I would have bought any Honda bike which they name "Africa Twin II".
The decision was made in Bremen in the Honda dealer there. The new Honda has no clutch anymore....

Boy, these salesman have no idea, what kind of trouble can be on ones way. To have no clutch is no buying argument at all. I looked at the bike and was so dissapointed - it had nothing to do with an AT.

The BMW... no I will never ever buy a BMW again!
The Triumph 800XC - two up and a dog in the tankpack?
I was left to get in love with the fat lady called Super Tenere.


Excurso:
For our time in Africa I informed myself with a Toyotadealer in Berlin. The spare wheel was under the car (not on the backdoor). I lied half under the car on cold ceramics and asked him, how he would get the tyre out on a muddy way.
He answered, that nobody ever asked him how to free the spare tyre.
-> So what we have in our civilisation are bikes and cars which seem to be able to do the job - but are they???


In my first part I wrote about the companies. I have one more unbelievable BMW story for you.
The F650GS needed the 10.000 km inspection and there was no dealer in our country. Where you can find the BMW dealers worldwide is named in a high-quality BMW brochure. All the addresses of garages and behind is a little dark car and sometimes as well a dark bike and then you know that Asuncion in Paraguay is an official BMW bike garage, where you can prolong the (as we know from part one is worthless anyway) BMW warranty.
So what you guess happened, when we arrived in Asuncion??

The garagemanager said, "no we have no bike garage".
And the little black bike in the high-quality BMW bochure behind his address? "...is only there, because we can order you an oilfilter for your BMW, but we do not install it."
**** ME!

The problem with BMW is also, that the info might be wrong and you think "here is an oasis in the dessert" and then you are toast.
But even if they have the same BMW like yours in the shop, they would NEVER uninstall a part out of a showroom bike. In Rio they told us we would have to wait 3 months to receive parts.... and they had three 650GS for sale.


Last:
Two months after the XTZ1200 cable problem and the worldwide recall by Yamaha (see part one). What happened.
I got the promise that they would do it for me "although my bike was not bought in their shop".
Lucky me! Yamaha Guatemala makes an exeption for me.

What do we learn?
When Yamaha Central calls worldwide all XTZ1200 back for safety reasons, how on earth can Yamaha Guatemala say, that they make an exeption for me?
Think about it and you understand why I want a Honda.

And did they contact me so far (2 months now) to do the garanty job? NOPE!
Do I think they ever will?
....


--- to be continued ---