, but there is an option to get the wider (190/50-17) tyre on the rear. The tyre life can exceed 8k on the front and 6.5k on the rear. The best make include Michelin’s Pilot Road 2 and Michelin’s Pilot Power tyre’s.

Whats the general finish of the BMW K1300’s like then.
Many would say the K1300 finish is not as good as it once was, that said our survey showed that over 80% said they were happy with the K1300’s overall finish. From the people who said they had issue with the bikes finish, they mentioned things such as corroding fasteners and the engine paint flaked on some models.

What mods are available?
On the K1300GT Models the Hard luggage is a popular option, the BMW K1300GT top box was one of the first things owners purchased after the initial outlay of the motorcycle, but on the BMW K1300R and BMW K1300S owners favour the semi rigid panniers.

So are the dealerships any good?
Many of the K1300 owners thought the dealerships were very good, but as you would expect some were less than impressed, in fact less than 5% of K1300 owners commented negatively on their dealerships.