The noise I have sounded like a bad valve tapping, I still had power, no engine lights on and had oil pressure. I told the mech that it sounded like valves and he agreed. He looked at the right side valves and they were alright so he drained the oil and it was full of metal.
The mech showed me the oil and the bottom of the pan was like mud with metal. When he put a stethescope to the engine I could hear metal on metal scraping. there was no doubting the engine is gone.
The funny thing was that the engine would still run and have oil pressure but sounded terrible.
Ratso

Over on the KTM thread, they are building a picture of the problems with that marque of bike - is this thread to go the same way?

The Rotax engine on my wife's GS650 is doing just fine, but it has not done a lot of miles.

My riding mate is on his second 1200GS and both have been fixed under warranty. The first for the final drive problem (which was completely replaced) at about 24000 miles and the second for a leaking oil seal, somewhere in the innards, at around 15000 miles.

__________________
Dave

[QUOTE=Walkabout;143518].......
The Rotax engine on my wife's GS650 is doing just fine, but it has not done a lot of miles.
........QUOTE]

I wouldn't expect problems from that motor. It does have things such as water pump failure pop up, but it's a proven motor over many year. On the BMW bikes, the motor isn't necessarily the the most common cause of problems.

I'll try to compare this to a scrub pad, with your goal being to clean something well.

The SOS scrub pad is fairly simple and there's little to go wrong, and it will take the hide off most anything. When all is said and done, whatever you wanted to clean is probably clean.

Now, the BMW version of a scrub pad has retractable handles, pressure sensors, automatic fluid delivery veins, a different color of built-in cleanser than the 'other' pad, can be dealer serviced, cost 2 twice the 'other', and comes in a nice box with embossed lettering.

What you are discribing sounds very familiar. Let me give you a rundown...
Before the knocking(which sounds like a valve) did you notice a slight rise on the temperature gauge? The knocking started abrubtly without warning (not quiet and got louder over a period of time). You also seemed to be using more oil or had to add oil more often than you felt reasonable (even though the dealerships(I was on a 15,000 mile trek) insisted each bike is different and that was probably normal?). The bike still rode O.K. even with the knock. Started O.K. but the temperature would rise above normal. Everyone who looked at it assumed it was a valve or berring. Upon checking the valves, they proved to be O.K..(Sound familiar so far?). What I was told was the cylinders are made in two different countries and the right one was underbored or out of round. Upon dissassembly, it was scored and the rings were broken. The other side was fine. The bike had 16,500 miles on it when this occured.The BMW rep looked for the "cheap fix" to just replace that cylinder. I told the dealer to back me up on this one and I wanted two new cylinders and pistons to keep everything symetrical. He agreed with me and I got both replaced (cylinders, pistons, etc.). The total waranty work came to $5500.00. Without the dealers support, I would have been at the reps mercy or litigation would have followed. I since know of at least six similar instances and one RT. My bike seems to run O.K. now with only 2000 miles on it since the occurance. I also never got reimbursed from roadside assist. Post back when you find out what happened. Good Luck. Smitty

Unfortunate that the motor failed, but you're lucky it did while still under warranty.