Chicago Region BMW Motorcycle Owners Assoccrbmw

Took my bike out a few of weeks ago when the temperature reached 60, all seemed fine. Last week was rearranging garage and noticed a strange, low vibration rumble when moving the bike very slowly, ignition off, for just a few feet. Sound is quite loud and very low frequency. Seems to happen at the same location on the wheel.

Any thoughts or offers of a second pair of hands and ears in Wheaton?

Have you checked / corrected the tire pressure?

How old are the tires? Must consider that having one tire spot touching the frozen garage floor all winter can cause some sort of (bad) change to that tire spot.

One tire only or both?
Have you checked tread for maybe something stuck in tread?
Have you checked tread wear?

R1200CL.....Hmmm...... ifn tires are four or more years old, even with litle milage, you jes'may want to get new ones.

Paul W

Thanks for the thoughts but the tires are on a couple of layers of heavy carpet. They were also replaced in September.

The sound seem to be coming from the rear end or exhaust system.

Hmmm. My RT used to make a noise like that when I would walk it backward while parking it. Turned out the noise was coming from the front brake rotors. Those little buttons holding the disks in place were worn and allowed the disks to vibrate. Only happened when moving backwards because of the wear pattern on the pads. Eventually I replaced the buttons and the noise went away (had lived with the noise for a long time without ill effects!).

HTH.
Tim Colburn
Park Forest, IL

Read an article somewhere/sometime about those buttons.

Having some play in the forward/ backwards rotational plane is OK (but only some, as in a tinsie weensie little bit).

Having play in the left/right horizontal plane ist verboten!

Paul W