hey kids it's SM fly here hope you're well now I've been riding the new r1300 GS as my daily Rider since about December and uh I use it for all sorts of stuff so daily local rides I've done a little tour to Wales I do filming on it and all sorts of stuff and one of the things that's very important for me is to be able to carry stuff uh as you can see this one is fitted out with the new luggage uh that BMW redesigned this is the varo cases I used to have the
old VAR cases on my R1200 GS which I used for 10 years so uh I knew the old luggage very well and now having ridden this bike for what three or four months I'm getting to know these pretty well as well so they've redesigned them they've got all sorts of new features the question is are they any [Music] good so in this video we'll take a close look at the vario side cases and the top box we'll talk through the features and functions I'll maybe do a bit of a comparison with them uh against the
old vario luggage and kind of see what we think of them right let's crack on with it so just before we get into looking in detail and closeup at the new Piers I've just rolled in my uh my old GS and it's old vario luggage just to show you sort of a comparison of what they look like so there we go H that's what they look like on the old GS and here we go with the design of the new ones on the new GS on the same screen so I think the new ones actually
look okay they've definitely they've got a more modern look about the moment though for sure these are a bit Bland boxes these are a bit more interesting so first off on the looks I think they look all right next thing to note with the new piers is that they actually house an electral connection just under here there's a there's a connection just there that as you put the panas on off I'll show you that in a minute it connects onto and that means you've got USB charging and you've got a light inside the p as
well in fact uh let me Mount the camera on the trod I'll open it up and I'll show you right in fact having mounted it on the uh on the tripod I want to actually show you how you unlatch these so let me just lift this up I might not be able to do this with one hand but basically can you see there's a little latch just here you pull that or you press it rather up you lift that and then there's a little button here you press that and then the thing opens and then
inside if I just uh in fact if I just turn the bike on there you go now there's some ignition you can see that the light has come on in the Pano there so quite handy I I mean you know if you go in and out of your pan at night it's handy to have a lot isn't it I can't say as I've ever missed one previously but there we go it's in there so that's got to be a good thing and then the other thing is they are varo meaning that you can adjust the
uh capacity of the case so if we look at it from the side there we go there can you see that sort of distance there well if you wind this little knob here you can make it grow somewhat that's what it means by varo pania there you go if I go all the way out there we go you can see you've gained I don't know 2 in of depth there which just gives you that little bit more whoops that little bit more capacity inside the pianer very clever stuff and then obviously to shrink it back
you just wind it back in again now I don't know I mean that's nice and easy to wind at the moment but I don't know how over time that mechanism is going to last it feels a little bit flimsy to me but I don't know I mean the um the ones on my varo cases on the on the old GS they're still going strong but they have got a bit stiffer over time uh for comparison I'll show you how they used to work so here you go in the old days these the old varo paneers
you'd press that button there lift it uh and then you would press that one there if I remember right there we go to open it and then inside the pier just move the camera slightly there we go hope you can see that all right in these you'd have this bar here which you would move and it is a bit sticky on mine as you can see and it would extend the paner out again and then you can see you've got this extra depth here similar sort of extension so quite clever even on the old ones
but arguably the new ones look a bit neater for sure so one of the other features that BMW make great play of when they launched this bike and these new paniers was the fact that this and the top case are all centrally locked and you can uh basically when you turn the bike on it unlocks all the cases uh or you can use the remote control there's a little blipper button there to unlock them as well so at the moment the bike is off so they are locked if I turn the bike on you should
be able to hear there you go did you hear that noise that was these unlocking so then you can get into the things hopefully well maybe not maybe not one-handed but they are unlocked now and then just to show you on the key fob which I've got in my pocket here you got this little button here can you see that and that if in fact if I turn the bike off again so you hear them lock again and then if I want to unlock them without turning the bike on you can do it I didn't
realize this until fairly recently you can just use that button there you go so quite clear with the central locking I guess right let me show you the top box then similar sort of principle for mounting and so on and indeed for opening so you got this little button here you do that bring that down and then with the top box there's a button at the bottom here you press that and then the whole thing lifts up like that and it's on a little hydraulic strut which is quite neat uh in this one I think
there's a light as well yes there's a light there but we're not switched on at the moment so it's not actually glowing but if the ignition was on it's there would be there and there you can see uh a USB port as well which would be super handy for charging your phone or cameras or whatever uh this too is a variable or a vario case so uh at the moment this is in its low position and a bit like with the side cases to wind it up or down there's a Winder just here look you
give that a twiddle in fact you pull it out I think there you go and then you give it a twiddle and you can extend or retract so that's extending now takes quite a bit of winding to get any extension going but there we go and when I get to the end of the travel there we go which is's there push that down again you can see that we've extended by about I don't know if you look at this bit here 3 in maybe uh there so again quite useful to gain a little bit of
extra um capacity but I would say once again particularly this one just feels a little bit flimsy when you use it so don't know what the long-term sort of longevity of that is that of that is going to be but yeah bit flimsy but quite clever I don't know any other manufacturer that does that sort of thing but uh yeah nice looking box it seems quite small inside but in fact I think capacity wise it's slightly bigger than the old one let me get my notes I'll tell you how big these cases are compared to
the old ones so capacity wise I made some notes here so I don't get this wrong the old vario paniers in total had total volume a maximum um total volume when they're all extended of 104 lers on the old bike the new bike has a total uh volume when they're all extended of 98 L on the new bike so this is what's at 6 L less over all than on the old bike uh although they do vary a bit depending on on you know between the piers and the top box so for example the old
top box had a maximum um literage of 35 L this one when it's extended goes to 36 so it's actually when full extended slightly more capacious than the old one which surprised me because that looks quite a bit bigger uh and then with regards to this um side paniers the new paniers are 30 and 32 L when fully extended the old ones were 29 and 39 L when fully extended so one was bigger one was smaller so it's all much of a muchness in terms of Capac City although the new set is slightly smaller capacity
when fully extended but it's uh there's not a awful lot in it to be honest actually just before we get off the subject of capacity I know people often ask can you get crash helmets in top box and stuff in reality when you're touring you never put your top your crash helmet in your top box because you've got your kit in it but anyway it's a it seems to be a sort of a demo that people do so I'll do it anyway so this is the smallest helmet I've got which is an aray an AR
Rebel that uh as you can see fits in there by the way I've extended this to its maximum extent so that fits in there absolutely fine there's no way you'll get two in but certainly that fits in there a more typical helmet for the Beamer would be the TX 4 which is one of these does that fit in and again it looks like yeah with it extended you can get an RA TX 4 in there as well so if that's important to you helmet no problem in there all right one other thing to uh just
show you before we get into the pros and cons and how I found these practically on the road in use and that sort of thing over the last few months is uh actually putting these on and off the bike and I'll show you that electrical collection too so to do that obviously it has to be unlocked so we'll turn the bike on I go to make absolutely sure they're unlocked and then the key fob has an actual proper key which you have to put here into the release position which I think is there then what
you can do is press this little button here and lift this little tab up here fully up like that and then this comes out and then I think you can just lift them off there we go like so and there we can see that Electric electrical connect that I was talking about now in fact I'll just hold that up so you can see it there we go now in holding that up I can tell that this is a very heavy paner to start with I haven't actually weighed them bit remiss of me but they even
empty with nothing in it that is a heavy old lumper kit and which is one of the reasons why I sto using my varo cases on my 1200 they're just heavy even where they're empty so that's one thing to be aware of I'll just show you put them back on again I might regret this but it's just the reverse of putting them taking them off obviously but with these you have to obviously not only line up the uh the mounting lugs here and here but also the electrical um socket so it can be quite fiddly
but it is doable so let's give it a try see if I can make it look easy there we go that's gone on there quite well down there and then that goes down like that and then key out there we go and that's it put back on again uh I've I've taken those on and off several times sometimes it goes on relatively easy as that does sometimes it's a right old FF I have to say all right so so much for features and functions of the of the top boxes that's how they look and how
they operate that sort of thing what are they actually like in the real world I have been using them as I say for the last few months I've made some notes about the pros and cons so let's go through those now so first off the pros Central locking is a good idea in principle um it does catch me out occasionally when I think they're locked they're unlocked and vice versa but I think it's just a matter of getting used to them uh in principle it's a great idea that you can lock all the boxes uh
with with the one key so that's good or indeed turning the bike on and off Locks them so that's good stuff uh USB charging as well in the top box great idea as are the lights I quite like all that I have to say and also I think overall the looks of these new boxes definit Improvement on the alario cases so I think that's all the pros right moving on to the cons then first thing is very expensive these boxes as you probably would guess that top box £ 553 51 is what I found it
for and uh you have to get a top box plate to mount that on which is 12 121 so what's that 670 quid by the time you got the top box on the piers the pair uh £ 894 so if you buy the whole lot you want the luggage that you see on here that's £ 1,568 23 a lot of money in anyone's book but luggage for some reason is always expensive um so yeah quite expensive next up very heavy as I said even when empty um the top box is heavy as well as the
side cases you can get Inner bags that of course adds more uh weight to the whole situation not a lot but then just reduces the amount you can get in them again I've been down that route with my old vario cases so don't go there but yeah he heavy boxes when they're on the bik even when they're empty you notice you've got the boxes on next thing I've said here uh fiddly to take on and off with electrical connection well as you just saw it's not always fiddly but sometimes it can be it just depends
on the luck of the drawers to whether they come on and off easily or not I made that look easier than I normally do I'm glad to say uh capacity wise um I said in total they're 6 lers less than the old one um I don't find they've got great capacity it might just be that I'm spoiled because I'm used to using other bikes with bigger top boxes and paner combos but don't think there's an awful lot of capacity there particularly if there were two of you touring you're going to have to pack very very
carefully with them uh what else uh only waterproof with the liner in according to BMW so you got to buy those liners if you want to be absolutely sure that they're waterproof so that's something to bear in mind although I haven't said that my old ones they seem to be waterproof even when I didn't use the inner box thing so maybe that's one of those they're just covering themselves things I'm not so sure uh next up I've said here the vario mechanism seems a bit flimsy it was the case on the old ones as you
saw the new one's a different mechanism but it's still a little bit flimsy so don't know how that'll how that'll work out over time uh and the other thing I've noticed here actually is I don't think they they're that very hard wearing these ones have already got a few scratches on I haven't done them I must say this is obviously a press setup and somebody's borrowed the bike and these before I had it but these are already quite scratched and on this side uh down here uh there are a few marks on it as well
I'll take some b-roll and show you while I'm talking but there basically I think it's where somebody's boot has been hitting it when they've been getting a passenger on and off or something but uh yeah so that's uh Jews out on how hard wearing they are all right let's uh talk summary then having used these new piers on the new r1300 GS for the last few months well as you may have gathered from this sort of review I'm a bit kind of me about them uh and I'm a bit to be honest a bit me
about the the old vario panas too I just found on the old bik they were too heavy uh and too much faf I ended up just using the top box and a roll bag whenever I went on tour uh obviously you can't do that there's two of you but that's what I did solo and I think in the case of the new bike I'd probably be tempted to do the same for me panas has to be capacious I you can carry a lot of stuff and they have to be lightweight things like the USB charging
and the light and what have you is all very well uh but they don't actually score on the being lightweight and being capacious in the first place so those nice to haves kind of uh you know don't make up for the the basics not being quite right so I think if I were to uh get some luggage for for a new GS I mean they do look nice I mean you could if you really love the look something go for it in that in that sense and the central locking I guess is quite handy but
I would rather have something that's that's big lightweight probably do away with the faf of the central locking and the difficulty of getting them on and off to be honest and I would just go for some sort of Charlie and Y Andes big aluminium top loading top boxes I don't know if any are available yet I don't know if BMW make them I'm sure they'll be coming along when they come out with a new adventure and so on and I'm sure you can get aftermarket ones for these as well but I think I would probably
go down that route rather than the complexity faf weight and expense of the VAR Opanas so sorry BMW don't think they're for me all right that's it for this time uh from the misson man cave hope you enjoyed that video there'll be loads more coming on the new GS in due course so if you're interested in the bike do stick around stay tuned hit that subscribe button if you haven't done so already and I'll speak to you on the next video Until then this has been the missing and fly [Music] Cheerio hey kids we're the
missing the [Music] fers
