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