Valve Adjustment S10 and BMW

[Leopard_125]

After you've done the valves on a Desmo everything else is "Duc" soup.

Ducati Desmo Valve System

notice the lack of those pesky valve springs!!!

 

[Tremor38]

After you've done the valves on a Desmo everything else is "Duc" soup.

Ducati Desmo Valve System

notice the lack of those pesky valve springs!!!

I've always understood the concept of how that works, but that's the first animation I've seen 8) I think a lot of the KTMs work under that same principle.

 

[terryth]

12-16K is very normal for most Japanese bikes, so the 12 for the BMW isn't out of line. 24-26 K on a bike is unusual and only with Yamaha that I know of. It started with their 20 valve (5 per cylinder) genesis technology. I had a GTS 1000 with the 5-valve head with 26000K intervals. And, yes the cams got to come out to change shims. On my GTS I had two valves almost out of spec on the first check I did at 28000 miles. Any shim system is much more stable the screw and lock type, plus higher revving.

I can't figure out why BMW, a company with all the money in the world, makes a GS and GSA where valve check is due at 12K miles.
And Yamaha S10 is at 24K miles.

Why cant BMW make a bike with 24K value check?

 

[Rasher]

I think this is all too common. As another data point to support that this practice is widespread, reports from owners who do the work themselves often seem to have a valve out of spec that requires re-shimming, but for dealer checks, it is much more rare

Certainly saw this with my last bike, about four owners did their own valves and found at least 1/3rd of them needed swapping, the first couple of guys having it done at the dealers reported they were all "in spec", the law of averages just does not stack up here, the owners have no incentive to lie about shims needing changing, whereas the dealers in question have almost certianly charged for an inspection but not undertaken it.

Even if they do charge extra for needing to change them I woul still not trust it was done, my old (now defunct) Kawasaki dealer used to have an open workshop area so you could stand at the edge of the workshop and see the guys working, you would see most bikes being serviced with the coolant drained, rocker covers removed, torque wrenches being used etc and I like that, so many just wheel the bike around the back, kick the tyres, change the oil, leave it parked for 2 hours and whack you for a large sum of cash!