Sprint Filter T12 Air Filter for Off-Road & Extreme – BMW R 1200 GS Adventure (2014–2018) K142T12

An Adventure is a GS given more of the things its owner may never need: a larger tank, a longer reach between stops, more of everything that decides how far the machine gets before it has to halt. This element applies the identical idea one compartment further forward. The catalogue gives it a hundred per cent more filtering surface than the standard-size element for the same airbox, at the same seven microns and the same rated flow per square metre. It is reserve, bought the way the rest of the motorcycle was bought.

Key Features

• Special non-woven polyester, run dry, closing down to 7 microns
• Twice the filtering area of the standard-size element for the same housing, per the catalogue
• 560 l/m²/sec rated flow — unchanged, because the rating belongs to the material
• Never oiled in any state, so nothing can travel forward from it
• Direct exchange for the factory panel; the airbox stays as it is and the map with it
• Regenerated with an air line rather than replaced, guaranteed for two years

The one trip where the tank outlasts the filter

On a sealed road the fuel range is always the shorter of the two — nobody has ridden far enough on a single tank to fill an air filter. Away from tarmac that order can invert. A long day of dry piste in company can put more into an element than a month of commuting, and an Adventure is the machine on this list most likely to spend a fortnight doing exactly that, a long way from anywhere the box can be opened comfortably. Reserve in the airbox is worth what reserve in the tank is worth: it is only ever noticed on the day the ordinary size would have run out.

What reserve is not

It is not protection. The mat still closes at seven microns and still passes 560 litres per square metre and second — those figures describe the material, and the material is the same on both part numbers. What doubles is how much it can take on board before the resistance climbs. Nor is it a power part: no element seated inside a standard airbox makes a standard R 1200 GS Adventure noticeably stronger, whatever its area. The gain is measured in the length of the interval.

Care and cleaning

Service is a compressor and a lid. Air on the clean face, worked outwards, returns the mat towards the resistance it left the factory with; a wash follows only once the air line has stopped making a difference, and then it is tepid water, a little mild detergent and rinsing carried on until the run-off is clear. The one rule with no exception is the drying: circulating air alone, however long that takes, and never a radiator, an oven or a naked flame, all of which end a polyester element permanently. The K142T12 is refitted dry, with nothing applied to it. The maintenance sheet is filed under Downloads.

Fitment & Compatibility

Listed for the BMW R 1200 GS Adventure of 2014 to 2018, in the unmodified series housing. This part number covers six machines — the GS, the GS Adventure, the R, the RS and the RT of the 1200 generation, and the R 1250 GS — each shown with its model years in the Fitment tab.