Can we please drop all this childish behaviour now !!

I apologise to all for any of my posts that have contributed to any ill feeling.. It certainly wasn't my intention !

A little heated debate keeps life interesting and the forum "vibrant" , but lets not get personal !

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Did some trips.
Rode some bikes.
Fix them for a living.
Can't say anymore.

I can buy into this summery without problem . Don't care too much for BMW marketing either. ...long story


Hmmm, ...could this history have something to do with your style of riding and wrenching???

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Thomas

"Hey, ...I'm just ridin' shotgun"

Certainly. The Yamaha though was showing every sign of living with this style and the Triumph has lived with it for six years. I break MZ's at a rate of about one incident that needs parts every two years, but they are stupidly easy to fix.

Andy

I took you seriously Ted, simply because that's what you said. I didnt realise that you were "taking the piss". Never mind; I was pleased as I said, that this book was happening for you, and I believed your word was true. Read my post.

You're right about the alias post, as I privately said to you, when the identity of this person came up. I previously noted that he'd removed it. Subsequent posts from him made it certain, and IP info would clinch it. He or his relative removed his transatlantic post pretty sharpish, but was caught in a trap because others had quoted it. He was ready with protests and excuses in another thread before he was even asked, and revealed himself in other ways.

Have a good journey in Africa....

Just to clarify: The offending post was removed by a Mod (in this case not me). The IP details of the post were

"
The IP Address is: 86.182.157.245. The host name is: host86-182-157-245.range86-182.btcentralplus.com.
"

HTH. Am off riding.
Chris

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Brighty's website: TheBrightStuffDotCom

CURRENT RR WITH REGULAR UPDATES: The Wife Takes on Chlamydia: A South American Retrospective

The BMW Defense Force are quite fond of casually slinging around the "hate" moniker. I'd be very careful here. I associate "hate" accusations with Neo Nazi groups, Militia and White supremacist groups and other extremist outfits ... these are real "haters".

I don't see "hate" here on the HUBB in any threads ... just a bit of disagreement. As Three Wheel Bonnie points out, the True Believers go after anyone who dares mention any negative fact regards BMW ... and labels them a "Hater". This is unacceptable ... and really is reverse Hate speech. Very clever tactic.

As far as who the REAL BMW critics are? And where they come from?? .... the most vehement attacks on BMW I've ever seen come from the owners themselves. Go on their owners Clubs & forums. You can find reams of hot complaints against BMW. Mostly having to do with BMW blaming the owner, not honoring warranty claims or multiple/repeating problems.

The other place one might get a hard-on against BMW is at BMW rallies. Kind of like going to a evangelical prayer meeting if you're an atheist. Gets a bit sickening after a while.

It's like this thing, where you can yell and scream at your own kid, but nobody else better dare try doing that...

Or, like the movie "Meet the Fockers", you don't count unless you're in the cirlce of trust...

Amen to that...

---

I love BMW bikes, the technology, they way they handle etc. But, BMW marketing is a real piece of work. I was pretty active on BMWXPLOR, actually, before it became XPLOR.

They really blew the top, when they requested that we would not discuss/mention other bike brands unless it was in "General Chat". Well, we complied grudgingly . A month into this new "rule" they excluded "General Chat" from the post up dates. .... Eventually, we (about 60 active folks) packed up and left, starting our own forum. Shortly thereafter the XPLOR message board was dead.

We had communication back and forth with corporate gurus up in New Jersey, who some of us had met personally at XPLOR events. They wouldn't give us any substantial comments (...expected) but, they agreed in so many ways that the new policy was counterproductive, among other things...

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Thomas

"Hey, ...I'm just ridin' shotgun"

That would be me, after a complaint from a party outside of the discussion. I did a check, at the time, of IP addresses and there was no other user to have posted from that IP address before.

And thank you to the other user who removed their own post.

Cheers all

Nigel in NZ

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The mouth of a perfectly contented man is filled with . -- 2200 BC Egyptian inscription

Certainly seen a lot of the failure / problems reported and by no means suggesting that they will not go wrong at some point, its just that its not my experience. The maintenance I have done has just been in line with BMW's recommendations though never go past milage on oil filter changes.

By no major problems I mean no final drive bearings , nothing on the engines within the outer cases i.e crankcase, barrels , heads , rocker covers, no gearbox problems and no electronic problems on the later models.

Few carb related issues on the R100 ran this from around 50k miles to 70k miles. Nothing on the R1100GS and had this from 25k miles to 50k miles. Then tried to buy a new 950KTM but kept getting messed around by dealers so walked away from that plan and bought the R1200GS. Ran that from new in 2004 (so early model) to 20k miles and bought the GSA. Flogged that last year to raise some funds. Grabbed an R1150RT to hack around on as thats my only transport at the moment needed something to haul luggage and don't want a car.

Along the way in 25 years of biking I've had Honda's, Yamaha's a Ducati and a Moto Guzzi (for a while), a KTM and GAS GAS enduro bikes. If its a motorbike I like it. They'll all break your heart at some point but the R1200GSA has given me the biggest smiles and fitted the bill of most things I want out of a bike.

Haha, this is really funny! Here is Whitey, a guy who has owned several BMWs and simply stated that he thought they were good bikes and made no general statements about BMWs at all...

And then there is Mickey D, who then for some reason goes on to draw sweeping and wholly unjustified conclusions about what Whitey was implying...

Micky, why don't do us all a favor and quote some of these posts in which people claim that "the...documented problems with the BMW models...are nothing more than 'here say' [sic] from 'haters'" or that "none ever break down and are 100% reliable"? Because I don't remember seeing any?

Welcome to the hubb

I thought you had learned not to write anything positive about BMW.
Luckily I was wrong, but don't push your luck

BMW Premium brand? That's is about the best bit of marketing ever. Porsche: Designed everything from the VW Beetle to Tiger Tanks, a lot of good products. Ferrari: Never made a slow car. BMW? Set up as a manufacturer or aircraft engines, failed, made to copy Mercedes. Went into motor cycles to avoid going bust. Copied the Austin 7 yet only avoided bankrupcy by getting into bed with the Nazis. Totally ignored the jeep idea and kept making every more complex sidecars until even the Nazi's turned them off. Looked at the VW Beetle: made Bubble cars. Realised Beetles were outselling them, switched to cars, went bust. Resurected by the Bavarian Government, ran the airhead until they almost went bust, rescued again. Bought Landrover, almost bust again.

You have to say they are hard to keep down, but the "premium brand" thing was made up by BMW UK in the 1970's on the German = Good but expensive line. In Germany they are just cars and bikes.

Andy

Good grief...

The "BMW Marketing is evil" theme... again.
So why is BMW marketing "evil-extra" and all the others only "evil-light", or even just "mildly mischievous"?

Perhaps someone, anyone, can point out to me a marketing campaign, ethos, whatever, from any brand, or any product market, that doesn't have utter B-S at its roots? They all peddle the same idea: our product will make you something you are not.

I've never found one that doesn't...

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Adventure: it's an experience, not a style!
(so ride what you like, but ride it somewhere new!)

Here's a different angle for you:

Is it perhaps the case that BMW marketing has lead to many many more people with no mechanical skills and only a modicum of biking experience believe they can get out there and do it themselves, thus leading to a significantly larger number of people on BMW's than there otherwise would have been?

People (like me) who would only have dreamed of gettting a GS style bike and heading off over the horizon (it being unlimited!) now believe they can do it. And the bike which seems to consistenly fit the bill is a GS of some description. Sure it might break down, but then that's possible with any bike. And having read quite a few books now, it seems most of the adventures / interactions happen when things go wrong.

You also have this kinda security blanket feeling that ultimately you'll be able to get a part shipped to you from somewhere, and the fact there are so many GS's out there means there's a lot of knowledge on what goes wrong and how to fix them.

I do hope other brands catch up, and things like the new 1200 Tenere will push the manufacturers to improve the bikes they produce - ultimately we can only be the winners.

BMW and the LWR/D series can only be applauded for opening a lot of eyes, wallets and doors in my opinion.

BMW do break (not mine) but if you look at the big picture how many bikes are going fully loaded arround the globe on and off road and come back to talk about it (BMW) its like Land Rover VS Land Cruiser , I personnaly search for a while and up with a bemmer, I took one across Africa and didn't have any problem and the one I ride now is just perfect . best things to do is ignore most of negative post, maintain your bike and drive for 100000 of Miles