Those words prove the only people who really know something or two about the reliability of BMWs are those who actually have owned (various of) them.

Have you?

I'd say the R1xx0 boxer twins are among the most mileage-eater reliable bikes currenty around. One good example here - currently 420 000 miles (672 000 kilometre) R1100GS, even pistons and rings are original. (Seen some 300+K boxers, and lot of 100+K which is rather regular among older boxers) So out of curiosity, has any jap big-traile twin has done similar mileage without any breakdown or major work done on the bike, how many chain sets?

And it's so funny yet ironic to read mr. Mollydog is at his famous BMW-bash cycle again so here we go through all over it again... again he comes bashing BMW with wrong facts. When's BMW last won something? Well, two days ago, showing KTMs and all japs their rear-light. And it's just one of the series-wins and they're leading the series with single-cyl bike. Not bad for a maker that makes just few percent of the bike's sales in the world, is it? You can read about their racing activites here.




Now some offtopic :

Uganduro: Spreading words - yeah I do agree BMW are particulary good on the sales ads, but by owning both jap and BMW bikes I also know BMW users are way more enthusiastic than an average jap bike user that changes his bike every year or two because of boredom, bikes are mostly sold with small mileages (and sold dirt cheap since mostly jap bikes don't hold their aftermarket price) and thinking-assuming they should be reliable. While BMW owners keep their bike for ages and clock up huge miles, 100K miles is not a factor for many users I know, and the bikes have been realistically proven reliable. Something you don't see that often on jap bike users (again not bad for a maker that makes just few percent from all the bikes is it?)

Unlike the japs that can leave people just bored, with BMW bikes there are mostly only hate-OR-love fold, since they're so different. And you get reactions about BMW accordingly in every media channel, be it forum or a mag.

BMW users praise their bikes more than anything else, jap users do it too, but mostly never with that kind of enthusiasm as european bike users (not just BMW). While owned both BMW and japs, in all those years, the main difference I've picked up is: jap users bash other (mostly european-made) bikes, while european bike users praise theirs, they normally don't bash others. IMHO, this says thing or two about the personality attitudes of different "schools" of bikers.

So IMO this describes the attitudes of people in the forums about european and jap brands (with american HD skipped out which is all different story). And you have to consider it on choosing your bike - different schools of bikers always argue (by brand/prupose etc of the bikes), and it's hard to pick up the truth. So the best way would be don't listen the forum-bollocks - go test ride all of them and decide yourself!

Others are not you, each person has it's own vision and viewpoint of things.

So your own reality is your best friend

Ride safe, Margus

R80/100 bmw owner usually don't make fun about chain sets. Before the average chain set is to be renewed, they need a gearbox revision, not to mention the various oil leaks in parts that I don't know the english terms for.

R1100 models? .
According to a rider "enquête" of a magazine in belgium (in 2000 or so!),
had 25% - I repeat: 25 per cent - of the respondents a ....

....

new gearbox.
Some respondents, were on their 3rd gearbox.

The paper cilinder head gaskets were not so reliable neither.


The magazine stopped doing such enquetes after that disastrous result for their biggest sponsor.


Don't know anything of your advrider forum, but IF there are many bmw riders, there will be several threads about gearboxes - from R80G/S to R1200GS A.

I actually love bmw's. Had 3 of them, wouldn't have wanted to swap with any comparable bike from whichever make/country.

but I would not recommend the 2 cilinder models for reliability.

I've owned 2 and I highly recommend 2 cylinder BMW for its superb reliability IMO For solo riding they maybe not everyone's cup of tea, but if you often do 2-up riding as well, then they're among the best bikes available.

1100 models from '97-'99 that have all the teething problems sorted and probably among the most reliable BMWs ever.

My last one '98 R1100GS was 60Kkm before crashed. Current one is 80Kkm, also '98 R1100GS. Not a single problem. And the conditions where I live are third-world - around half of the roads are gravel, all secondary tar roads will vibrate your teeth off, only the very main highways are torelable for any western-world rider.

I ride around half of my mileage in potholed-corrugated gravel roads. And in those particular conditions I've found (in biker-mythological terms: surprisingly) it's the jap bikes that start show their weak spots while my BMW goes on without any trouble or a sign of weakness. At least my jap did, it started to fell apart less than 50Kkm before I quickly sold it. (Did I mentioned it was Suzuki?)

Just some examples from my pictures. You'll get:

Snow:





Highspeed dirt:







The best stability spot is between 120-140kph and engine just sings around calm 4Krpm.


Rocks:



Sand:

Even with massive 41 litres of fuel on board the 1100cc boxer has amazing agility in the sand and can keep up with lightweight singles while it's a superior tourer on hard-surfaced roads by far.




Now with smaller 32 litre tank.




It'll go anywhere where rider tells it to go.


While Suzukis need pushing.

Some other typical roads, mix of all - sand, gravel etc:


In those conditions my jap bikes haven't proven to be exacly reliable, even when not counting the mythical-reliability as they supposed to be very reliable bikes in "common bikers-mythology" Also some of my friends having jap bikes I see surprisingly lot of problems in the conditions we have here if boys take their toys to real harsh conditions offroad.

Bikes maybe last long on the US and western-europe's smooth roads, but here things tend to play out differently.

So from my experiences, I'm not particulary a believer of jap bike's reliability myth. Well it's not bad, it's sufficient, they're made by man afterall thus they can't be perfect like any other bike, but still they're nowhere close to the reliability level as most of bikers are "made to believe" or assume they are.

Just my 2c.

Hope this explains my point of view.

Margus

To Pimpyoda:
I say get out there and test ride. Its the only way to know what bike you actually like. Spec sheets are a salesman's best friend and the bane of any potential owner as they really cloud your judgement.

Also don't be influenced by the BM bashing brigade. I think its a shame that, on a site where one is supposed to promote open-mindedness, there is so much prejudice toward a badge, usually resulting from the marketing strategies of a given manufacturer and, it seems to me, based only on "impressions" or one experience!

Some jap bikes are good, some German bikes are good. I think that reliability is a pretty subjective thing. I say this having owned many bikes: Jap, German and now even Russian!!

Yes, Jap engineering is relialbe, but typically not so many jap bikes reach mega miles. They cost less, but re-sell for less. Mechnically, they may be sound, but cosmetically they suffer. Honda are excellent, but while some might denegrade BM for this fault or that, I find it extraordinary that after all these years Honda still have the same basic faults on some of their bikes: reg-rectifier, or fuel pump!!
Arguably, lasting finish is only really comendable on Honda and BMs in my opinion.

Now I do not think that BMs are any less reliable. On the contrary, the one I owned never really missed a beat (R1150GS) I would not necessarily buy a new 1200 series, but then I would never buy a new bike ever again after loosing 35% on my new Suzuki in the first year, back in 2000.

Why is it that a huge majority of Governments in the world supply their police with BMs or Hondas? They're not just in it for the marketing.

Bottom line if anyone tells you "all blah-blahs are bad, all blah-blahs are good", take their advice with a very big pinch of salt: the world is not that black and white and it does not reek of an objective opinion.

You don't even have to go for an off-roader (although some off-road ability is recommended!). I met people riding all sorts including Yamaha Diversion 900s, and a Harly Road King type: all going full off-road!!

Get out there and try a few bikes. See which are comfortable, see which have a decent tank range, see which the least modification or which have the easiest tyre sizes to find etc, but don't believe all the hype you hear.
If you fancy a challenge: do it on one like mine!! Ural Motorcycles Europe | Sportsman

On an aside, I don't recall any manufacturers really having a viable RTW option when certain famous people were choosing bikes for their TV program RTW trip, so its not surpirsing they went for BMs: the only other manufacturer (KTM) did not even have faith in their own bikes to finish the trip!!! Certainly none of the Jap manufacturers had a full-on RTW option to pitch, only road-biased wannabees.

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

"impressions'? "one experience" ? I think many riders, including me, have more than "impressions" to go on. And far more than one experience to form an opinion.

The internet in now the new X factor for such things. It allows the exchange of information at a very rapid rate. BMW forums are their own worst enemy. Read them and weep my friend. ADV rider is another site where tens of thousands of BMW riders hang out. A great place to see all that goes wrong with BMW's. Not one or two my friend .... but many many examples.

Also lets not forget about industry studies and feedback compiled by organizations who specialize in looking at Motorcycle industry economic health .... that is, they keep track of how many warranty claims a specific manufacturer has to pay out and keep track of how many bikes have repeat problems, and track what systems are acting up. The OEM's use this valuable feedback to correct problems and to learn how much defects are costing them.

BMW do this as do all big OEM's. BMW now carefully guard this information since they continue to come last in reliability and are tops in warranty claims. The Japanese are not ashamed of their track record, but don't really flaunt it either. To give an overall picture, Japanese companies generally have about a 3% breakdown rate, BMW about 30%. These figures from there own data.

Groups like the MIC (motorcycle industry council) and publications like Dealer News, sometimes get credible feedback from within the industry and then can show who is doing well and who is not. This information has been available for decades. Armed with this stuff it's not hard to see the facts about reliability. In the UK, govt. consumer depts. do similar studies on the motorcycle industries.

See above! Statistics gathered about bike problems, warranty claims, Lemon Law buy backs are all public knowledge, are NOT subjective delusions! They are facts from the manufacturers themselves. And just because you don't have this in Estonia ... does not mean it does not exist. It does.

You are misinformed here my friend. KTM have plenty of faith in their bikes.
What they lacked faith in was Charley and Ewan themselves. They also thought the project would cost them a lot of money. Seems KTM felt they did not have the proper backing to actually make the trip.

Obviously, KTM misjudged things in some areas.
But in some ways you can see their point of view. Two actors, one never ridden dirt bikes, the other a novice at best.
The project was not presented to KTM in an organized way so KTM figured it could only make their bikes look bad as Ewan and Charley seemed like amateurs.

KTM worried tha when the newbie guys crashed and got hurt, KTM would look bad or be blamed. When these inexperienced guys had breakdowns because the bikes were not maintained, KTM, once again, would look bad. So to them, it was a No Win situation.

And really, anyone who thinks BMW looked good in the LONG WAY ROUND,
is not paying attention. The most telling scenes come when the boys were suffering through the mud in Mongolia. I liked the part when Claudio, the cameraman, gets on the 180cc Minsk (after the GS had broken down and then the welder fried the ECM) and starts raving about how nice and easy the bike is to ride and how wrong they were on the GS's (Of course it only lasted a week!)

But the shots of Ewan crying while trying to pick up the GS pigs in the mud tell the truth. Some inexperienced guys thought this was funny. Ha Ha.
But anyone who has been there, on an overweight, overloaded PIG can see the BMW was absolutely the wrong choice for this ride. Not to say the GS
is a bad bike, just not a dirt bike. A vstrom would have had the same problems. (except the breakdown part!)
If I were organizing that trip I would have put the boys on Tenere's , and let the frickin' support trucks carry spares, luggage and AN EXTRA BIKE!

A KTM or about any Jap dirt bike would have made the trip a better experience over all, IMO.


Patrick

__________________
Patrick passed Dec 2018. RIP Patrick!

That's some serious shit you're talking....

I wonder if we had to take our meaningfull/less babble to BMW and Honda if they would care to comment.

Anyone know anyone In Germany/Japan?

PS: Let's not forget I was only trying to decide what to ride to Cape Town... but I guess my life may well depend on it.

Such information may well exist, but I see nothing in you post saying it backs your points. I'd also be intereted to see what sort of mileage these bikes get. Cetainly the majority of BM riders I have known over the years as a courier, as a traveller and a general biker has been that of above average miles and brand loyalty. Now why is that, if they are so bad?


That is the reason they gave, but I think you'll find that KTM reliability, being a marque based on engines that are rebuilt before the next race, have a pretty bad record by modern standards, and they are only just starting to get to grips with this and that is why they backed out. With significant engine issues within 6 months of ownership being a regular would you have offered your bikes up for the slaughter? I think this is far more likely an explanation.

They had plenty of backing from other companies, too and if they had never finished the odds are the programme would never had been aired anyway, so not so much to loose after all.

Same old story.
I, certainly, have never said that a GS would perform like a CRF450 in the dirt. That does NOT make the GS a bad bike. And for all E & C's newbie overland mistakes about packing there is no way a "Jap dirt bike" on the market at the time of that programme would have stayed in one piece with all the crap they carried. Basically there was NO viable Japanese alternative at the time. As for the KTM option, I have far more doubts about a KTM surviving out there on 85 octane than the GS.

Bottom line, even if it was not as easy as gliding over the mud on a svelte 250 2-stroke, THEY STILL FINISHED on schedule, on GSs.

The same way that I, a complete novice at off-roading had a trouble free trip on my "PIG", two-up with a fully loaded weight of about 450kgs in Argentina, including about 450 miles of off-road. Considering its robust build, I'd say the GS is an astoudnig bike to take what it does, in its stride.

Some of it was hard work, but I can say it was hardest because of my inexperience: the bike just shrugged it all off.

By all means dislike BMs, but I find you attitude so rigid, I can well believe BMW winning every championship, and you'd still claim they are crap.

I dislike some brands compared to others, but its never absolute, so please, restore may faith and help me believe you points of view are at least a bit objective:
Tell me something you like about BMW bikes...

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

[quote=
Bikes maybe last long on the US and western-europe's smooth roads, but here things tend to play out differently.

Just my 2c.

Hope this explains my point of view.

Margus[/quote]



Hi Margus,

Lol, I'll let you guys continue to argue amongst yourselves but I wanted to first comment on the great pics, looks like some awesome riding.

I do have to politely and kindly suggest though that if you ever get the chance, you are welcome to come over to an often forgotten country called Canada. Looks like you have great fun on the roads in Estonia, and if that is the riding that you get in the 45,000 square kms in Estonia, imagine what you can get in our little 10,000,000 square kms. Much of the northern geography would be familiar to you and remind you a bit of home and the surrounding countries that you ride in.

As you know though, the northern weather is tough on roads so there is plenty of fun stuff to ride. In fact, with all the old logging roads, mining roads, exploration trails, it's would be impossible to ride it all, and the best roads aren't actually roads at all, they're trails at best. And since we don't have many people, there are only a few smooth, main roads inking everything together.

It is indeed tough on bikes, all bikes. Our little experiment shows that they all break down eventually, and even quicker if you ride them upside down.

I know that you are trying to match some perhaps overly strong statements with counter arguements of your own, but it certainly isn't a widely held view here that there are performance or reliability issues for motorcycles manufacturered in Japan, when those motorcycles are ridden under long and difficult conditions. It's perhaps too broad of a generalization to begin with, but in the end of the day, modern manufacturing techniques have resulted in most motorcycle brands being clustered at the high end of perfomance and reliability. Mostly the arguement is whether one model is marginally more reliable than another, not whether one is reliable or not.

Look forward to seeing you over here, we'll even lend you the beemer so that you won't get bribed in the future by a photo of you sitting on a Japanese bike.

My gearbox (R80) is never opened, mileage 202kkm.

There is one puddle of oil in my garage – under my Yamaha but it’s still a funny bike!

These posts also crack me up, they really do.

One of the things I greatly admire in the people who are about set off on their first journey is that they are open minded, receptive to input and don't carry all the biases that the rest of the crusty old crowd do. We could all do a little better at retaining this trait.

It is natural to form a bond with a brand, especially if it carries you through some tough places and saves your bacon more than a few times. Afterwards, it is through these rose colored glasses that we forever view the brand, and sometimes the model.

To group all the various models of any manufacturer, for all the decades of production, under one heading is pretty much meaningless. So to say that BMW makes reliable bikes is an incredible, and incorrect generalization. Even more incorrect is to lump all "japanese" bikes into one category and make the same generalization. I'm sure that any one of those companies, for example Honda with their incredibly long and deep history, would take great exception to being told that they are no different from Yamaha. You have to look at the make and the model and the year. From there, you can begin to draw some meaningful comparisions.


To the original poster, if you go with the Tenere, it would be an excellent choice. In reality, you would be hard pressed to make a poor choice with modern bikes. In fact I would say that any person contemplating a long trip spend a little time on research, pick any one of the common choices of bikes, and then spend a lot of time honing your skills. For every hour you spend faffing on the interenet, that is an hour that you could be spending learning how to ride a bike in various conditions, fully loaded and offroad. You can't practice a lot of those skills enough, many things happen in a split second and you have to have imbeded those skills and keep them practiced so that when the Egyptian truck driver comes hurtling at you at night with his lights off, you react appropriately and save your skin.

In addition, the other area to spend more time on is the mechanics of your bike once you buy it. I can't tell you how many people that I met that professed that they secretly feared the black box of mechanics. We all do to some extent, but you should mess around with your bike enough so that your heart doesn't stop everytime it drips a bit of oil or sputters a bit. Some, have been fearful enough that prior to the trip, they have never even have fixed a flat tire.

Additional random comment, I would say that last year the most common touring bike I saw in Africa was a KTM. Maybe ten or twenty years ago most bikes were a BMW but there are so many good bikes from so many manufacturers that this has been diluted. BMW will regain it's dominant position in the adventure touring segment with the 800GS, which is great because they are one of the few companies that is actually dedicated to serving this segment, but the days of almost exclusive single brand domination are over due to the evolution of the industry.

To the original poster, if you go with the Tenere, it would be an excellent choice. In reality, you would be hard pressed to make a poor choice with modern bikes. In fact I would say that any person contemplating a long trip spend a little time on research, pick any one of the common choices of bikes, and then spend a lot of time honing your skills. For every hour you spend faffing on the interenet, that is an hour that you could be spending learning how to ride a bike in various conditions, fully loaded and offroad. You can't practice a lot of those skills enough, many things happen in a split second and you have to have imbeded those skills and keep them practiced so that when the Egyptian truck driver comes hurtling at you at night with his lights off, you react appropriately and save your skin.

Well said MountainMan. I have been round the block and have been building up scramblers (as we use to call them in SAfrica) since the age of 16. The only problem i forsee is that I can take a 2stroke engine apart blindfolded and growing up movin to road bikes (and doing my bit for grey imports), I have always had someone else do the work.
I will def go do a mehanics course as this is essential to my travels. I'm blessed as I'll be driving to Cpt with my brother who has recently bought a Toyota Landcruiser VX Turbo. 96 Diesel. (he's so proud) This means I can stick as much spares as I like on his roof for when that dreaded time comes...breaking down.

I'm taking everything in and perhaps once I arrive after 5 months travelling through Eastern Europe and Africa I too will become an EVANGELIST for whichever bike I'm riding...

Thanks for all the advice!!! I'm really appreciate it!

Hey Pimp Yoda,

Lol, see the hornets nest that you inadvertently poked with what seemed like a simple question but ended up being a big stick?

With your long background in bikes and experience in South Africa you are already way ahead of most and when coming down, you will wonder what all the fuss was about.

Are you going east coast? If so, having your brother along will be a multiple blessing, not only to share a once in a lifetime experience but as you say to carry some of your gear!

One route I would suggest if you are going east coast is to go along Lake Turkana instead Moyale in northern Kenya. The route is rougher, and much, much less travelled, but was certainly a highlight. With a truck to carry a lot of your weight and the spare fuel and water, the riding will be easier to enjoy and it is truly is unique corner of Africa.


And last off topic comments:

First, the views held by Mollydog, while sometimes at the extreme, do serve a purpose in that they stir the pot and balance a lot of the preconceptions that exist in the general public. I'm sure a lot of people begin the dream to ride around the world and have in their mind that they have to use a BMW to do so.

As we all know that is not true, many options exist and this thought sort of thinking has to be jarred out of them so they can make a reasoned choice amongst options, sometimes better suited to their specific trip, sometmes not. I can't tell you how many people around the world, with varying levels of experience, would walk up to me and make comments along the lines of "I'm going to ride around the continent, as soon as I get a BMW of course, are you able to get by with your inferior bike?". This became funny after a while, and even funnier after I actually switched bikes and was riding a new model BMW.

Kudos to BMW, this has been hard earned product recognition, based on many years of experience and dedication to long distance and world touring and focused marketing. And comments by Margus and others show this, any business would be proud to have such commited and supportive customers. We should continue to be nice to BMW as well, they are pushing an area that is pretty much a niche to the big guys, even though it is the center of our world. That's probably part of the reason we are so passionate about it.

Plus, the BMW riders and Japanese riders should unite for even more reasons, there is a new enemy in town. As I mentioned before, the most common western bike that I saw in Africa was KTM, and based on my experience, their smugness has exceeded that purported to belong to owners of other brands. Rise up all, the real enemy is not KTM, but the KTM riders (Herby, we know who you are

The survey results are interesting. Ask 10000 riders if they think their bike is reliable and you mostly get an opinion. Of the 10,000 lets say 1000 ride a particular brand, of that how many actually rode enough miles to break down (Urals excluded, even I managed to breakdown five times in 6 months 10,000 km). Lies, ****** lies and statistics or just an oddly worded question? The sample size is in any case too small. I can read the result as 90% of BMW's are reliable or 90% of BMW owners think they are reliable. Is this good bikes or good marketing?

Tough one isn't it

I don't think any rider of any bike is an enemy BTW. The ones who bought their mega cycles and half the Touratech catalogue but can't check their own oil level provide more imeadiate entertainment that the ones actually going places on twenty year old hacks held together with duct tape, but heck, anything's better than not going

Andy

Thanks MountainMan. I did seem to open a hornets nest. In my life I have only owned Japanese bikes. 1 Suzuki, 3 Yamaha's and 2 Kawa's and 1 Honda. Never owned a brand new bike in my life. These bikes have all had their problems including the last bike I owned (Honda) seized the engine so badly that the connrod went staight through the sump.

Needless to say, every bike will give you troubles eventually if you do'nt take care of it properly, Jap or German.

The input has been overwhelming and what I have learnt is to go out and speak to people who has done the journey and ask about common problems to prepare myself in the best possible way no matter what I'm riding.

I'll also go out and test a few bikes and make up my own mind before investing in a friend for life (i hope)

Thanks again and speak soon.

Ps: I will need some advice on the carnet as I do want to sell the bike in SA eventually.