Another New Big Bike?

[dhgeyer]

BMW is pretty much coasting on the reputation they built up years ago. I've never owned one of their cars, but from what I have been told, the problem is company wide, not just the bikes.

There are two primary issues:

1. They make design mistakes, and, rather than admit it and change the design, they go into a state of public denial, trying to place the blame on misuse, poor maintenance, or some other factor. Two examples of this are the Paralever final drives, which have had an abysmal failure rate. This is not a trivial repair. If the bike is still in warranty, they'll cover it. However, there are an awful lot of cases of fairly low mileage bikes that are out of warranty needing $1500.00 to $2000.00 repairs to the rear ends. In some cases the dealers go to bat and get the company to cover it. In a lot more cases people have to pay. This has been going on for about a decade and a half. They did come out with a completely new final drive a few years ago, and they were failing as often or more often than the previous ones. In the case of both drives, BMW just refused to admit that there was a problem. At this point the final drive issue is kind of an open question. They made some changes in the maintenance schedule for the new drive, and the situation is definitely improved. Failures are still occurring, but nobody knows for sure if it's down to a reasonable (very low) failure rate or not, and BMW isn't releasing any information.

Another example of this was the "surging" issue with the first generation of fuel injected boxer engines (the R1100 series). At steady throttle, at certain RPMs many if not most of them would surge and hesitate. BMW claimed that they would run properly if they were tuned precisely enough, but nobody seemed to be able to tune them well enough to run well. In the dual spark R1150 series the condition was much improved, but not gone. In the R1200 series they seem to have finally licked it. What makes people angry is that they never admitted that there was a problem, and kept making the same bikes with the same problems for years.

2. The other big area of concern is lack of communication. Calling customer service never seems to yield useful information. The dealers' only link to any information is the regional rep. Dealers can't get anything out of BMW NA any more than a customer can. When I bought my R1200R there was a promotion going that gave me the hard bags and mounts free (about $1000.00 value). But the dealer didn't have them in stock. There was a special procedure the dealer had to go through to get them. It took over a month. What was really infuriating was that it was not possible for me, or for the dealership, to get any information on whether there was a problem with the order, whether it was going through normally, whether it got lost, or what was going on. They absolutely circle the wagons and don't let anyone get to anyone that knows anything. This has been my experience, and the experience of many others, on other issues as well.

Part of the reason that there are design flaws is that BMW is so far out in front with innovative design features. When you're on the cutting edge like that, a lot of what you are doing has not been tested for decades on the road, and miscalculations are inevitable I would suspect. However, I do think that, if they had any concern about preserving the reputation they earned in the 50's, 60's and 70's, they could be a lot more honest, and a lot more willing to communicate, rather than trying to sweep any problems under the rug and pretend they don't exist.

All in all, the bikes are, feature for feature, well ahead of whatever direct competition they have in any given model. There just isn't anything on the market to compare to the R1200R, for example. They really are great bikes. But, in the case of certain models, they are a bit of a gamble as well. Nobody that's talking knows whether or not the final drive issue has really been laid to rest on the R1200GS. A high percentage of the failures were on GS and RT bikes.

The current "F" series are made in China. They had some problems with the chains early on, but they seem to have gotten that straightened out. I am not aware of any current chronic difficulties with the F800GS, which is a joy to ride. But, I emphasize again, you want a good dealer on your side if you buy a BMW bike, and some dealers will advocate harder than others, and some (the larger ones) have more clout.