Here, here. I agree. The legendary reputation of white propellers against a blue sky would be a smoking heap if it weren't for shops fixing warranty claims. Bit of a mixed blessing though, simply because if the factory engineers were doing the right thing we wouldn't be having this discussion. It seems to me that there are 'whoop" faults and then there are OLD faults that never seem to get rectified until it becomes a warranty claim. In today's world that makes me scratch my head. Considering how many brand new mistakes that could be made, why make the same mistake twice? Seems a tad counter productive to me...

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Ride Safe...Stu

Thanks for the nod, I've been around machinery all my life and recognize when something doesn't "feel" right. The jury's out until Nov. on the clutch, but I expect it will be a re and re.
The discs are a bit of a head scratcher. As I noted I do a whack of highway running, my choice cage or bike, but the road remains the same, therefore - bike. Braking is minimal, I leave my driveway and I'm clear and free @ 80K, two right handers and I'm on a series 400 highway (originally designed as unlimited but now posted at 100KPH...tears...) so to say that I'm always on the brakes is hokum. My pads look like new and this issue starts right from the git go. I thought it was pads seating but noooo. Go figure.

The real issue is why does a premium bike, premium $$, premium marquee have these issues? It honestly staggers me. As far as I can see there is no excuse. I've been reading other threads, they all seem convincing but lets be conservative here. If I was to discount 75% of what I read that still leaves a huge error. I should have stuck with the K bikes and perhaps bought a...what? Also... I really want to go north on a GS Adv., cause I like riding it! Pardon me whilst I pout.

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Ride Safe...Stu

BTW in the Great White North it's 3 years bumper to bumper. Thank God.

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Ride Safe...Stu

Mollydog once said BMWs can't wheelie, remember?

You write for bike magazines? If so I'd be very much interested getting that article, to know which mag you write for and your full name, so I can warn other people to read with caution, since the author shows some signs of "schizophrenic" symptoms with excessive anti-BMW bias, myth distribution and never-stopping bashing, which is a bit too surprising coincidence for a mag writer, IMHO anyways. Or your speciality is the gossip column?

Anyways, send me a PM or e-mail copy of that article, if possible, please.

Re: 1200. I agree, I've said here before it's a big progress for BMW in terms of performance and agility, as it is supposed to be over the bikes made in the last century. But proven reliability and simplicity on older boxers make them still favorable traveling companions for some people, especially to those who like to work on their bikes their own, me included.

I'll be hearing from you soon then.

Best, Margus

A fantasy – Friday afternoons

Scene 1:

The BMW factory in Berlin: the immigrant worker does not own a motorcycle, not even a BMW – he cannot afford one and he finds it quite hard to understand why anyone would want to ride such a thing when there are very comfortable 4 wheeled vehicles in abundance (he can’t afford one of those either). He is employed on a temporary contract to swing a hammer all day long, thereby inserting gearbox bearings into the back end of BMW boxers as they go past him on the production line. Most of the time his thoughts are elsewhere – back in Poland or Turkey with his family to whom he sends most of his wages. He earns “not a lot” and by sending the cash out of Germany he does not have much money to live upon. His days and nights are a grind with very little to look forward to, other than the satisfaction of providing cash for his wife and kids.
He has no formal mechanical training and is very competent at swinging that hammer.
When frustrated, it is quite stress-relieving to swing a hammer.


Scene 2:

A BMW dealership in a West European country; a fully workshop trained mechanic is to replace a failed gearbox bearing with another of exactly the same type under warranty. He may, or may not, know the owner of the bike, depending on the level of interest shown by that owner and the policies of the dealership in allowing customers to enter the workshop area – Health and Safety considerations are paramount here and are a very effective tool used by the front of shop sales staff to prevent the customers from communicating with the mechanics.
The workshop is well equipped, the mechanic is well paid and gets home to his family every night at the end of his working day. He more or less enjoys his work (except the odd occasion when the suits come in to the workshop) and he loves to ride his Harley D at weekends.
He is a time-served mechanic, has been at the workshop for quite a few years and he gets to work on a variety of BMW bikes thereby solving a range of problems. Unfortunately, this may be a bit of a rush job because there are three others waiting for the same work to be done, it is Friday already and all of those owners want the bike for Saturday to go touring on their annual vacation.

Scene 3:

A BMW owner is about to change the gearbox bearing on his bike; he is an absolute enthusiast, having owned multiple BMWs over many years and he has always done his own maintenance routines and repairs, once the bike went out of warranty of course. He has all of the necessary tools to hand in a well set up garage at home and he has all the time in the world available to him to do this task, because he has other bikes to ride while this one is off the road.
For a hobby, he takes bikes to bits and puts them back together.
He may be a time-served mechanical engineer or he knows one, who happens to be his second-best friend, via the BMW club of which he is a member.

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Dave

Hehe, very nice!

There is a lot of truth in that one

But of course I don’t see myself in that play; I started to serve my bike after the 1000km service so I didn’t wait to bike went out of warranty.

I’m not a member of the BMW-club either, but my workshop (got it last year) starts to look good.

Hi AliBaba,

That's why I wrote a fiction. I think it maybe science fiction - they can end in any way you like to imagine.

Cheers,

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Dave

I can't help but carry this to the extreme, besides I need a good laugh...

Moral of the story. Buy a BMW and a full shop manual. Take it (carefully) home, preferably on a trailer. Study the manual until you know it by heart. Now rip the boxer apart and do it all over again, but right this time. Then go and put a bazillion miles on it worry (bear) free.

Hmm. What ever happened to plant Quality Assurance processes or are odds and sods being made in China now?

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Ride Safe...Stu

Stu,
The disc problem you have could be Variable Disc Thickness VDT, and it fits with the way you ride the bike.
VDT is caused because the disc has run out and because of this it will wear on the high spots as it sweeps past the brake pad. In my experience a disc run out can be in manufactures tolerance and still suffer. If it is not too late you could check the run out on the discs and measure the thickness around the circumference.
Another school of thought thinks disc runout results in variation of brake pad contact pressure causing some heat thickness variation.
It happens a lot and many riders put it down to warp discs.
I would say the replacement discs could suffer the same fate.

Steve

Thanks Steve, makes sense as there was a vibration from the git-go, I thought it was just pads seating in. I wonder if the disc(s) could be turned true? They do it with auto discs all the time. Perhaps the vent holes would prove a challenge, not sure about that. Funny thing here, my LT had a rear disc that squealed like a banshee and they replaced it right away even though it was as smooth as silk, but get one that's lumpy and they need to prove it for warranty. Go figure. I suppose a line has to be drawn in the sand somewhere.

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Ride Safe...Stu

I have a 2006 1200GS, 12,000 miles, several long trips and zero problems or issues. Everything has been perfect.

If your bike has 3,000 parts on it and it is 99% defect free, you still have 30 defective parts! Put that in your pipe and smoke.

I hope you get things sorted out.

The guy I ride with most frequently is on his second 1200GS; he loves them and is looking forward to getting the new model in 08 when his current bike will be 2 years old and his European warranty expires.
Both of his bikes have had warranty work done at around 15000 - 16000 miles.

The first had the rear drive changed - all of it.
The second had the gear box seal changed and, while they were in there, the clutch was replaced - all of it.

In each case of warranty work, the dealer was excellent - no quibbles attitude and "can we change anything else for you while it is in the workshop?" approach.

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Dave

Well, I hope I don't have to fear 30 some-odd bad parts, or I will be bear meat somewhere north of 60.
I do need to make it clear that my dealer service has been and still is exceptional, I have no problem with access and honest dialoge behind, or in front of the service counter. We may disagree on a diagnosis, but once the answer is in I end up riding away on a great working machine with zero out-of-pocket costs.
The whole discussion centres around why I need to be in front of the service desk in the first place. It seems to me that the BMW factory is content to shoot itself in the foot, year after year, when it comes to known faults that just shouldn't be.
It's somewhat sad really, especially after riding a K bike all over N.A. with zip for problems. If someone were to ask me today what I think of the R1200GS Adv.- today...I'd need a moment of pause to choose some careful words.

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Ride Safe...Stu

Respect Partick, it's the first fairly balanced post from you in BMW section for a long time. What got into you?

Never said Japanese QA is worse, it is just my own first hand experience with Suzuki bikes that says that they aren't nearly as perfect as you would expect them to be based on the gossip.

While my BMW has been bullet proof reliable over 70K of one and over 60K of my other bike so far, considering what abuse they get in the conditions we have here in Eastern Europe. Thus for me, as a happy modern BMW owner, it hurts a bit to hear all the bashing from someone who has not even owned one.


But if you wish to be unscientific, we all can speculate about QA, I'll list some of the things that can prove or disprove it:

Fact 1) BMW R1200GS is the most sold big trailie model in the world, ever.

- It could mean BMW has just too much work in their hands to produce them to fulfill the needs of customers in a que. They're in hurry producing them and faults can easily come.

- Big numbers mean bigger problems even on a small fault probability. None of the similar big trailies are produced in such big numbers, thus we hear considerably less about their problems than we do about a R1200GS.

- Any "massive-in-numbers" phenomena creates certain equally growing amount of anti-effect in society. Remember when Albert Enstein presented his Special Relativity theory - the more popular he got with it, the more guys there were to disprove his theory and hate him, till today, altough generally it was and is an accepted theory. Like the R1200GS as a phenomena: it's still the most sold big traile, but probably at the same time it has the biggest amount anti-GS bashing compared to any similar alternative bike. Like CNN or BBC, it's the bad news that makes the news - most of guys probably ride them problem-free around and we don't hear about it.

Fact 2) It represents one of the most rare combination of technologies on a big trailie - paralever shaft, telelever front, boxer engine, ABS etc etc.

- It's a black sheep among the cattle of whites, everyone can lay a trip on it.

- If the business is sucessful (which it is), means they know what they're doing and we can trust their experience providing innovative technologies to the consumer in a sufficently reliable form.

- Innovative technologies can create more QA problems, since they're the only ones testing them on the field.

- Innovative technologies can create inferiority complex- or jealousy phenomena in some other riders with "regular" technology bikes, thus many of them rather get negatively oriented about it, it increases the bashers league lines, we even hear more bad about them.

Happy travels, Margus

Margus, Mollydog. I thank you for your input and I must say that I see both sides of the fence. I have no doubt that the Japanese have cornered the market on improvements over a basic design, that's what put them on the map. I do know that their QA is second to none, just ask the big three in America.
I also agree that BMW has the market cornered on the 'Big Trailey' and have done more with the GS line than ... No, let me rephrase... They have done as much to the serious RTW style of riding as H.D. has done to convince Dentists and Lawyers that it's okay to be a bad boy on the weekend as long as they're on a Hog. Technological issues dismissed/ignored. Just do it, it's okay but remember to wear official H.D. stuff. Oy.
No one will convince me that BMW hasn't got the real deal here. If I was to go out tomorrow and pick a machine to go north of 60 on I would buy the same one-hands down, because I really like it. My beef is why my particular bike is a Friday bike. I have two buddies that bought 07 GS Adv's, same dealer and they've had zip, nada, zero probs. Me on the other hand slink away to a corner and suck my thumb... I guess I'm just bitchy about it and I hope BMW comes through with the right fix that shouldn't have been required in the first place. Thanks for letting me whine and I'm glad you guys are okay...

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Ride Safe...Stu