New BMW for my mate....

[Aubrey]

I'm taking my mate to look at a 01' BMW F650GS tomorrow, which looks a clean bike. I've tried to pursuade him to go the TA or AT route but he's a stubborn bugger. I was wondering if anyone could give some advice on what to look out for, common faults, areas suceptble to corrosion, things that maybe should have been replaced at certain milages? Any help would be gratefully received.

Regards

Alec

[phil w]

Have you looked here
http://www.f650.co.uk/

[Aubrey]

I have now. Tip-top!

[Annette]

Alec

All I can say is........great choice. I had one of these as my first big bike.
Great on and off road. You can get up to 90mpg. They look great.

One thing your mate needs to be aware of if he hasn't ridden one before, is that they do sound very agricultural. Also the gears are a bit clunky but this is just a quirk of the bike.

If he's planning on riding it through the winter he may want to upgrade to something like the Touratech lighting as the lights on BMWs really are rubbish A tealight gives off more light.

They are light weight, easy to ride. Very forgiving if you are an inexperienced rider. And not too much go to frighten you.

They cruise well at 80mph too, if he's planning on taking it abroad.

He doesn't need to worry about high mileage, they do run forever. They're easy to look after and service. Even changing to brake pads only takes about an hour. Probably the most fiddly thing to change is the oil because you have to take off the front panels and the oil tank to empty it.

Also, provided it has been well maintained don't worry too much if it does not have a full dealer service history, a lot of people who own these bikes do their own servicing.

Many people will tell you that the crank case is susceptible to the paint cracking and peeling but this is just poor maintenance and means that the oil was not changed carefully.

Any other questions, just ask and I'll try to help out.

Also an even better forum is www.f650.com what they don't know between them ain't worth knowing

Here's mine off road with "the big boys" last summer:

[Aubrey]

Thanks Annette,

I'll have a look at the forum too. I can't imagine he's not going to buy it-his heart is set and his head very rarely comes into the equation.

Alec