Total Complaints
1 filings
BMW K1 · model year
1 NHTSA complaints. A VIN lookup is required to determine whether a specific vehicle has an unrepaired recall.
NHTSA overall rating
Not crash-tested
New Car Assessment Program
The 1990BMWK1 carries 1 consumer safety complaint in NHTSA's Office of Defects Investigation database for this specific model-year cohort. Within that volume, owners reported 0 crashes, 0 fires, 0 injuries, and 0 fatalities. No NCAP 5-star crash-test rating is available for this model year in the federal database.
The most frequently selected component label in reports for the 1990 K1 is fuel system, gasoline:storage:tank assembly with 1 filings. Complaint categories reflect owner reports and intake categorization; they do not establish a defect pattern or cause.
NHTSA currently has 34 investigation files overlapping the 1990 K1. Owners comparing this cohort against neighboring years should read the complaint-by-year trend as report volume, not a causal diagnosis. Use the related-complaint feed and the official recall lookup when researching a specific vehicle.
Total Complaints
1 filings
Crashes Reported
0 reports
Source
NHTSA ODI
Federal complaints database
At or below the fleet median complaint volume.
| Component | Count |
|---|---|
| FUEL SYSTEM, GASOLINE:STORAGE:TANK ASSEMBLY | 1 |
FUEL TANK DEVELOPED VERY LARGE LEAK AND DRAINED COMPLETELY IN LESS THAN 2 HOURS. ACCORDING TO DEALER THIS IS NOT AN UNUSUAL OCCURRENCE FOR TYPE OF BIKE AT 10 YEARS OLD. LUCKLY I DO NOT HAVE ANY IGNITION SOURCES IN GARAGE SO NO FIRE RESULTED. LEAK BEGAN AFTER PLACING BIKE ON CENTER STAND AFTER MOVING TO CLEAN GARAGE. FULL TANK OF ~5 GALLONS OF FUEL WAS EVENTUALLY SPILLED. TANK IS ALL ALLUMINUM. MAIN LEAK ON LEFT SIDE OF BIKE DIRECTLY ABOVE FUEL INJECTORS, ENGINE AND IGNITION COILS. SMALLER LEAK (PAINT BUBBLE) ON RIGHT SIDE OF TANK AT SAME LOCATION. LEAK SEEMS TO BE A RESULT OF CORRORSION FROM THE INSIDE OF THE TANK OUT, POSSIABLY FOLLOWING WELD OR FOLD IN METAL. IF FAILURE OCCURRED IN CLOSED GARAGE WITH IGNITION SOURCES FIRE/EXPOLSION COULD RESULT. IF FAILURE OCCURED ON ROAD FUEL WOULD LEAK ONTO RIDER RESULTING IN SERIOUS INJURY IN FIRE. BIKE IS COMPLETELY "STOCK" AND UNMODIFIED. NO ACCIDENTS AFFECTING TANK IN HISTORY OF OWNERSHIP, HOWEVER REAR OF BIKE DAMAGED IN ACCIDENT IN 1991. TANK
Data vintage: August 2026. Sources: NHTSA Office of Defects Investigation (ODI) complaints database, NHTSA recall campaign API, NHTSA NCAP crash-test ratings, and NHTSA FARS for fatality cross-reference.
Every figure on PlainCars is rendered directly from NHTSA complaint and safety data, no number is typed in by an editor. This year-specific record is rendered from NHTSA ODI, recall, and NCAP rows for the 1990 BMW K1; no figure is typed in by an editor. See our editorial standards & corrections policy, the methodology behind these numbers, or report a data error. Data current as of August 2026.
Read our methodology - how this data is sourced, computed, and verified.