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New to me 2005 RT has a whir, whir, whir, whir vibraions when coasting


Wildwestrider

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Wildwestrider

I recently purchased a well maintained R1200RT from the original owner. It has 110K on it. It came with a spread sheet showing all the maintenance on the bike since new. The bike looks newish, and feels tight, and runs great, but I noticed after a day of riding last weekend That between 40 and 50 mph, on smooth quiet pavement, if I pull the clutch and coast,...I get a whir, whir, whir, whir, whir sensation through the foot pegs.

 

The bike has Michelin PR3s on it with the rear showing a bit of center flattening, and a fair amount of what I would call "feather edging" on the larger deep sipes to either side of the smooth/flat center area. he rear tire has 13K on it, the front tire has 9K on it. The prior owner had the driveshaft assembly replaced with a grease-able unit just a few thousand miles ago. This bike also has Wilbers shocks front and rear,...and I have read that they can transmit more vibration than the stock shocks.

 

I most likely would not ever have noticed the vibration if it was a continuous whirring,....but it is quite noticeable since it is a whir, whir, whir, whir, whir,....the frequency of which increases with bike speed.

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Evening Wildwestrider

 

It is very difficult to diagnose a road noise or vibration over the internet without a LOT of very precise info from the rider.

 

There are some possibilities on your whir, whir, whir, noise but the place to start is to get a decent set of tires on the that bike, then ride & re-evaluate the noise.

 

In most cases tires are the number one problem & at 9K/13 K on yours they are worn out.

 

Added: you might try lightly leaning the bike side to side as you coast down through the whir, whir, whir range to see if that changes the noise--if it does then that pretty well points to tires.

Edited by dirtrider
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Wildwestrider

farmerboy,,,, I wear ear plugs when I ride,...so,...I'm just feeling it through the pegs.......May have to take a ride without ear plugs and see if I hear something as well.

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Wildwestrider - good to know someone else has a high mileage bike and it is still running well. Mine (2006)has 74K miles and runs as good as new. I actually had a test ride on a new one and preferred mine - mine has a sweeter gearbox at 74K anyway!

 

I have also had the driveshaft rebuilt and I am not sure the ESA works as it should but other than that it is brilliant. I flush the brake fluid every year and the servo/abs is holding up well so far.

 

I use the PR 4's and think they are great on the R1200. May be worth changing the final drive oil... it is a bit of a pain because there is no drain hole as such but when I did mine it was quite dirty and the speed sensor (filler plug) had a good coating of metal fur. (note reduced quantity from original spec 180ml?)

 

I bet new tyres will transform it!

 

John

 

ps yes earplugs are essential. I first used them on my old 1150Rt to hide the annoying clunks from the damnable gearbox!

Edited by farmerboy
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Wildwestrider

Some good suggestions there,....the tires still have a fair amount of tread on them,......a guy I work with claims he has been able to get 21,000 out of a set of PR3s

 

Evening Wildwestrider

 

It is very difficult to diagnose a road noise or vibration over the internet without a LOT of very precise info from the rider.

 

There are some possibilities on your whir, whir, whir, noise but the place to start is to get a decent set of tires on the that bike, then ride & re-evaluate the noise.

 

In most cases tires are the number one problem & at 9K/13 K on yours they are worn out.

 

Added: you might try lightly leaning the bike side to side as you coast down through the whir, whir, whir range to see if that changes the noise--if it does then that pretty well points to tires.

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Wince.......

 

Can not begin to tell you how many times I heard that

:rofl:

02a-tirewear-7pennytest.jpg

these are motorcycles.

2 wheels and tries.

Very small contact patch.

"Seeing" tread doesn't matter.

Think of it as akin to cutting through your helmet, not all the way, just most of the way...

Best wishes.

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Some good suggestions there,....the tires still have a fair amount of tread on them,......a guy I work with claims he has been able to get 21,000 out of a set of PR3s

 

Morning Wildwestrider

 

There is a big difference between ABLE to get & able to quietly get.

 

I CAN get 40,000 out of an oil change but that doesn't mean that I should.

 

Same with motorcycle tires, a motorcycle basically steers by leaning the wheels so every time that you go around a corner or change lanes you are basically leaning a round profile tire. If you think about it a round profile motorcycle tire is like having a large number of different diameter tires stacked together.

 

Even through they are all spinning at the same speed the larger diameter center of the tire does most of the work when riding straight down the road. As you lean the bike & get farther out onto the smaller diameter of the tire that FORCES the tire to speed up slightly & scrubs rubber as you transition onto the smaller diameters.

 

All those wheel RPM changes & rubber scrubbing causes the tires to feather & lightly cup just off center.

 

Unless you look very/very closely you usually can't see that cupping & feathering but it is there none the less. You can usually feel it by lightly running your hand around the tires on either side of center.

 

It's that light cupping and/or feathering that causes the tire noise.

 

Some riders do like to stretch the tire mileage out but they buy good ear plugs so they can't hear the tire noise & get numb to feeling the buzz in the foot pegs, seat, & handlebars.

 

Bottom line here: Don't discount tires as your whirring issue just because that look like they still have some life left.

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Don_Eilenberger

I found that the front PR3 has a sudden onset WHIR at around that mileage on an R1200R. Would likely be the same on an RT.

 

Cure is PR4's. At around 16,000 on a set (due to be replaced) and so far they're still quiet.

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Ca. is getting way too much rain now!

Being fairly new to this site, I may have missed reports of high mileage hexheads.

I am riding 08 with 88k and another 08 with 134k.

They run the same?

Don't have real history to confirm everything is original, but wonder how these models are lasting?

Let's hear what is highest.

 

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I imagine I should have started a new thread to get this out there.

I am sure if you want to keep one going, you can keep throwing transmissions, driveshafts and rear ends in them.

A friend got 217k on his R1150rt and swears he never torn it down.

My 1150 kept breaking and I parted it out at 40k.

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Previous bike was an 1150 RT with the worst damn gearbox ever to clunk and crash its way across the north of England. Children would cry and old ladies tut as I selected 1st gear at traffic lights.... and just to really annoy me it would crash into 6th no matter what I did. Only 22K miles and it had to go... replaced with R1200RT (74K miles) and sweet as nut in every way. I did try a brand new wet head and it's gearbox was clunky!!! Go figure... needless to say I kept the R1200 and love it.

I think final drives and sometimes the abs/servo cause problems.

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Not to sound unkind, but most BMW's will shift smoothly.

MOst seamlessly.

The first gear issue is easily dealt with.

After that, upshifts like butter, done correctly.

Downshifts fine, not into 1st.

YMMV

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Some good suggestions there,....the tires still have a fair amount of tread on them,......a guy I work with claims he has been able to get 21,000 out of a set of PR3s

 

Morning Wildwestrider

 

There is a big difference between ABLE to get & able to quietly get.

 

I CAN get 40,000 out of an oil change but that doesn't mean that I should.

 

Same with motorcycle tires, a motorcycle basically steers by leaning the wheels so every time that you go around a corner or change lanes you are basically leaning a round profile tire. If you think about it a round profile motorcycle tire is like having a large number of different diameter tires stacked together.

 

Even through they are all spinning at the same speed the larger diameter center of the tire does most of the work when riding straight down the road. As you lean the bike & get farther out onto the smaller diameter of the tire that FORCES the tire to speed up slightly & scrubs rubber as you transition onto the smaller diameters.

 

All those wheel RPM changes & rubber scrubbing causes the tires to feather & lightly cup just off center.

 

Unless you look very/very closely you usually can't see that cupping & feathering but it is there none the less. You can usually feel it by lightly running your hand around the tires on either side of center.

 

It's that light cupping and/or feathering that causes the tire noise.

 

Some riders do like to stretch the tire mileage out but they buy good ear plugs so they can't hear the tire noise & get numb to feeling the buzz in the foot pegs, seat, & handlebars.

 

Bottom line here: Don't discount tires as your whirring issue just because that look like they still have some life left.

 

Great explanation of front tire cupping! I havn't noticed it to speak of with any PR's or Angel GT's, but the OEM Metzlers cupped horribly, definitely accentuated by the centerline tread pattern. (I'm one of "those guys" who gets 14k+ out of tires)

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Fwiw,

 

I have found on my 2010 RT, PR3/4 to cup horribly by 7k miles. I found them to become very noisy by 3-4K miles in cornering. By 10k miles they're trash.

 

I find a great difference in the handling of a bike with older tires...

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Wildwestrider

Dirtrider, read my orig post, and you will see I noted feathering on the rear tire,.the front has a small amount as well,....more pronounced on the rear.

 

...

Some good suggestions there,....the tires still have a fair amount of tread on them,......a guy I work with claims he has been able to get 21,000 out of a set of PR3s

 

Morning Wildwestrider

 

There is a big difference between ABLE to get & able to quietly get.

 

I CAN get 40,000 out of an oil change but that doesn't mean that I should.

 

Same with motorcycle tires, a motorcycle basically steers by leaning the wheels so every time that you go around a corner or change lanes you are basically leaning a round profile tire. If you think about it a round profile motorcycle tire is like having a large number of different diameter tires stacked together.

 

Even through they are all spinning at the same speed the larger diameter center of the tire does most of the work when riding straight down the road. As you lean the bike & get farther out onto the smaller diameter of the tire that FORCES the tire to speed up slightly & scrubs rubber as you transition onto the smaller diameters.

 

All those wheel RPM changes & rubber scrubbing causes the tires to feather & lightly cup just off center.

 

Unless you look very/very closely you usually can't see that cupping & feathering but it is there none the less. You can usually feel it by lightly running your hand around the tires on either side of center.

 

It's that light cupping and/or feathering that causes the tire noise.

 

Some riders do like to stretch the tire mileage out but they buy good ear plugs so they can't hear the tire noise & get numb to feeling the buzz in the foot pegs, seat, & handlebars.

 

Bottom line here: Don't discount tires as your whirring issue just because that look like they still have some life left.

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Dirtrider, read my orig post, and you will see I noted feathering on the rear tire,.the front has a small amount as well,....more pronounced on the rear.

 

Morning Wildwestrider

 

There is a very good chance that is your whirring noise so new tires would be a good (logical) first step in diagnosing your whirring noise.

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