How the vibe works

[BER18 100]

My R18 has a mild shake at 900 rpm. If I idle up to 1,100 rpm the shake disappears. I asked the service people to adjust the idle upward just a tad, but they said they can't do that. Is this because BMW says it is a no-no, or don't the BMW service techs know how to do it?

While riding at 2,300 rpm, I can't feel the bike. At 3,000 rpm (80mph) the bike is again smoothed out.

The HD Milwaukee8 engine vibrates like a paint shaker at idle. But when riding at highway speed that motor is smooth as ice. And when you call for acceleration at 65 mph, the motor accelerates the bike with no engine chatter at all. Kind of reminds of the 1,833 cc GoldWing.

 

[RazMan]

Mine has the same 'shake' and I believe it is unavoidable unless the ecu is remapped to enrich the idle mixture a little. Damn these Euro5 regulations

 

[Anibal]

I did like the shake at idle, it is part of the charm. 2.5/2.6K rpm seemed to be the sweet spot on my B and that was between 65 to 70mph. The shake was more noticeable when she was new but started improving past the 2.6K miles on the odometer and got even better as the miles increased. The same goes for fuel efficiency. To me the R18 motor is like a fine wine, it gets better with age.

 

[bdalameda]

I was told by a tech at Brentune that the shake at idle is due to BMW intentionally making the ignition timing swing advanced and retarded at idle causing the engine to have a lumpy idle on purpose.

 

[Petrus]

BMW have also programmed two incremental 'cures'

I have it in Roll so it shakes the tub less.

 

[RazMan]

I suppose that depends on which sales desk you are sitting behind then

 

[Noelpolar]

Fwiw.... when I added the bren tune it lost (for the most part) the quirky idle and off idle poping etc (fish tale exhaust). I replaced the fish tails with some free flowing cones and got some character back.

 

[Petrus]

ergo; it is a feature