Has anybody ever seen a failure like this on an early F650GS or Dakar?
 

http://red-baroness.net/Motorcycling...Bike/bike1.jpg

That was on the Alaska Highway near Destruction Bay on the way back from a tour of Alaska. Forks fractured at 85mph, compound arm fracture, tortuous medevac back to Seattle for emergency surgery. Lucky it happened in the wilderness and not in heavy freeway traffic, though.

:funmeterno:

More here.

Crash in Destruction Bay, YT - ADVrider

I figure if anybody is going to have seen or heard of anything like that, it will be people going RTW on the bikes.

BMW uprated the design of the forks sometime around the end of 2002 and early 2003 after small spate of these, apparently - the new forks are much beefier than the old ones in the area that failed above, so if you ride a bike with the beefier forks you don't have anythuing to be concerned about as far as I know.

Ive read the thread on advrider.com...All i can say is that im happy i dont own a pre-2002 GS, or id worry everytime i took it out for a spin.

What makes me furious is the way BMW handled the incident, simply stating: "you must have hit something"!!!

Ive never heard of anybodys wheel coming off at 85mph regardless of make, but i have heard of stress-cracks on different bikes mainly in the frame though.
But apparently at least one other GS-rider have experienced the forks disintegrating at speed...scary!

I think we are up to about ten distinct identified cases in that thread now, with pictures in hand for five of them. Of the seven incidents where what happened is known, none occurred in heavy traffic (presumably this is why the riders are still alive to tell the tale), all bar one resulted in injury, and of the remaining six, the score as far as we know is one slight injury, four serious injuries and one very serious injury indeed.

Only one of the failures that details are available happened in any kind of collision - the rider hit a dog that darted into the road at about 40mph, the forks failed on one side and the rider was chucked off. The others have all been spontaneous failures, including the guy who had his forks catastrophically fail just like this on Ruta 40 in Argentina back in 2001 and suffered a broken neck for his trouble.

This is just typical for BMW and I continue to wonder why they can't get the basics right. :(

I crossed the Sahara on a Yamaha RD350 in 1978, closely followed by 4 BMWs (2 * R90/6 and 2 * R90/S).

My Yamaha came out intact with no damage to forks or subframe.

Of the 4 BMs, 3 snapped their front forks off at the base of the lower triple clamp and all 4 snapped subframes.

30 years later and I watch "wrong way round" to see snapped subframes on GS12s, and now I read here about snapped forks on GS650s.

When, oh when will the BMW factory ever learn, and when oh when, will the poor suckers who keep buying their crap ever see the light. :rolleyes2:

Garry from Oz.

Good Info
 

Thanks for that last information. I was already put off BMW for many other reasons but now it's final and complete. Especially when Yamaha have the base covered. I can't be the only one who is shocked and more at the thought of the front collapsing anytime, anywhere! Then the company doesn't recall them?!!! Apart from this it reminds me not to take essential parts of any bike for granted. Linzi.

First of all, glad the injury was a lot less than it could have been and best wishes for a speedy recovery.

In a past life I worked for an effectively German company with various branded European customers and dealt with some similar issues. My area at the time was brakes, so obviously the potential for huge issues when there was anything going wrong.

To answer Garry's question as best I can, BMW will get it right when their teamwork improves. The company I worked for and all the big German customers are run by engineers and have a blame culture that would have scared Julius Cesar. The engineers rule and God help any mere customers contact who suggests they might be wrong. The reaction in BMW to the fork issues will have been;

1. It's not our fault, we are great engineers it must be the user.
2. No one in Germany who we know really well brought us any busted forks.
3. We don't make the forks we buy them, let the supplier sort it out. Oh, by the way, don't change anything we designed.
4. Hmmm, an interesting bit of metalurgy/stress analysis, this will get me my doctorate. Lets keep it secret so only our company learn from it.
5. Ok, we did the campaign change, lets get back to proper engineering and design yet another weird indicator control.

The next people in the pecking order below the engineers and the accountants who want to know why you are giving away forks and scrapping stock.

The Japanese customers (and those who accept the Japanese system) worked as teams. The team member for Sales would have screamed about next years figures if the product is wrong, the purchasing guy would have taken it rather personally that he might have not given the external supplier all the right info and the engineers jump at the chance to improve the product within the whole teams major aim of staying in business. It makes life hell for the suppliers but the product is almost always right. It only goes wrong when people high up ignore their teams and usually try and keep things secret for the sake of the company image.

Even the small manufacturers do it better IMHO. It may take time to get info to the MD of say Moto Guzzi, but when you do, he'll go down on the shop floor in person and kick the **** of the guy going anything wrong.

The part number thing mentioned on ADV rider I don't consider sneaky. The lower fork leg part drawing can be changed and the complete assembly simply up indexes. This saves production and parts people hassle once the change is finished, they mod two drawings not a thousand stores and service documents.

The statement from BMW Sales "I/we never heard of this.." I'm not keen on but is probably true. Dealing with this sort of stuff isn't easy and most people don't make a career out of it. The guy who phoned and probably his boss won't have heard of it. The files on the subject will be well burried until you get to the right person in Munich. If a lawyer challenged it you'd get a simple "our employees used the information they had at the time" answer.

I never came up with a way to beat the system on this except repeated contact and threats to publicise issues. Even if every F650 owner went to the dealer on the same day to check the recall had been done, you'd only annoy the sales team not the people who run the show.

While I hate to bash BMW, in this case buying an XT could be a very good solution.

Andy

Thank you for the insight, Andy!

I think the big thing in this case is that yes they changed the design, and yes they put the new design into production for all future product, but there is no recall, not even a service campaign, for swapping the older design of fork to the later design.

To err is human and all that. To have a few organisational problems accepting that you have a fault and then dealing with it is definitely sub-optimal. But putting a design change into production specifically to resolve a safety issue and not doing anything about the installed base of product in the field gives the appearance of the very worst kind of corporate cynicism to me.

Let us hope that publicity is the answer and that BMW relents under the public spotlight and initiates a recall!

Sorry, I mis read the stuff on ADV Rider. I thought there had been a recall not just a design change.

There are a couple of organisations in the UK who might convince BMW to sort this out before someone gets killed. The SMMT, Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders monitor most recall actions in the UK. BMW UK is a member. I'm sure if they were sent the photo's and information noted here on ADV Rider and on the chain gang they'd be able to pass them to someone who might use the phrase "class action" in a call to Munich. BMF (and MAG) also have contacts at BMW UK and would I'm sure be happy to contact them.

Have you sent MCN the photo's? I'm sure BMW read this comic (shouldn't be nasty to them, they might help someone in this case). If you like this idea do it before the others. There are people in all such big companies who use letters from the likes of SMMT to be ready for when the journo's come calling.

I mailed a couple of contacts to try and get some names at the above, so will come back if I can get to the bike people via the truck ones.

Andy

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...

http://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b3...akarOldNew.jpg

...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.

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.

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

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.

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

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.

Except that something doesn't make sense to me if that's the case. If I as a motorcycle manufacturer give you a spec and ask you to build something that meets that spec, and you deliver it to me, and then it turns out that in 1 in 100 or 1 in 200 or 1 in 300 random cases it fails to meet the spec and risks killing people, then why should I try and cover the fault up and not organise a recall on the installed base at your expense?

I can see the issue if it turns out that I got the spec wrong and the failures to date can all be laid at my door for not writing a robust enough spec, but conversely, if BMW could pin this on a conformance failure from Showa, wouldn't Showa have been paying for a global recall to replace the fork legs years ago?

I agree with your rational (not sure on what you consider a spec though). My rational was aimed at the design aspect of the problem, not the management of it. That certainly has been atrocious to say the least, but if I try hard and be impartial, it's hard to really judge without the real facts. But considering BMW's secrecy on other matters, I don't think we'll ever find out.
I like to think that the flaw is one of those things that fall outside the normal engineering boundaries, principles and experience. The handling of solving the problem is open to all sorts of conspiracy theories. And it shouldn't be. I had to bring my bike in for a triple tree recall. Don't see why a fork recall would be that much more in cost. But maybe this had something to do with coorporate BMW not being convinced by the failure of the fork in the case of it falling outside those engineering boundaries and taking the approach that it's a one off that turned into a 7 off (not sure how many cases we know off). And lets hope it stay in the single digits.

I was thinking in terms of ThreeWheelBonnie's 'possibility 2' expressed above - that BMW have asked Showa for a design that would cope with conditions rather less extreme than the ones that the F650GS could sometimes generate when used as intended.

I come from a software development background and in software it is very often the case that software does exactly what was asked for, but not what was/is required. This distinction often has a large impact on who gets to pay to fix the problems. Is it the same in safety critical engineering I wonder?

Spec versus what is actually needed is exactly the same. You can say to your customer "we usually fit X to an off roader" but you can't force them to agree that this is that type of vehicle, especially when that version costs more. If you know what you are doing your spec says what your product WILL do and categorically excludes anything not directly stated. For a brake the spec is about 40 pages and reads like an insurance policy, I think a fork would be similar. Customers faced with things they didn't tell you about always try the "but you knew it had this" routine, but it is like arguing with an insurance company once the lawyers get involved, the paper spec wins nine times out of ten. If you manufacture to an agreed spec you don't pay.

I bet software also has the issue of what other people do? The electrical guy deciding to use a bit of engine for an earth is fine so long as they decide to do it before the corrosion test and talk to each other. It all falls down when it's changed after test and no one tells the engine case manufacturer. Tiny tiny changes can effect safety systems, a few Hertz of engine vibration or a new way of inserting the wheel bearing could well we the route cause of this issue, but that's total and utter speculation. These are very complex systems, hence you must go design-change-test never design-test-change.

Given the reaction of BMW I'd say Showa were correct in writing and manufacturing to the spec and hence BMW would get the bill, but this is also pure speculation.

Andy

My ha' penny's worth: All Beemers are shite.

http://www.horizonsunlimited.com/hub...mw-r100gs-7766

Glad the guy didn't die. Unless you want to lose your friends, tell them to keep away from the crap Bring Mir Werkstatt machines.

Ride safely
Chris

I’m not sure how many bikes who have had this problem (eight was mentioned on Adv-rider but I guess it’s more).

BMW have used a lot of Showa shocks and they have been a mess so I have no idea why they have used Showa on the old 650GS. Well I guess it’s because they are cheap..
Anyway it’s not interesting that Showa made the forks, BMW has the responsibility for the final product.

It's a weak spot, they brake all the time. I'm on my third rotor, they usually last around 100kkm.

I toured all over Europe for many years in the late 80's / early 90's on a CX650 turbo. It introduced Mrs BOB to the joys of bike touring - and she's still talking to me! Great bike with just phenomenal grunt for overtaking but really iffy handling when loaded up and marginal brakes.

It suffered from the usual CX faults - burnt out alternator, reg/rec etc and had the turbo replaced under warranty (thank god) but other than that it was just the usual stuff that you get as bikes age. Most unusual was returning from a trip to Spain with my wife (on her first long bike trip) to have the rivetts that hold the ally end caps on the silencers fracture. Every time we stopped first job was to search the gutters to find bits of wire / twigs etc - anything to jam in the holes to stop losing the caps. Nearly 20yrs on she still reminds me of it!

Sadly it dropped a valve returning from London on the motorway and destroyed the engine - something that just about every other CX owner I've ever spoken to is amazed by. As you say they usually go on for ever.

The current known tally (note: known to a small group of folk in a small corner of the English speaking interweb, not known to BMW) looks a bit like this. In the beginning there was 'Gertarg' who had his front wheel come off on Ruta 40 in Argentina and nearly died - broken neck, months in hospital, etc etc. He sued BMW and apparently from what he posted on Chain Gang, during 'discovery', BMW coughed to knowing of three other identical failures before they redesigned the parts. BMW settled the lawsuit. So that makes 4.

Meanwhile, just around the time BMW were switching production from the old fork castings to the new ones, in 2003, Wayne Carruthers had a fork leg on his day old Dakar fall apart at low speed and dump him head first into the ground down in Australia. That's 5.

Fast forward to 2005 when we know that Advrider user 'Giddyupgirl' hit a dog that ran under her front wheel at 40mph and was chucked off when the right hand fork apparently failed in the same recognisable way on impact. She paid for a new fork leg and carried on riding the bike for a few years. That's 6.

Then last year we had Loud Al, also off Advrider, who suddenly found that his Dakar wouldn't turn left any more in a left hand bend on a tarmac road at about 45-50mph - which could have been rider error but might well have been his right hand fork leg failing - and he then straightened up and braked to ride off into the adjacent bumpy but clear run off, whereupon he was chucked on his head and found that his fork leg had failed. Again, when it was bodged back together with wire the bike was rideable, wheel was still round, etc etc. That's 7.

Those last two never reported anything to anybody until they saw the thread on Advrider, by the way, but the pictures and their contemporaneous accounts tell the story.

Then there was an anonymous individual who works for a motorcycle related business in the US whose personal Dakar suffered the same failure last year (photos have been seen by myself and the lady whose bike is pictured at the top of this thread) but bloke is keeping his head down to keep his job). That's 8.

Then there is Red Baroness, whose bike features at the top of this thread. That's 9.

Then there is SGK3 on Advrider, who had the same thing happen to his Dakar a couple of weeks after Red Baroness had hers. Again, all documented with pictures. So that makes a nice round 10.

If there was a statistician in the house, it might be interesting to consider that six of the bikes that we know this happened to were definitely US bikes. Others may have been, but six were definitely bought from dealers in the US. Numbers that I've seen from recall notices would tend to suggest that approximately 10% of Global F650GS & Dakar production in earlier years went to the US, and I believe that there were approximately 43,000 bikes with the early pattern forks shipped wordwide, give or take the odd couple of thousand. So that would mean that there were approximately 4,200 F650GS & Dakar bikes sold in the USA.

Put another way, one in 700 US early F650GS or Dakar owners are known to have had a catastrophic fork failure (wirth pictures or a witness statement as corroboration).

What percentage of US F650GS owners do we think are on the internet? What percentage do we believe are active on the Advrider board? What percentage of accidents involving an F560GS suddenly veering out of control and impacting something solid or fast moving with fatal results were never attributed to a fork failure after the motorcycle was obliterated by an impact?

If you think that half the F650GS/Dakar owners in the USA are on Advrider, and have read that thread then I think that means that you 'only' have a 1 in 350 chace of your forks failing if you ride an early F650GS/Dakar in the US. If you think that only 10% of American F650GS/Dakar riders are on the US Advrider board, that might mean that you have a 1.5% chance of having your forks collapse during the life of the bike.

However, I freely admit that stats aren't my strong point.

If that is correct, though, then that would put the worldwide fork failure numbers from the 40,000+ machines with the older forks in circulation at something like 600!

If the KSI rate mirrors the rate in our Advrider sample, and we go with our worst case '10%' derived figure of 600 total, then there will be a hundred people suffering only a wallet injury, 200 slight injuries and 300 KSI.

At this point I start to doubt my maths, because if the global magnitude of the problem is that great, BMW can surely expect to be sued back to the stone age in due course, can they not?

Scary stuff if I'm right, though...

[QUOTE=AliBaba;212248]I’m not sure how many bikes who have had this problem (eight was mentioned on Adv-rider but I guess it’s more).
Cheap? Well, "Cheap" suspension All about money. So this is up to BMW.

Have there been any similiar reports about Aprilia Pegasos? And where were the components manufactured? This looks like a metallurgical issue.

I did not mean that this have happened eight times worldwide, sadly no one know how many times it has happened. Personally I am not a fan of the old 650GS, but this should not happen with any bike.

Yes, as I said “ Anyway it’s not interesting that Showa made the forks, BMW has the responsibility for the final product.
It looks like you liked Chris story of broken shocks, it wouldn’t surprise me if they were Showa. But again, that’s BMWs responsibility.

Well, in this thread alone there is 7-10 broken Showa forks and BMW have probably a history of thousands broken shocks from Showa. I’m not sure if WP made the triple clamps for KTM back in 2002 but they broke. KTM handled it pretty good!

I agree, but on the other hand 95% (at least) of the forks are still working and a lot of them have been beaten pretty badly. Many of the forks (or most according to Adv-rider) have broken at low mileage.
For me this looks like a production problem, the quality differs from one shock to the next. Agree?
But the bike is BMW badge, and BMW should be blamed.

That’s an interesting statement! So you say that Showa sell good product to the big four and crap products to BMW? Well, it would explain why I think Showa is crap and you like them. :confused1:

The old Aprilia-built F650 Strada/Funduro series built in the 90s are not in question here. In the year 2000, BMW brought the F650 'in house', more or less redesigning it from scratch to avoid having to pay royalties to the Italians, and presumably to avoid any N.I.H. internal politics at the same time. So it's the early F650GS that is at issue, built between 2000 and the end of 2002 when the new forks were fitted to every bike.

There is no such thing as ‘off the shelf’ I reckon. The problems people are having with fitting aftermarket forks show that. The part in question would be custom for the bike and there would have been some design component in there I reckon. If we design infrastructure of the architect’s plans we ask for all relevant parameters to design the infrastructure to the relevant standards set out by a body charged with setting these standards. In Australia this would be AS. These are based on lab test, etc.
Therefore I just can’t accept that a company in the automotive industry would just walk into a Showa shop and ask for ‘that one’.
In the case that I’m imagining Showa would prepare the design which is supplemented by a spec listing out all sorts of engineering parameters that they used and as mentioned before this (when agreed by both parties) becomes the reference document for any contractual issues. If there is anything missed in the spec (which happens more that you think) the lawyers will have a field day with it and create a tug of war.
This could even be the case considering the inaction and revised forks (which supports my feeling that it’s not an ‘off the shelf’ product). Even for this Showa would have been involved because this would void the old spec supplied by Showa putting all responsibility on BMW. Not a position you would want to be in if you initially contacted another consultant/company to do engineering for you.

I don’t think you can count out Showa this easily. Yes BMW has end responsibility to the customer, because it’s their product in the end as they’re selling it to you. If the Millau Viaduct would fall over would you contact Foster Architects who took all the credit for this job and ‘sold it’ to the local government, or the engineers who designed it. Than within that framework you have to dig deeper to find out who’s responsible because the structural guys would look at their parameters, which are based on the civil guys who in turn received information from the geotechnical guys. It’s not that simple.

What about the factory who actually built it? Would that be a Showa factory or maybe someone else? Who knows. Could be a production issue as suggested.

As for saying outright BMW is crap is just crap on it’s own. I’m not a BMW fan, but am a fan of any company who thinks outside the box. Evidently shown by the new concept of the G450. Similarly KTM (upcoming electric bikes and 2-wheel-drive) and Yamaha (Supertrail, can’t wait for a 450) with their inspiring concepts. My first bike was a 3AJ Tenere, rebuilt by Dave Lambeth, which we took through some of the roughest terrain Asia has to offer. It had it’s own problems which if it would have been a BMW, people would have burned Yamaha for it. But because it’s not, you don’t hear anything about it, and the design flaw is still there.
Personally I think that people hate the culture of arrogance surrounding BMW which causes all this, but that is just a psychoanalytical observation.

I've gained the impression that a lot of the internal componentry (damper rods, pistons, fork caps etc etc) are 'bog standard Showa', and as such interchangeable with other Showa forks of the same diameter (early CBR600F is mentioned) although presumable the sizes of the apertures etc will be tuned for the application. However, I don't think the slider castings could be any kind of 'bog standard', they seem to be unique to the F650GS and Dakar.

Blimey
 

I was trying to think of something to say on this thread, and you just hit the nail on the head!!!!
So i'll say nowt.

And..... stay away from Showa. They're shit. Any company who is happily associated with a piece of shit product like these forks sliders should have it's head examined. Probably let all the graduates work on all overseas designs.

Absolutely. The F650 fork will have started life as something similar from a slighty earlier bike. You start with what the customer asks, put a current design on the CAD station and redraw the bits that don't work.

One thing the F650 fork casting has that no other design in the 650 class had at the time was the hole for the ABS sensor. The lower leg is therefore BMW specific while the rest will probably be components from a parts library.

Andy

On another forum someone posted a link to a story about a fork that had broken when the bike was used on a highway in 90 km/h.

http://www.actiontouring.com/pic/HondaFork.jpg

The Honda was a -97 model and the mileage was only 17kkm.

Honda in Sweden says that this could not have happen. “It’s as likely as a car brakes in two on the middle” they say and they will not investigate the case further.

So guys, check your forks!!

Source (Swedish):
Motorcykeln föll isär - Piteåpar nära döden - - Nyheter - Piteå-Tidningen -
"Olyckan helt osannolik" - - Nyheter - Piteå-Tidningen -

:rofl: :rofl:

So tell me what is new on the G450? I mean really, truly new? Do tell!:cool4:

Do you think Rotax pioneered quick revving, high performance four strokes? They did not, but I can tell you who did if you're interested. Think Italian.

And the Chassis? Look familiar? The linkless set up and zero slack chain and pivot point system are not new either and IMO has yet to prove itself as effective over the long term.

The G450's have done well mostly because BMW's have paid some of the best guys in the world a whole lot of money to win on them. Lets see how the average rider does ... and lets see how the maintenance/longevity will be compared to competition.

Im not really against bmw, but....
 

..... It annoys me they have such a hardened, snobby following, and for what??? Reliability....maybe years ago, but never any better that the japs at 2/3 of the price. Build quality.... same goes. Christ, if they're that good, why are they putting Rotax lumps in their smaller bikes. Probably because Rotax are actually better. Its amazing how people can follow a ' Badge '.
I am by my own admission, a Honda nut, and for good reason. I've had 5 of the things, and never has any so much as thought about playing up, and I've not been easy on them either.
I've never been to any bike factory, but as far as i'm aware, honda's engine test is Flat Out running on a bench, for 24 hours. Engine stripped, any signs of wear and they re-design it.
I doubt any BMW would withstand that abuse, at least not the newer ones.

All the parts that are off the shelf are not in question. I agree on the likely cause being a casting issue. Can’t help but thinking that there was a mistake made with the factors of safety.

Never blamed the XT for all the troubles. You read what you want to read. Actually loved it (for a first bike) and am living proof that it doesn’t matter what you ride, or how much you know, you’ll get from A to B. This is just part of the adventure and was exactly the motivation I had when doing this trip. Same goes for all my trips.
I was pointing out that there is a design issue that someone as knowledgeable as Dave Lambeth wasn’t aware off. If it had been a BMW it would be all over the web. Other things that caused problems were not due to lack of service knowledge BTW. Oil was changed at interval often with input from a person with bike knowledge. No other maintenance was related to the part in the motor that failed (not the design flaw one). Probably a dodgy part. I still like Yamaha after this experience.

I reckon part of the reason you hear people are having problems with the F are because a lot of these are people like I was with the XT. Clueless about bikes, knowledgeable about the web. I haven’t burned the XT for it and knew of ways to solve it. Best things for that are a deep end and a crash course. Homework in other terms. This can be done the hard way by sticking heaps of time in it, or the easy way by letting time do it’s thing.

It’s not that I can’t be bothered learning about carbies (actually have a spare one in the garage which will be taken apart when I get time), it’s just that I don’t like the idea over FI, and this is based on the experience I’ve had with a carby. The FI concept is pretty simple when you look past the need for sensors and the electrical aspect. It has a ‘get me the F out of here’ setting if most of this fails. It’s only that there weren’t any computers around that the carby came into being I reckon. I can’t remember anyone having any issues with it either to the extent that everything ground to a halt.

People we met on the road had to take their carby apart roadside. From their brand new Transalp. Another Transalp in the group blew their shock, another got dusted. Never heard a bad story about them, certainly not from me.

A reckon a lot of people have distrust about FI because of the emphasis now being on electrical engineering rather than mechanical.

Can’t remember giving any advice about anything other than bikes I intimately know from experience gathered myself. Something that is seemingly becoming less and less common on this forum though. This certainly doesn’t include all bikes made by BMW, only one. Again, suggesting this seems like it’s all about the brand. Talk about being short sighted and hypocritical.
Have given advice on travelling though. But I think I’m qualified for this.

I’m aware of overloading the electrical system. I’ve looked at ways of solving this and will keep an eye on it when a lot of current will be drawn (cold climates). Most if now all charging issues I’ve seen are related to the earlier models. The VR used to be somewhere less well ventilated.
Been stranded with a dead battery before (Yuasa, and in the desert. No fun.) which stopped the mighty XT. Didn’t contribute this to the bike though.

Your statement must prove my reasoning previously posted for the bashing than. Personally I can’t stand going into the dealer for parts because of the arrogance. Doesn’t help that it’s a part HD, part BMW dealership. Don’t hang with BMW riders either. But it’s a 2 edged sward. Suggesting BMW motors suck because they chose Rotax for the single is the other extreme. More likely a financial reason considering the involvement of Aprilla. I grew up hearing Rotax mentioned in a good way. So I saw that as being a drawcard for choosing the F for the RTW trips. I’ll find out soon if it’s good. Certainly won’t be taking other peoples opinions as gospel to make outrageous claims both ways until I know from personal experience.


Who’s put it all together like this? Most things aren’t new. There are only so many things you can do within the current bounds of physics, but it’s how you combine things that create new results at this stage.
It’s disappointing if BMW’s testing cycle wouldn’t be up to scratch. Not sure if it’s true but if it would be, it’s disappointing. But than again, that’s why we decided not to pick the first year of a new model. Advice from old timers BTW (Don’t be mistaken reading BTW ad BMW. Tis like a red rag in front of a bull, that name.)


Now, while this thread slips into another senseless BMW bashing thread on the brink of being locked, let’s just stop and think about what this is actually about. Forks are something that should never fail like, regardless off the company that designed it and put it’s stamp on it, regardless of the factory they came out off, and regardless to which bike they were bolted onto.

Anyone up for a RTW trip at all?

I think that there will be much more knowledge about the G450X in US next year, when David Knight have got rid of the orange color of his homepage and replaced it with white and blue :cowboy:

Yes, it’s a shame they pay their drivers. It would have been more fair if only Honda, Kawasaki, Suzuki, Husaberg and KTM was allowed to do this :rofl:

It would be interesting to see, but it will take some time. Right now there is only 2 G450X in this country, and literally thousands KTMs.

Personally I expect problems…. They are entering a scene they haven’t been for decades with a brand new bike with lots of new solutions.
I would also guess that a lot of the bikes will be used for street-use, I believe it’s the most powerful bike in this league you can legally use on the road.


On the other hand I’m looking for a bike in this segment (beside my BMW and Yamaha) and I might end up with a KTM.

Enduro is not what it used to be: http://www.historischesarchiv.bmw.de...oldergroup=irc

Hardened following?
 

My post wasn't aimed at bashing BMW.... Just to raise the question, on what basis do they have such a hardened following, because other then the badge, I cant see it.
I think they are living on an old reputation, same as people like Mercedes.:offtopic: They used to be arguably best.... But not any more.

Guess you mean people like me.

My bike doesn’t have a proper BMW-badge, just this thing:
http://www.actiontouring.com/pic/bmwlogo.jpg

So for me it’s not about the badge.
Quite a few people love to bash BMW so it would have been more relaxing to drive something else.

I have had bikes of seven different brands, for me the positive sides with my bike are:

• Mileage is above 200kkm and the bike can do a RTW tomorrow
• It works on all kind of roads. You can cruise on highways or cross dunes. It takes you everywhere!
• After visiting three continents and 40+ countries it had broken down only once beside the road. Well, it was not a total breakdown I could drive to the nearest village (broken rotor)
• Cheap parts, second hand parts available
• Parts available all over the world (police/army used to drive R80/R100)
• Good bike for riding 2-up
• Loads of knowledge on the internet
• Loads of aftermarket-parts and parts that fit from other models
• You can’t find another offroad-worthy bike with the same level of comfort (comfort is underestimated on long trips)
• Fuel range (huge tank)
• Easy and cheap maintenance (service every 7500 km, can be done in 32 minutes, incl valveadjustments) for less then 50€
• My bike is 11 years old. I can still get all parts (for a reasonable price) in 3-5 days
• The bike is like a meccano-set, you can build what ever you like. Your needs might change. A “factory-bike” is just somewhere you start to build your own dream-bike.

Sure, this list is biased and preferences might differ.
I guess that when you have put yourself in situations where you will die if the bike doesn’t start up you need faith.

Yes, the world consists of two kinds of people: us and them!

Anyway, the old reputation is still valid. For older bikes… Newer bikes tend to be more like the Japanese bikes, but there are exceptions.

I also like BMW for the technical bit. First with ABS, first with FI, first with fairing, experimenting with forks, HID as standard on some models, traction control, single sided swing arm, etc.
Have you read what various people wrote when BMW installed a light that didn’t move with the forks? That’s fascinating! BMW-bashing is not a new game. Or peoples reactions when they put ABS on a motorbike...


It’s interesting to see that people get carried away when a Japanese fork brakes on a German bike but when a Japanese fork brakes on a Honda they don’t say a word. There are loads of examples out there….

BTW I might be in the market for buying a new bike (enduro) and it will probably be a KTM, or maybe some Japanese stuff. I also have a Yamaha…

Pleas note that it’s possible to write long post about this without bashing other brands or people.

I think this thread has run it's course .... I hope you have time to post reports here from time to time from on the road!:D
Maybe some pics and links to your travel site.

That’s amazing. I hope I’ll get that sort of reliability. Have you got a photobucket page with the photo’s of the trips at all? Had to Google HPN, but that is one of the bikes that has always inspired me for adventure RTW motorbiking, even before I knew what it was.

Bloody hell. 70’s? Did you have to put a 8” floppy disk into it? Must had some sort of pump mechanism controlling the induction rates?

That was definately something on my concerns list as well. The problem is that with such a large group of typical owners not knowing anything or want to know anything about their bike but still providing info, it's hard to take info on a solid or not. This was one of those areas where sorting the solid from the crap became an issue. I’m still not sure if they have been squeezing the margins in the design or it’s caused by the geometry/ location of the components or somthing else. Having a non-sealed battery above the motor would obviously speed up the drying out of it. After our battery failure a sealed battery was always going to be on the mods list, on any bike.
I can’t remember if the bikes with the VR at the front of the motor have had any problems out of the ordinary. Loose battery terminals are most often the cause of ‘problems’ .Not sure if issues caused by loose terminals could really be called problems though. Luckily a lot of the accessories wiring was built by and with the help of my auto-electrician mate. Didn't really know how to use a soldering iron before that, but received a crash course (still produced some cold and dry joints though). Similar for all the steel work with another friend.

Not my normal reaction to old timer advice at all. Been riding with a few guys from ADVrider over the last year a few times, and learned a tonne. Mostly on trail riding setup. But it’s not all relevant for RTW riding, or it’s sometimes a narrow-minded dogmatic opinion (often not even related to the bike itself), which is never useful. Have to be selective on the advice you take. Some of the guys only have to look at something to offer advice, but other actually wanna have a go at it to see what it’s really like. Most people I’ve read giving senseless input threads like this have never even sat on the bike they criticize.

Cheers. Appreciate the offer. One thing I haven’t been able to work on is the troubleshooting aspect of dealing with faults, because I’ve had nothing wrong with it yet, so I might have some posts related to this. I’m bored of working on mods now, and am finally finished (good thing because I’m leaving next week). Having been working on these bikes for as long as I have, I don’t wanna turn a single spanner until the next service. Just hope that some of the other non problems solving mods won’t cause some issues. :) At least after having done all the work myself I should be able to come up with somothing.

Not so sure about that. Reason for me even getting involved was because of some of the posts on the first page. Again, probably never owned, spend time with or sat on one.

Agree. There’s always the blog subscription. ;)

Sorry to be a Peed Ant but I just want to clear up a couple of points here.

1. Kawasaki didn't have FI on the early 70s Z1 900, it did feature on the watercooled GPZ900 though (from 1983)
2. The first Kawaski with FI was the Z1000J from 1979 - a development of the original Z1. This was followed by the GPZ1100 in 1980 - a further development of the Z1. I owned a GPZ11 and currently own an FI Z1300 6 cylinder (which is incidentally basically a Z1 900, albeit watercooled and with 2 additional cylinders grafted on) .
3. The FI on the Kawasakis was the first "modern" F.I., not BMW. i.e. it was electronic digital injection not mechanical injection as used by FI cars up until the late 70s.

Garry from Oz.

Hehe, I was not talking about quality this time. A lot of the newer bike is fitted with “normal” swing-arm, chaindrive, not K or R engines, and standard forks ++. Some of them even have only one button for the indicators.

Edit:
Sorry about the FI. BMW have only used it since 1983..

On most of the trips the bike was a standard R80GS Basic.
I didn’t convert it to a HPN before the mileage was 180kkm. The bike has done multiple bigger trips where the biggest is a double Trans Africa trip. This trip was a bit more then 50kkm and lasted a year, when the trip started the bike had 88 kkm on the clock. The engine was in original state (except for a clutch change, which wasn’t necessary).

The plan was to buy a new bike, but I couldn’t find anything I liked so I started to learn more about the HPN-bikes. It was a nice experience to deal with the company that has build most of BMWs Paris Dakar bikes and for me the result is stunning. All technical decisions were up to me, they gave loads of good advices and we were both proud of the result.
This conversion is not necessary to use the bikes for serious traveling, but for me it makes it more fun and I can push the limits quite a step further.

I haven’t made any kind of online-album. Maybe later… There will be a story about the rebuild in a Scandinavian magazine so I try to avoid posting new pictures before this is published.
Some old one:
http://www.actiontouring.com/nam.jpg

http://www.horizonsunlimited.com/con...ley-Uganda.jpg

I think it was Pat who asked earlier the bikes I have now:
2003 Triumph Thunderbird Sport
2002 Suzuki DRZ400s
2005 Suzuki DRZ400e
1996 Kawasaki KLR250
1987 Honda Transalp XL600v with about 120k miles

Ride safely
Chris
I did have a CX 500... The right hand conrod snapped at 70 mph on the outside lane of a motorway at rush hour. Scarely as hell. Big bang, locked back wheel, pulled clutch and cut across 3 lanes of traffic

Thanks Garry,
Well at least I got close with the right decade! :thumbup1:

My 84 CX650 turbo had digital F.I. and it worked faultlessly for the time I had the bike. I think the earlier 500 turbo had F.I. as well so that would push it back a few years to 81 or 82.

I seem to remember that Yamaha were supposed to have F.I. on the roadgoing square four 2T that they prototyped in 72 (?) but nothing came of it.

I did have a Wal Philips "fuel injector" on a Lambretta scooter back in the late 60's. Words fail me when I remember it but a few such as "health and safety legislation" spring to mind when I think about it. Awful thing.

Hi Patrick, I think you've probably got the Scott Flying Squirrel in mind, which subsequently was resurrected in the 70s by George Silk. Two cylinder two stroke and liquid cooled, unfortunately not FI though.

Garry from Oz.

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

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.

If you've followed statements and interviews in the last year or so from BMW's CEO, you'll find his admission publicly that he is aware BMW needs to be doing better. His statements appeared in a few mags I've read, I think Alan Cathcart interviewed him at some point this year. Cycle News had a piece and others I'm sure.

Right on
 

Hi Patrick, very good write up. Tongue in cheek, I'd have to say Guzzi are probably safe, as no-one makes bikes like Guzzi does! Seriously though, I have the feeling that if the European niche market bike makers can make correct decisions, they are better placed than the Japanese four against Chinese competition. I am assuming the Chinese will be the "New Japanese". But for me they're an unknown, maybe they'll be innovative and create totally new ideas. Exciting times if you're not the CEO of one of the present bike makers. From what I've read though, maybe BMW's biggest threat comes from very close indeed! BMW are made in southern Germany and they can probably almost hear KTM warming up their trail bikes in the mornings in Austria. I read that KTM have the target of being biggest European bike maker in a few years. Any celebs out there want to do a fun, free RTW trip?

Industry rant
 

Selling "Chinese" will take a while yet. Very dangerous for BMW to make the move to China

I had an F650GS, I did 23,000 miles around south america with it.

I broke down everywhere. In the 4 months following my return to the UK it went to 5 workshops for many repairs, never ending trouble. In the end I took it to BMw where I was told they had to rewire the bike, change the wiring harness an control box...at a cost of 1700 pounds. I told them to &£$(*$£($ and got someone to fix the electrics so that I could sell this bloody bike.

It is gone now, I sold it to polish guys who will resale in Poland. Maybe in parts. I hope so! At least I won't have an angry owner screaming at me that I sold them a piece of sh*te!

Why did I get the BWM to start with? I believed the marketing lies that it was the most reliable bike. I believed it could stand the heat of off-road.... it was convenient, low enough for me to ride without complicated adjustements and lowering kits....
Well I know better now! But the worse thing of all had been dealing with the abysmal attitude of BMW! Money grabbing and utterly incompetents &(£"&%"%(&!!!!!!!!!!!

Well, I will be off on another trip in a couple of years time, and I can tell you it won't be on a bmw or with bmw equipment (don't get me started on that either!)!

Two more potential failures posted on UK F650 forum well before all the current failures came to light

BMW F650 (UK and Ireland) :: View topic - Any known fork recalls on F650 GS's ??

00F650GS, 12k miles, no accident we know of thankfully

Title "Any known fork recalls on F650 GS's ??"

snip "it has a number of cracks both radial to the axle hole and radial fron the torx clamp bolt" snip

The rider posted the above on 8/3/07 & stopped posting 4/4/07

Second UK Failure

BMW F650 (UK and Ireland) :: View topic - Dakar down and out

02F650GS Dakar, 30k miles

snip
"Couple of months ago I managed to park my Dakar up and between two trees with snapped forks"

"a couple of weeks before I'd asked the salesman about it's trade-in value and was quoted just £1500 for an 02 plate Dakar with just a bit over 30,000 on the clock"

"I had little hope of the insurance paying out enough to get another bike but surprise, surprise the insurance chap commented that as it was as nice a bike for 5 years old as he had seen (don't know why I had stopped washing it much years before) and that he would pay-out the maximum insured value of £3000"
snip

Any guesses on the insurance Co ?...You got it...BMW !!!!

At least they paid out the full value of the policy rather than the market value as per the policy.

Confirmed "bottom Stanchion was snapped just above the axle"

Kawasaki strongest??? I think Honda is by far the stronger manufacturer, and would out last anyone. Think of anything with an engine, and you will find one made by Honda. No way Kwak would outlast them.

Welcome to the Kawasaki home page
Kawasaki Heavy Industries - Company Description - Hoover's

Actually, I completely forgot about the other stuff they do, so you may be right!!

I am sure I don't need to point out to everyone that the BMW's in question here were all road models weighing about double the weight of the RD350. I also know of an R100RS (no fairing) that have traveled Africa more than once and have been across most of the globe doing more than 1 000 000Km.

Almost all BMW bikes were designed to be used on tar roads, or if you want, European road conditions. The suspensions fitted to all 1200GS's, F650's or even the F800GS has been designed to handle surfaced road conditions and even tough they can cope with a certain amount of off road use they will under perform in these conditions and if continuously used on heavy off road conditions they will fail.
I don't think BMW is denying the problem, which really have more to do with the marketing and PR department than with the engineers.
BMW like to sell their bikes using the Adventure image of the Camel man, but mostly their bikes are used for commuting and for fun rides close to home.

If you are doing hardcore off road traveling you are part of a really small group of riders not being catered for by the large OEM's as it is not financially viable to build bikes for this purpose. Most overlanders can't even afford a new R1200GS never mind a real off road tourer that might have to cost nearly double the price.

HPN is about the only factory producing hand built bikes in very small numbers for this purpose. The cost is astronomical but the bikes are superb and custom build around your needs and specifications.

Here is some of my personal experiences building my own bikes with modifications and parts from HPN.


YouTube - BMW GS by HPN; RIDE THE ADVENTURE

DIY your own bike, the HPN way.

BMW's are MADE to ride off road, or so their ad campaigns suggest. So they should be up to Pistes'. Most overheat that delicate electrical system.

The RD350 is also a road bike ,so the comparison is valid .

Most ,if not all ,of the GS650 fork failures mentioned were on metalled roads .
The bike was being used for the purpose for which it was designed, so the failures are inexcusable .
BMW's attitude,once again, leaves a lot to be desired .

What has any of this got to do with HPN who produce specialised motorcycles in very small numbers?
BTW the DIY thread mentions a problem with HPN bikes at and above the speed of 130 kph ,has this been resolved ?

It’s was not a HPN-related problem, check reply 73 (page 4).

Edit: Next post will be from Mollydog....

More Than Tires
 

I gotta wonder about the S.A. guy and his basic skills when after his HPN customer (who later nearly dies) tells GS Workshop the bike wobbles at 130 kph and the GS doesn't solve the problem ... instead lets him ride away! In out back Africa, no less! :nono:
This guy in NOT NEW! He should have thought to swap out tires. This is so basic even a novice mechanic would have thought of it! Would you not agree?

So what is this guy doing "setting up" bikes for paying customers anyway? :confused1:

This guy is Wrong and should be LIABLE for not solving the problem before the customer ever rode the bike away. As you know, wobbles are not impossible to diagnose. One way or the other, they can be solved ... if time and care are taken by a skilled mechanic.

My guess is at least PART of the problem is in the geometry of the frame and set up of the bike. Something like: head angle, trail, rake, wheelbase, ride height, weight bias, head bearings .... now it's destroyed so no one will ever know for sure.
Something on that bike is screwed up. I've had some Michelin knobbies wobble but never cause loss of control or a complete tank slapper.

"REAL" bike manufacturers TEST bikes before selling them.


Patrick

G'day GS, good to hear from you.

WRT to my RD350, I'm the sort of guy who laughs in the face of anyone who tells me I can't do something.

What, ride an RD350 (the peakiest, 2 cylinder 2 stroke sports bike of the 1970s with no bottom end power, a lightweight frame designed for the road and to win asphalt races) around the world and across the Sahara? You've got be crazy my friends said. Well that's like a red rag to a bull so I eschewed more practical bikes, said stuff you, and went out to prove it can be done.

In the same way I've just come back home after riding 7,500kms around China on a local Chinese 125cc ROAD bike, and 30,000kms from Korea to Italy via Russia/Kazakhstan (and 3,000kms of dirt) on a bloody scooter (Burgman 650), fer christ's sake. :mchappy:

No, the BMWs were indisputably considered by all the "experts" as THE bike to tour internationally on, and the four froggies I met in Tamanrasset laughed at me when they saw my RD (incidentally they were sponsored by one of the French bike mags). The laughing soon dissipated, however, when we compared notes in Niger (and subsequently crossed paths again in the CAR, Kenya and Zambia).

Now if we really want to get stuck into BMW let's look at the spoked alloy wheel problems they had in the 70s and are still having now. Whatever you do folks, if you ride a BMW make sure you have mag wheels if you plan to tackle any decent off road routes (or else bring along an unlimited supply of spokes).

Garry from Oz.

Thanks Alibaba I missed that post .
However further reading indicates that the problem is not really cured as it still has a tendency to happen at higher speeds with other tyres .

It seems rather a shame to spend so much time ,money and effort on a bike that ,although beautiful and full of character ,has an inherent handling fault .

For some of you that seem to be reading this forum with already preconceived ideas of what the outcome should be, it is meaningless to even try and explain something as you will inadvertently pull my words out of context and make your own statements in any case.
For the rest I can just say do not be lazy and read everything twice before you comment on it.
As far as this thread is concerned I merely made a comparison between bikes being used in ways they were not intended to. The Dakar at the start of this thread was used hard on roads with rough surfaces and possibly loose stones etc. The result was the forks failed.
HPN fit forks to their bikes to cope with this type of road conditions and even worse. The result is that the bikes are not the best doing high speeds on highways especially when you combine it with a off road tire like the Desert and overload the bike with luggage. I recommended that we fit more road bias tyres like the T63's or TKC80's but Philip insisted on the Michelin Deserts. Delays from HPN for parts gave me little time to test the bike after it was completed and Philip did not want to postpone his departure date. Our conclusion was that most of the roads north of Namibia will not allow you to travel at speeds of more than 110km/h and the bike was exceptionally stable and comfortable at these speeds especially in really difficult road conditions. The recommendation was that speeds should stay below the 130km/h mark.
As far as the persistent head-shaking is concerned after fitting the TKC's, I can say this; riding a 1989 R80GS for a few months earlier this year it also tend to be flopping around like a leave at speeds over 120km/h. This is not that uncommon when riding with bikes with tall suspensions especially fitted with the high off road type mudguards in front.

Please be polite or you'll be banned.:nono:

Thanks
Chris

If no one is guilty of making unclaimed or insulting statements based on what I have wrote here or on other forums then I guess there is no fools on this forum, and nobody should feel insulted by my statement.

From Dustdevil aka gsworkshop aka Altus Pienaar.

Hi gsworkshop aka Altus Pienaar aka Dustdevil
If you have a problem with other people's posts, please report them. A moderator will look at them and deal with accordingly.

I happened upon your comment and had a problem with it. So I dealt with it.

If you don't like me having a problem with you calling others "fools", why not go an insult people somewhere else.

Have a nice day,
Chris

Patrick
We discussed via PM our differing opinions on what are acceptable/unacceptable references towards other HUBB users. My opinion is that the above are not acceptable.:nono:


From a personal angle I worry about calling others names which belittle them. IMHO, it implies that if others are fools/dumb asses, I am the expert. It's a dangerous strategy to claim to know everything. It's easy to end up with egg on your face. In my younger years many people described me as (an) arrogant (sh*t). I now try to be a little more humble.

Later. Am off to ride my bike.
Chris

my offending post has been edited and made clean!

Patrick

Any possible safety measure?
 

Forgive me for hijacking this fine thread, but it seems that all are done now venting their testosteron and bashing / defending BMW and most other bike manufacturers.

I have one of these bikes. I definitiely do not like the idea of it folding under me. So, what are my options?

- Stop following Alibaba off the beaten track, and hope that my regular trip to church will not strain the fork too much

- Park the bike until BMW decides to do the right thing

- Sell it, let someone else get killed

- Fork out (sorry...) about $1,000 for a pair of new fork legs

- Play the numbers game. I will probably be run over by some latte sipping, cell phone yacking soccer mum in a huge SUV first anyway.

The latter one is the most likely course of (non-)action for me and, I guess, most others. But can anyone think of a low-cost measure that would at least provide some warning to us irresponsile death wishers before it all goes pear shaped? Wrapping steel bands around the legs, or, or...?

This is going to sound really negative, but I don't think there is much you can do. If, as the metallurgy people seem to suggest, it cracks from the inside, visual inspections, crack detection sprays and so on won't show anything. Finding one in the process of snapping would be nice, but I think it'd be a case of getting them X-rayed every few miles. You don't work in a hospital do you?

Adding something round the leg is risky. People think it's a casting or design issue, which to me screams that vibration is involved. Change how it vibrates and it might snap sooner. You'd also be taking away all your lawyers ammunition if it did and your insurers will love to call your bike modified and walk away while you get the bill.

To me there are only three things to do and you've suggested them. In order of cost and living with yourself:

1. Get some earplugs that'll stop the voices in your head going on about the forks and get a sign made for the fuel tank that says only a dozen or so failures out of a couple of thousand bikes occured. This is not minimising the issue, I totally agree BMW should sort it, but you do probably have more chance of getting killed by a burst tyre, that SUV and so on. I'm a fine one to talk, I spend most trips listening to imagined gremlins in the motor eat valves, disconnect the oil pump, snap the chain, put sand in the bearings......

2. Sell the bike. Personally I could live with this if I unloaded it onto a BMW dealer. If it helps, tell the dealer why you want to sell. They can't really turn round and say "we know they aren't right, that'll be $500 less trade in value". Isn't it then up to the dealer to tell the new owner or the new owner to do their research? Maybe I'm just a bad person for thinking that way.

3. Are new forks that expensive? What's the going rate at Motoworks or Motobinns? Can you get lowers only, you don't need the springs, damper bits, tops etc.

It's a tough one. Good luck with it.

Andy

Hey Thor.

You see that’s why I always have my camera handy when driving with you.

If I have understood this correctly all the incidents have been on low-mileage bikes. This might be because fabrication of some units has failed. What’s your mileage?

I only have US-price for the parts and newer legs costs 500$ (for each leg!), not sure if they are interchangeable. Complete legs are 1600$ for a pair.
There is a 2006 fork on ebay right now (450$), maybe something will pop up at German E-bay shortly.


Threwheelbonnies idea of selling the bike back to BMW might be smart, but another option is to fit another type of fork. Touratech have an expensive kit and I’m sure there are other German companies that can help you out.
Another possibility is to get a decent fork and adapt it. It’s a long way to go but we both know someone that can help you to make it fit.

To get the good pics, you need to stay behind me - not a km ahead!

The US price is actually $321.66 each. (A&S, from Chigaco it's usually 20% less.) But in Norway, this usually translates to NOK 3200, including our modest 25% sales tax. This seems to be a general rule of thumb for everything, valid even when the USD was down to NOK 5,5. (Except alcohol, tobacco, gas, bikes and cars, of course.)

It doesn't really seem to be all related to mileage. Some have had short, some long. Mine is around 40' miles now, IIRC. But way too many of them on smooth US hwys, I'm afraid.

If I come across a usable fork at a nice price I might go for it, but I'll probably just pass the buck. I'm sort of smitten by the 1200. Will take my worrying to a whole new level: EWS (or whatever they call it) antennas that will not let me move. Dead servo brakes that will not let me stop. Weight I cannot lift. Canbus gremlins...

- Stop .... let Alibaba get killed
- Play the numbers game. I will probably be run over by some latte sipping, cell phone yacking soccer mum in a huge SUV first anyway.

A friendly BMW dealer, Good luck,

I could absolutely do with some California beach time right now, Patrick. It's colder than a witch's tit around here now. I lived in Houston (yeah, I know) for a couple of years, hence the US hwys. But we all learn the Queens English in school, starting in fourth grade. Then at some point, Al Pacino takes over as your English teacher, and it's all downhill from there I'm afraid.

My forks are still OK, AFAIK, but around here you'd have to fork up (oops, I did it again) for your lawyer up front anyway. They are not allowed to do the percentage deals. (Let the ambulance chaser flogging begin!)

I’m not very good at braking so I prefer to stay in front.


Why not get one of these: (Bike belongs to a BMW-mechanic)
http://www.actiontouring.com/pic/ewsfrei.jpg


I’ll take a chat with a lawyer tonight to see if there is any hope.

Hey Thor!

I’ve checked with a lawyer at the consumer council and there is no easy way to do this because your bike is older then 5 years. She told me the best you can do is to get in touch with these guys: http://www.dsb.no


Good luck!

Thanks, but I believe the HPN forks will fit. I know where I can source one, and the owner will never even notice that I swapped.

Further Information
 

We have received confirmation of posts and articles concerning the axle mount failures

Jim Tussey from the US has advised he was seriously injured in 2004 and had a metallurgy report done on the failed RHS fork leg at the time, it indicated metal fatigue. The machine had only 1400 miles on it at the time. Jim is a mechanical Engineer so is well qualified to comment.

http://www.horizonsunlimited.com/hub...4-4#post213501

A UK rider who posted to the UK F650 forum of finding cracking around the RHS axle mount in 2007 has confirmed in an email the content of his post

BMW F650 (UK and Ireland) :: View topic - Any known fork recalls on F650 GS's ??

In addition to the above, in Australia the proprietor of an Insurance Assessment Co has advised he has assessed "1/2 a dozen" early F650GS machines and all had RHS axle mount failures. He described precisely the failures as per all of the pic's seen online to date. However the causes of the accidents are unknown.

It seems with the information now coming to light that the failures are more widespread than initially believed.

We need to file reports with NHTSA
 

I made some calls and the US National Highway Traffic Saftey Administration's Office of Defect Investigation is very interested in this sort of problem.

Unfortunately, they have only recieved one documented report of a problem for all F650s from model year 1999 to 2004.

Please ask anyone who has personally had one of these fork failures to visit IVOQ - File a Complaint and file a complaint. It only takes 5-10 minutes, and you do NOT need to live in the United States to report a problem.

If you file a complaint, please email the complaint number to me at f650forks@earthlink.net. As a german engineer who owns an '01 GS (with front wheel still attached) I'm more than a little pissed off about how BMW is handling this. I'm willing to spend some time pestering the NHTSA into taking action, but it would be a lot easier for me if there were 4-5 legitimate complaints filed.

Feel free to forward or repost this to other forums.

Once the NHTSA to does an investigation, we can get the report released via a Freedom Of Information Act request. Then, if there is not a recall, at least we'll have a straight answer on why they think one isn't necessary.

(I tried getting a straight answer out of BMW Customer Service, but it was hopeless)

The NHTSA report now stands at 5 with more expected

The report Numbers are

10244404, 10252808, 10238415, 10245369, 10250116

I would also like to hear from anyone who has had an axle failure or knows of someone regardless of the circumstances surrounding any accident

There are more out there & most are buried in insurance write off's

Update: NHTSA now on case...
 

According to something recently posted on Advrider, the NHTSA has just opened an investigation and formally asked BMW to respond.

http://i137.photobucket.com/albums/q...ionStarted.gif

It is reference PE09026. I also gather that this being initiated is in no small part due to the efforts Rwolf01 (aka Ralph Wolf) who has already posted in this thread.

Let us hope that the truth outs. Before any more people are hurt, or anybody dies if they haven't already.

UK Investigation
 

As of 15/6/09 UK VOSA safety Authority has announced an investigation into the fork issues on the early F650GS

They have promised a full investigation

Will post further information as it becomes available