Would you buy a 100K mile police bike?

http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/2004-BMW-R1150RT-POLICE-CHP-exc-condition_W0QQitemZ300327590571QQcmdZViewItemQQptZUS_motorcycles?hash=item45eceb5aab&_trksid=p4506.c0.m245&_trkparms=65%3A12|39%3A1|72%3A317

discuss

For dirt cheap...sure.

the description cracks me up- guy mentions how expensive bmw parts and service is while he is trying to sell a 100k bmw. lol.

Also says "normal wear and tear." "normal" wear and tear on a 100k bike would be, um, totalled? lol again.

In answer to your question, no, I would not. Too many other good bikes out there at the price point that one's goin for...

"REAR- ONLY EMERGANCY FLUSHER "

Any bike that comes with a, and I quote,

"rear only emergency flusher system"

Is worth buying.

I have looked at used police BMW's myself. Most were in the 50-60K mileage range, but cost a bit more. The police departments that use them seem to take excellent care of them, and really know how to maintain a BMW. The bike is also a great bike to start with, and designed for high mileage. Most of their life is spent just cruising, they are not often beat to within an inch of their life. Even if laid down or dropped, they have great crash bars.

The issue for me is the much smaller side bags, which are difficult to swap for the larger OEM units, and the single seat, again hard to swap and I need to ride two up.

That said, 100K is a lot for any bike, even a well-maintained Beemer.

maybe under $1k, too much stuff to go wrong for more than that.

Oil cooled Beemers are easy. Keep up on the service and you're gold. Plan on dropping $500 to $1000 if you have a shop do your first service, which is an excellent way to establish a baseline for your new bike. You'll learn to do them yourself pretty quickly - every 6k, 12k and 24k - after that first one.

However, there's a big caveat with these hexheads: the rear drive for the first one or two years was a 'sealed unit.' That is, it was designed to never have its fluid replaced, even though it's almost identical in design to the previous generation's rear drive, which required a fluid change every 12k miles. Be wary of any of these bikes - especially a heavy, high mile example like this - that has not had a proper rear drive service. Unfortunately, a proper service on these involves suctioning the fluid out of the fill hole, and has likely only been performed by a particularly conscientious owner or specialty shop.

Hexheads also have a CAN-bus electrical system which, in theory, is substantially simpler than the standard electrics (not that BMW electrics were ever all that simple), but which I do not fully understand. My understanding: it's even more magic than regular systems. It should be more reliable, since it has significantly fewer points of failure. But, we know how the Germans do with 'should.'

Parts prices actually ain't that bad, and BMW has a long record of keeping parts available for a very long time.

Forget everything I said about hexheads. This is an oilhead, and '04 was their last year. Guess it's been too long since I was at the shop...

In my opinion, any model '04 Beemer is the one to get. They had just figured it all out by then, so of course they had to change the design.

10,000 is not a lot of miles for any bike. My Wee Strom has 25,xxx and is doing just fine, thanks. Needs her third rear tire and just got her second chain. I'm also looking into some alternative (read better) suspension.

For the BMW, I'd pay, just not a lot, largely due to the problems with refining it to civilian duty as noted above.

Oops, sorry, I read one of the above threads as saying that 10,000, not 100,000 miles is a lot. I hear that from lots of sport bike riders.