Jeez! What next?

The starter button on my ‘03 K1200GS has been finicky for a long time – a couple of years at least.

Sometimes I have to push it a second, or even a third time to trigger the starter.

But lately, it’s gotten worse. The other evening, after a fruitless afternoon of trying to get my Garmin Zumo 550 to acquire XM NavWeather, I tried to start the bike to wheel it back into my garage. I mashed the starter button a half-dozen times before I gave up and pushed the bike inside. I thought I might have drained the battery, having the GPS on for hours at a time without running the engine.

I put it on the trickle charger and it fired right up the next morning.

But when I started the bike this morning, it took about five presses of the starter button before the starter engaged. Uh, oh.

I called Grass Roots BMW Motorcycles in Cape Girardeau and described the problem. Yeah, they’ve been seeing older GTs with the same problem. The fix? A new right combination switch for about $350. So I’m on their schedule for July 8.

No point in embarking on a 5,000+ mile ride with a giant question mark hovering over my starter button.