F***, that´s a nasty one. Cant put into words, how much hate the thought of totally losing control at speed, because of a technical fault. A nightmare.

If this really isnt an isolated case, and there really is an issue with these, BMW should spare no expenses, and take care of it with maximum urgency. It would be a good idea to try to get some media to react also (but first confirm that an issue with the design does exist).

You and me both!

Well, here's the pretty obvious design change...



...and here is what the guy who crashed on Ruta 40 in Argentina in January 2001 had to say on F650.com in 2005 about why BMW changed the design...

...and here is what a witness to the crash on Ruta 40 had to say about it here - alaska and back with one bad accident - BMWSportTouring Forums - after reading the Advrider thread...

Nobody has managed to trace 'Gertarg' yet, but there are very motivated people working very hard to do so. It has been confirmed to our satisfaction that his silence was a condition of the settlement he received, but he will be traced.

So anyway, I'm thinking that BMW certainly have at least a couple of teensy little questions to answer from all that. There may not be quite enough evidence in hand to actually hang them, but plenty enough to build the gallows and uncoil the rope!

Add it to the list !!!

I still cant belive how many people chose to use this god awful bike..BMW sure know how to market a product.

I know I sound like a broken record but i'd rather travel on a chinese scooter than an F650 GS.

BMW's response is also no shock.. Its the same old "Iv'e got your money now so i dont care" attitude people are used to.

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Did some trips.
Rode some bikes.
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Can't say anymore.

To say that BMW have been somewhat backward in coming forward about this issue is to understate the case somewhat.

A very helpful metallurgist on the Advrider forum explained why even just the testing, never mind the dismantling and reassembly, that you would need to find hidden internal cracks in these components would cost a great deal more than the fork castings cost even at list price.

On the one hand, this particular catastrophic failure is also comparatively rare - I've seen a few pictures of early F650GS machines that have even been rammed into the back of cars, complete with pretzel shaped wheels, bent fork stanchions and deranged headstocks, but no visible damage to the fork castings, and yet these fork failure cases are all apparently spontaneous failures, give or take. Read "WayneC1's" story on the Advrider site for a particularly striking case of this (and of BMW's lovely high-quality high-class response to their brand new product almost killing a customer, but that's another story).

On the other hand, the parts of the internet that this information has been posted on so far have barely scratched the surface of the english speaking early F650GS-riding community and we know about ten of these incidents. How many similar failures are there that were never diagnosed in that same small subset of the early F650GS riding community? How many would that multiply up to if you included the whole non-english-speaking and non-internet using early F650GS community in the world? There may have been as many as 40,000 of these bikes built with the old style forks, and the postings on the net so far may have reached the riders of... say... five hundred of them? And we have photos or independant verification in hand to six failures?

I wouldn't like those odds if I was on an F650GS. Even if those back-of-a-fag-packet estimates above are 100% wrong, I still wouldn't fancy those odds!

I don't work in the automotive industry but do in an engineering industry and am wondering how the interface worked between BMW and Showa who was charged with sorting out suspension for these bikes. BOTH front and rear. Isn't Showa owned by Honda?

Disturbing none the less. And not just the failure, but the handling of the issue.

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Tacos Tyring Travels.com

If it were a brake (only part I have experience with), BMW would ring up the sales guy at the supplier and give a list of requirements. They then have a number of meetings until an offer is made. This is usually in the form of "standard part A costs £x but doesn't meet your spec here, here and here. standard part B cost £y and is over specced here and here, non-standard part C is exactly what you want and costs £Z plus £ABCD for tooling". There is then a stand up fight between the buyer who wants C at price A and the engineers who just want C. They eventually buy A or B on the understanding C can be rushed in if it fails any testing .

The mistake with the fork could be:

1. BMW were wrong about some aspect of weight, vibration etc. and didn't test it.
2. BMW sales told BMW engineering this is a 100% road bike for old ladies and no one will ever ride it off road, wheelie it, put more than 10,000 miles on it and cost is hyper sensitive.
3. Showa have a genuine quality of casting issue and switched supplier, the new one only taking the job if they could change the profile.
4. There is something genuinely unexpected on this bike.

If it's 4 and Showa did their job they will have pointed out that for example the hole for the ABS sensor isn't something that's been done with this fork before. BMW should then have done a lifetime test regadless of cost and time.

I won't name names, but I know of a brake that was used by four different OEM's. The brake supplier told them all the known test requirements and they all did it. Years later one of them had an issue no one in the world had ever seen before because their vehicle heated and cooled the brakes in a certain way and had a different electrical charge across the axles. Large universities couldn't reproduce this off the vehicle. There could be no blame to the original design team for not knowing this might happen IMHO. The team that ran the service action and designed the retrofit part acted in a responsible way regardless even though part of the new design were a belt and braces approach based on how one material was different to another. The testing on the solution was a massive expense but showed the comittment to the safety of the user. BMW's simple solution of making it bigger could suggest they are in this sort of area, but we don't know.

The lack of a service reaction once the issue is known is the only thing we can lay at BMW's door until we know more IMHO.

Andy

I reckon the same. But unfortunately the first thing people will point fingers at are the great big badges across the bike without actually stopping to think about it or ignore arguments related to taking perspective on the issue. Ignorance I think it's called. Can't say I'm surprised it's the usual suspect again.

I don't imagine that possibilities 1 and 2 could be it though. Wasn't the 650 GS their lead up/ introduction into the 'small' 'trail' bike market that they now entered in to completely with the G range? (this is related to option 2). Option 1 seems unlikely. They've been around long enough to have enough experience to be getting this wrong.

Mate, get off ya soapbox now and apply for a job at Sususususuki. You're sounding like a luddite. Best keep this DR because you'll be struggling to find anything air cooled with a carby soon. And thank the man for that. Let's go back to the steam engine.

I disagree. Assuming the automotive engineering industry works the same as my engineering industry and BMW asked Showa to DESIGN the forks and not just construct them, Showa would have certified their design and are therfore responsible for their design. It's not a case of Showa 'study' BMW's internsion, they would have asked for certain parameters and constraints. Providing BMW would have taking this serious and provided feedback to all information requests, BMW would only responsible for the management of the item, interface between components and dealings with the customer, which IMHO they failed miserably.

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Tacos Tyring Travels.com

We have brought a 650 GS and are on the look out for another for our trip to India, I have been using the bike to and from work for the last 3 months and covered 5k and I don't like the bike but my wife is only 5ft 3in and we want to go on the same bikes so spares can be shared, HEEEEEEEEEEEELP

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Vietnam, Cambodia & Thailand 2016
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It seems this issue on early F650GS & Dakar machines was known about long ago

Written for BMWCCA Magazine and published in BMWRA "On the Level" magazine in 2004

ALUMINUM FAILURE

I recently experienced a component failure. Although it is not with a BMW sedan, but with a motorcycle, I thought it might be of interest to BMWCCA members as more and more BMWs use alloys, and the failure of my GS650 motorcycle fork axle flange was likely caused by a poor alloy casting.
I was travelling east on a straight 30-mph road at normal speed when the bike suddenly fell over, taking the rider down, too. Thankfully, there were witnesses, but none so close that they would run over me. I am thankful that the failure didn't occur at 70 mph. I had just crossed over railroad tracks when I hit the ground; I believe the tracks were the final jolt that caused the weakening axle flange to fail. The bike was a 2001 GS650 with about 1,400 miles on it, and it is the bike they advertise as their Dakar endurance bike. You can see that the flange pulled away from fork, taking a piece of the alloy. As an engineer, I find this type of failure discomforting because it happens so quickly and without any warning. After the accident, I checked both the floor in my shop and the spot outside my office where I parked the bike, expecting to see shock oil drips, but there were none. The only clue I had before the accident was that the front brake lever was "stiffer."
I've been driving BMWs exclusively since I was seventeen, from my first 1602 to the current 530i, and this GS650 was my first BMW Motorrad-my forty-something birthday gift. Whether you are an owner of a 650GS, or driving modern alloy equipped cars, I would advise that you do a quick check of the vehicle before every drive, as this failure was unannounced. Be sensitive to new shudders, sways, or other unfamiliar vehicle actions, as it might save your life.
I'm also quite disappointed with BMW's response. The dealer said that it was impossible for this part to fail, and that I must have been doing something unusual.
BMW Motorrad hasn't responded since they got full pictures of the failure several months ago. I think they want to close their eyes and pretend it isn't a normal component failure, hoping that I was doing something strange with the bike like skydiving or some such. My friends have all grown tired over the years of hearing me sing BMW's praises. I've gotten a real earful this year as they have chided me about how the GS650 let me down. And now, with BMW not even trying to make right this failure, I'm having a tough time defending BMW.

So, be careful, be wise, and be aware of changed vehicle characteristics. I know I will.

Jim Tussey
Caro, Michigan

Attached Images

 

BMW's handeling of this issues is shocking to say the least, and there should be some sort of customer backlash from this so they start respecting the word of their customers better. Being on my first BMW I can't say I'm impressed with the after sales service, but my dealer is mostly a Harley dealer.

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Tacos Tyring Travels.com

The castings appear to be unique to the application (the castings on the Dakar and the standard GS are identical, it's the stanchions that are different, and both have experienced this failure). I know that the internals are all standard-ish Showa bits, all be it tuned for the application - a common recommended upgrade for the F650GS is to swap various suspension components lifted from the CBR600 (like fork caps with preload adjusters fitted).

Wayne Carrurthers had a fork failure on his brand new Dakar in Australia less than 24 hours after picking it up.

'Gertarg' had his 'big one' on a 5000 mile old bike, on Ruta 40 - a bike with only 400 dirt miles under the wheels.

Stephen Katz has a low-mileage bike.

So this seems to happen at various points in the life of the bikes, but if the suggestions concerning the way alloy responds to fatigue on Advrider are accurate, then presumably the frequency of this failure will follow the classic 'bathtub curve' model, and you'll get a load of early failures, very few mid-life failures, and then ever more fatigue-driven failures as these castings reach some 'end of life' condition.



Well apparently they did face a massive liability lawsuit, from 'Gertarg', which they settled in or shortly after 2005, with a gagging clause in the deal. We just need to find 'Gertarg'. And then BMW can explain why they would rather buy this guy's silence than fix the fault.