give MM some grief/feedback
 

is it enough to vote with your wallet and buy another brand, without telling metal mule why you didnt buy theirs?
if everyone who asks MM for a quote or looks at the website and goes "WTF? no way im paying that!" then bothered to tell that to them, they might realise that A/theres a world recession and prices should go down, not up, and B/they might think about the lost trade, for every set of luggage they sell they let five sales go because of price.

item priced too high, they sell less. profits mustn't go down so prices go up, so they sell less and prices must go up etc etc till the company goes bust.

I think Tony is far too busy enjoying the sights and sights and sights of Vladivostok to reply here mate, but as his ridding buddy, who put all with all the fu@king delays caused by the crap design of the mounting system - not just in one way but a number of ways, I feel qualified to comment. I dont want to speak for Tony, but my observations are:

My problem with the stuff is not that its not the strongest toughest stuff on the market, but that at their prices they claim it is the best stuff out there.

The frame had two glaring weaknesses which are a total compromise in the design, the purpose of which was clearly to save money. We had a chance to compare a Touratech F650 mounting frame in Irkutsk with Tony's F650 MM frame ... the Touratech one was clearly superior.

The two most obvious faults which caused us endless delays and repairs before we had the frames reconstructed in Krasnoyarsk, was that ALL of the mounting points, where the frame attaches to the bike (yes every single one) feature crushed tubing. Its basic metalwork 101, you dont crush tube. Tube is pointless if it becomes two thin squashed flat bits of metal. The whole point of tube, its its strong when its round. All 6 points where the MM rack attached to the bike just took the tube and squashed it, then drilled the flattened tube. Its cheaper and easier that way. The Touratech frame had specific mounting plates of thick steel, welded onto the round tube to create the mounting points ... thats what it should be like. the 4 main load bearing attachments of the TT frame had these proper mounts, and just the two 'stabilisors' at the back of the TT frame had squashed steel tube joints. All 6 mounts on the MM frame were squashed tube. Fine if you are buying the cheapest frame onthe market, but I think you should expect better from the worlds most expensive luggage manufacturer.

The second problem stemmed from the cheap and simple way they designed the front mount to attach to the inside of the pillion footrest. There is no way the system they have can possible endure months or even weeks on rough roads. Tony lost one attachment on the main trans-siberian highway. Tony had another made up of similar design to replace it, but within hours on proper off road conditions, both were gone. Again it was a cheap simple solution, fine if you are paying for a cheap simple solution, but not fine when you are paying the big bux just for a luggage frame.

Tony has been OK about it, but if it was me, I would have been livid.

Tony had a pair of proper mounts built up by a metal worker in Krasnoyarsk, and had the crushed tube reinforced with plate steel welded generously, and since then have done over 5000 miles, 4000+ on dirt, and no further problems. We would have had no problems from the start if these cheapo shortcuts had not been taken in the original making of the rack.

A final comment that may be useful for the likes of Tim above, is that Tony successfully fitted his box onto the Touratech rack while we were doing all the comparing in Irkutsk. The loop is the same size. Tony has in mind, if his existing frame causes any more problems, that he will just get a Touratech frame and keep the boxes.

Spot on Colebatch. My Africa trip used MMs on Africa Twins and while the mounting system was a joy to behold, the rack/subframe interface was less than special. MM uses lovely thick tubing which results in a tough but heavy rack that's only really suitable for bigger bikes (don't think softbag racks, for example). The crushed tubes are part of the problem and the rear loop is not viable especially with the larger sized panniers (flexing until they break!). Luckily the AT's don't have to endure that BMW footpeg bracket but they, like has been said, are only really tough enough for the highway NOT for extended rough tracks with heavy panniers.

Statistically, if they were intended to be tough enough, the failure rate would be only be around a couple of percent but the reality is that I hear of at least one member of any party encountering problems with racks. The structure is either not tough enough or not efficient enough or a bit of both.

I loved the boxes but hated the racks.

do the boxes fit on other racks?
(dont know why im even curious, theres no way im paying their prices!!)
someone might be rich and interested?

The £ is quite low at the moment, so maybe it's more expensive to buy aluminium these days?

Have you had a look at Overland Solutions panniers? They're really solid –*I'd say even more solid than Tesch's stuff.

Personally, I don't like the MM panniers, because the lids open from the inside of the bike. If you carry a soft bag on top of the panniers, that makes it rather inconvenient to open the panniers.

I was travelling with tony for around 6wks, and to be honest he, and me are lucky not to have got seriously hurt by them damn mm boxes.Thats all tony had so we had to endure them.
I for one will never use alu. boxes.

Yes, as mentioned above, the MM boxes fitted onto the Touratech Zega rack when we tried it in Irkutsk.

Enough already!
 

The numbers bandied about here for panniers is astounding to me! :eek3:

I'm outfitting my KLR by copying a rack, buying these (check link) and
applying a can of Rustoleum

Buy GI 20MM Ammo Box at Army Surplus World

I'll try to make sure I don't embarass anyone by parking to close:tank:

With the numbers I'm reading here I figure that with the money I save will pay for my gas all the way to Buenos Aires!

Man of modest means:blushing:

Couldn't agree more! I'd have to sell both my overlanding bikes to afford a set of MMs. :(

I suppose I'm "lucky" in that neither of the bikes are in the mainstream and there's no off the shelf luggage for them from either MM or TT so it's DIY or nothing, but even if there was I'm not sure I'd want that much money tied up in panniers. I'd be more worried about someone stealing the luggage than I would be about them stealing the contents.

pay less, go soft (i use ortlieb but if you want tough go andy strapz)and use the saved money to do what you had originally set out to do, TRAVEL. a lot of us, me included get too lost in the gear we think we need( too much time to navel gaze before actually leaving for trips)forgetting that keeping it simple is all it is really about. christ i have seen people out there travelling with bolivian shopping bags bungied to bikes and doing perfectly ok. as long as you can attatch whatever it is to the bike and it stays there all day it will be good. stop internet shopping and financing pisstakers who want to get rich of the back of us and get out on that road.
alternatively spend all ya dosh kitting out your shiny perfect bikes and only spend a month away as opposed to the six you could have had.
hard hat now on and ready to recieve the flak some of you may now write.
big cheeky left eye wink
oz

i kind of agree with you, Oz, but im one of those who cant put into practice the common sense we all know but rarely use.
i coped with the XT600 fine for a month at a time with a drybag strapped longways on the back, no frames or rack needed, with a backpacker tent, bag, stove, vittles and a couple of spare t-shirts and i was as happy as pig in ####.
when i bought the varadero it came with all the luggage i could never want but it warps you over to the "that panniers virtually empty, what can i put in it?" dark side of bike packing.

i have learned some lessons, nowerdays the topbox is empty so i can lock away the helmet and jacket, but im 10yrs older and the tent and sleeping bag have got bigger and warmer, required rations have increased exponentially from the bag of rice and dried mushrooms i could live on for a day and i dont remember needing to pack so much booze all those years ago?

"and only spend a month away as opposed to the six "

That's kinda how things are heading. We're willing to spend more money on the trip but less time doing it. A culture of box-tickers.

Travelling is easier than it's ever been - credit cards accepted all over (sort of), plenty of petrol stations, the internet to tell you where to go and what to take. We're still very poor at judging real risks (hypothermia, heatstroke) and we deceive ourselves into being complacent i.e. we have a Best in Test GPS system but no idea how to use it, a top of the range waterfilter in the desert and not enough water. A reliance on gadgets and not enough batteries..etc.