BMW K1600 Forum banner

2018 gtl 1600 with 12k miles burning oil

5K views 39 replies 13 participants last post by  atc250r 
#1 ·
Hello everyone, I am new to this forum, I have a 2018 GTL 1600 with just over 12,000 miles and burning just under a quart of oil every thousand miles. I have taken it into the BMW dealer and we are going through the process of trying to determine why it’s burning oil. First I had to drive the motorcycle 1000 miles return it to the dealer so they could check to see how much oil it was burning. The first test showed that it burnt just add 3/4 of a quart of oil in 1100 miles. The second test they did was to drop a camera down through the spark plugs to check out the cylinder walls and that turned out to be fine the third test was a compression test and it turned out to be fine now I’ve been returned the motorcycle and told to go ride it for 300 more miles as Germany had told them they needed to weigh the oil rather than check just the amount of oil before and after. I’m not sure where this is going to go, but I’m curious if anyone else out there is having issues with their GTL 1600s burning oil.
 
#2 ·
My 2018 GTL consumed oil, and long story short, I ended up getting a new engine. If anything, you're burning a little more oil than I was.

My dealer insisted on doing the 300 mile test themselves, weighing the oil before and after to determine a more accurate level of consumption. When they were convinced after the test, they then started tearing down the engine to find a smoking gun. That went on for a month with the dealer conferring with BMW after each exploration. Nothing exposed itself as a single reason for the excess consumption, and BMW finally authorized a new engine. It didn't happen easy -- the GM at my dealer pushed hard to make it happen. Good luck and let us know how it goes.

BTW, are you under warranty? If so, it must be an extended one.
 
#6 ·
I hope that works out for you. My GTL was only about 18 months into the original warranty, so I was fortunate.

Based on my whole oil experience, I purchased the BMW Extended Warranty at the end of the original 3-year period. I'm not an extended warranty guy for anything, but too many expensive things can go wrong with a K16. I know -- there shouldn't be these kind of issues, and BMW should do this or that. :rolleyes: I look at the annoyances as the price we pay for a bike that really doesn't have a peer. The good news is that when you get the kinks worked out, the K16 is usually good to go. My GTL has been flawless over the past 2+ years. I wish the same experience for you.
 
#4 ·
Hello everyone, I am new to this forum, I have a 2018 GTL 1600 with just over 12,000 miles and burning just under a quart of oil every thousand miles. I have taken it into the BMW dealer and we are going through the process of trying to determine why it’s burning oil. First I had to drive the motorcycle 1000 miles return it to the dealer so they could check to see how much oil it was burning. The first test showed that it burnt just add 3/4 of a quart of oil in 1100 miles. The second test they did was to drop a camera down through the spark plugs to check out the cylinder walls and that turned out to be fine the third test was a compression test and it turned out to be fine now I’ve been returned the motorcycle and told to go ride it for 300 more miles as Germany had told them they needed to weigh the oil rather than check just the amount of oil before and after. I’m not sure where this is going to go, but I’m curious if anyone else out there is having issues with their GTL 1600s burning oil.
Yes, lots of people. Far too many. Hope it works out in your favour and you get a new long block.
 
#7 ·
Well you would not think a bmw motorcycle would burn oil at all, the 1600 being their most expensive bike, you surely would not expect this issue. Thank you all for your advise, I will professionally continue but firmly not let them off the hook. We will see hopefully in the next week to two.
 
#9 ·
Hi Rider,

I feel your pain, I posted a thread called "Time to fix major issues", this pretty well explains everything. Good luck, but whatever you do do not accept the 'its normal' or 'there's nothing we can do' BS. This oil burning is a very well known problem that BMW are completely aware of.

Regards,

Tony
 
#16 ·
I did notice before the warranty ran out and brought to the dealerships attention, they kinda of shrugged it off. Unfortunately I had some health issues that impacted my riding for about 7 months, during that time the warranty ran out. Noticed around 6-7k miles and the rest is history. I have now ridding 300 miles as they have asked and take back in tomorrow for them to towel what they fine when they dump the oil. I will post the results..
 
#15 ·
+1 @JohnS1955 experience with a motor burning oil. Ditto, for me, testing/tear down revealed no "smoking gun".

Duane
 
  • Like
Reactions: JohnS1955
#17 ·
I had the same issue and went through the same process on the same bike. They need to tear the engine down and measure the cylinder walls. They are out of spec for the pistons. The catalytic converter does a great job, so you will not see much oil burn. The only solution is an engine replacement. It will pass the compression test, but still burns oil. If the cylinder wall is out of specs, it is a warranty problem. Good luck.
 
#18 ·
I was searching for the same answers. I have a 2018 k1600 gtl that is burning oil. At first I thought it was normal but it seems that the more I ride it the more I am putting in oil. So I told my dealership about it. They charged me about 90 bucks to check it out and said it wasn't burning oil. I got my bike back at around 13650 miles and now its about 15100. During this time I had put 2 quarts in. Not good. I told my dealership and told him I will do one more quart fill up and bring the bike in. I rode about 400 miles when my oil check engine sign came on. I am going to do a long ride this weekend and we will see. Wish me luck and hope BMW will be responsible enough to take care of it... Cross fingers.
 
#19 ·
I was searching for the same answers. I have a 2018 k1600 gtl that is burning oil. At first I thought it was normal but it seems that the more I ride it the more I am putting in oil. So I told my dealership about it. They charged me about 90 bucks to check it out and said it wasn't burning oil. I got my bike back at around 13650 miles and now its about 15100. During this time I had put 2 quarts in. Not good. I told my dealership and told him I will do one more quart fill up and bring the bike in. I rode about 400 miles when my oil check engine sign came on. I am going to do a long ride this weekend and we will see. Wish me luck and hope BMW will be responsible enough to take care of it... Cross fingers.
I responded to your other thread too. The bottom line is that you need your Dealer to champion the approval for moving forward. Do what you can to get them to acknowledge there is a problem, and to work with BMW corporate for resolution. Persistence is your friend.
 
#20 ·
We are getting closer to a final decision from BMW, after driving 1000 miles, doing compressions checks, taking pics of the piston heads and cylinder walls ( twice mind you ) because BMW Germany didn’t like the first set, then driving another 350 miles and the dealership was told they had to weigh the the oil this time to really tell if it was burning oil. Unbelievable the run around from Germany. My dealership had been awesome. After 4 months of this Germany has asked the dealership to price a new engine and the wholesale on the bike. If the engine is more than the wholesale it appears they will try and take the bike for that. If that happened talked about being totally screwed as wholesale is not real good. We are now waiting again for the final word from Germany but this has been no fun at all. It appears a new engine is in the ballpark of 13k and wholesale is north of they, so we will.
 
#32 ·
Wow, I better get started on this process as I just checked the oil level at half of quart with 400 miles in. I wanted to put a few more hundred miles but seeing how long its taking, I will contact my dealer tomorrow.

Please keep us inform as I will. I hope I don't have to weight too long. Being 13k for a new bike is not much. If they give me 20k on a purchase of a 2022, I'll take that, haha.
 
#23 ·
I wasn’t clear I apologize, the first test we did was drive the motorcycle 1000 miles and then they check the oil by measuring it when they took it out that’s the first thing the BMW asked them to do. Then they ask them to take a picture of the pistons and the cylinders didn’t like the picture so they had to do it again and then they came back and said now we want you to ride 350 miles and they weighed the oil before and after. Both consumption test showed I was I was using oil. Now we’re at the stage where they’re going to determine if they’re gonna put a new engine in or try to buy me out at wholesale which as you know is not a good deal for that consumer.
 
#22 ·
As a side note, if I had any gasoline engine which was consuming oil, I would do a lot of hard compression braking. Motoman style.

Not to influence the outcome of the OP, but just to mention what I would do first.
 
#29 · (Edited)
@RL Lemke The Motoman break-in is a good process. There is a misconception by some that it can abuse a new bike, but to your point, it can be done within the parameters of BMW's break-in.

When I got my replacement engine, I tried to follow Motoman as much as possible. The very first thing I did leaving the dealer was ride down a 4-mile 7% grade to initiate hard engine breaking. On flat terrain, I was constantly loading the engine in the lower gears. I don't think more than 30 miles of the first 600 were on Freeway, and even there, they were low traffic situations where I could stay in the slow lane and practice acceleration and chopping. I'm sure I did more focused effort than 99% of new bike owners.

Even with all this, my GTL burns about 0.5 quarts every 6,000 miles. It's not a lot and it's manageable. Still, zero is what I expected. I really believe that some of the bikes out of the factory have something going on that's not correctable. The fact that the vast majority of K16 owners do nothing special during break-in and don't burn oil says something. I would still recommend the Motoman process, but it's not a 100% guarantee.
 
#30 ·
Manufacturers fight owners and dealers over oil consumption warranty claims. I'd be inclined to sell and buy another, especially a motorcycle. Life is too short to have to carry extra oil on long rides.

This may seem an extraordinary assertion, but I'm at that stage of life where simple and reliable is a goal. Only so much time left.
 
#31 ·
My 2013 has burned oil since I bought it 3 years ago. About a quart every 1500 miles. It only had 9k on it. It now has 36k. Was told it was “within spec” for this bike by multiple bmw techs. It’s due for a valve check. If they don’t do anything about it,I’ll probably just sell the bike and get a ninja 1000sx. It seems this engine has had this problem since the beginning.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
 
#33 ·
Welp... Seems like I'm burning oil now too. At first I thought maybe they didn't put enough oil in during services intervals. But after adding oil again after another 1k miles then I believe it's burning it. I plan on taking it to them tomorrow to see what they say. I bought the extended warranty so I'm hoping they don't try to wiggle out of it. I'll try to give an update at I find something out.

Jon
 
#34 ·
Welp... Seems like I'm burning oil now too. At first I thought maybe they didn't put enough oil in during services intervals. But after adding oil again after another 1k miles then I believe it's burning it. I plan on taking it to them tomorrow to see what they say. I bought the extended warranty so I'm hoping they don't try to wiggle out of it. I'll try to give an update at I find something out.

Jon
Right on Jon. When I started burning oil, I thought it was normal until I started adding more. If it wasn't for this forum, I would not have looked further into this.
I thank everyone for participating in the conversation. The whole community aspect part of it is just as fun as riding the bike. Hope to meet some of you one day. Let us know how it turns out John.
 
#35 ·
FWIW, there is a known issue with the oil separator cyclone and associated pipework becoming blocked, that BMW insisted my dealer checked when I reported a sudden increase in oil consumption on my MY2019 GT. Previously I had needed to add around 0.5L every 3k miles, but then on a trip to Scotland it burnt more than 1L in around 600miles.

They found that one of the pipes was partially collapsed and that there was a blockage, so replaced various pipes and cleaned other components in the breather system. Unfortunately, I never found out whether that cured the problem as the bike was written off less than 1,000 miles later.
 
#36 · (Edited)
Just dropped the 18 GA off so they could set the oil level. I'm supposed to then ride 500 miles and bring it back to them so they'll know how much I'm burning. Hopefully we'll have a happy ending... Supposed make a short trip to MD this weekend so I should have it back to them by next Tuesday for a verdict.

And yes, @jst1786 the community part is nice. Everyone on here has been welcoming and offer a wealth of knowledge and sometimes a hand if they're within riding distance.

@st13phil sorry about your loss Phil but the 22 should be a blast minus the wait. If my situation goes sideways I'd probably seriously look into a new GT as well. I didn't do much research on them when I was originally looking just cause I thought the b/ga looked better. I still do but the gt/gtl offer alot more functionality and the looks have grown on me. They're both still great bikes and they're in a class of their own.

Jon
 
#37 ·
Just got an email from my dealership. He wants me to drop the bike off next week. He said they will keep the bike for awhile. I am hoping that they know there is a serious problem with these k1600. Seriously, 3 quarts of oil about 2500 miles is not a joke. With only 15k miles on it, that's concerning. I am running about 700 to 800 miles a quart. I rode the other day with my brother who was behind me and he told me he could smell the burning of oil coming from my tail pipe. I still have my factory warranty but it will be due next month. I have extended warranty but its good to have it go through factory warranty. Cross my fingers and wish me luck. Hopefully BMW will do the right thing and replace the motor.
 
#38 ·
Hi Everyone,
I told you I get back to you on the news of my 2018 BMW k1600 GTL burning oil. After bringing it to the dealership a few months ago, they confirmed the bike was burning oil. Well, a few days ago, I got the call to pickup my bike with a new engine. I can't tell you how happy I am that BMW stepped up and honored their warranty.

BMW, thank you for making it easy and believing my situation. I know others have had harder issues getting warranty done but mine was flawless. I owned two BMW 5 series, BMW k100, 2016 BMW 1000xr, 2016 gsa, and I will continue to buy BMW as long as they are loyal to their customers.
 
#40 ·
Hi Everyone,
I told you I get back to you on the news of my 2018 BMW k1600 GTL burning oil. After bringing it to the dealership a few months ago, they confirmed the bike was burning oil. Well, a few days ago, I got the call to pickup my bike with a new engine. I can't tell you how happy I am that BMW stepped up and honored their warranty.

BMW, thank you for making it easy and believing my situation. I know others have had harder issues getting warranty done but mine was flawless. I owned two BMW 5 series, BMW k100, 2016 BMW 1000xr, 2016 gsa, and I will continue to buy BMW as long as they are loyal to their customers.
Glad you got a new engine. But I would not be patting BMW on the back. You say you were within 1 month of your factory warranty expiring. So what if this all took place just 5 weeks later? You had extended warranty, which may or may not have stepped up. Had you not bought expended warranty, or had the warranty company denied your claim, you’d be looking at a $15k + bill for a new engine. Or you’d be parting out your bike.

My point is, whether BMW stepped up or not, this should NOT be an ongoing issue with these bikes. What the fu$k is going on in the engine factory??? Guess you “only” lost 2 months of summer riding season…
 
This is an older thread, you may not receive a response, and could be reviving an old thread. Please consider creating a new thread.
Top