Post links first please.

Getrag info on 1100 transmissions can be found here. No-one there says about your very nice'n'round number 25% of failures. Factory should have that kind of info, and if it was so it'd be a media-wide scandal if every 4th bike had a blown transmission on low mileages through out it's production years IMO.

I am not going to post you copyrighted publications. your dogma is simply not worth it.


the bmw GS club holland R1200GS quality poll:
BMW GS Club Nederland :: Bekijk onderwerp - 1200GS(-A) kwaliteits poll

please note the drive line failures in the postings.



too hot exhaust valves?
BMW GS Club Nederland :: Bekijk onderwerp - Het blijft kwakkelen...

Looks like even the Police are leaving BMW!

Bikes in the Fast Lane - Daily Motorcycle News

(but I'm sure this publication are lying, right Margus? )


I wonder how the Vstrom won that Motorad Alps challenge if it is so
bad?

BTW, Suzuki's problems with the early Vstorm are minor compared to the very long history of BMW problems and then denial by BMW AG.

Should I post some history lessons from dealers who have published the truth about how BMW's bikes and how they do business?


Patrick

__________________
Patrick passed Dec 2018. RIP Patrick!

So this proves the point, Japanese bikes aren't fault free eighter.


Apparently the guys complainig let the job be done by a Suzuki delaer, dealer induced faults then?

So you have first hand experience to prove it outlasts any Beemer if both are ridden similarly and maintained similarly?


Anyways, you probably already guess where I'm aiming:

What news do we mostly hear? It's the bad news that make the news!

In the Bike magazine reliability survey BMW scored 90%, meaning averagely 9 bikes out of 10 have been reliable and problem-free. Japanese makers scored similar results. Thus near 10% problem (big or small) rates on each of them.

So if the production number of R1200GS is now well over 100,000 bikes, it's the most produced one big trailie bike model in history. You'd need at least over 1000 reports of broken final drives to make up the 1% of failures, 10,000 reports to make that 10% failure. R1200GS has been in producion for 4 years - with Mollydog's logic to obtain data from forums then ADVrider should have at least 2 broken drive shaft threads per day to make up only 1% failure rate, that's over 14 broken FD reports per week. 140 FD reports to make the "average" 10% rate when we look at the reliabiity survey data. Or over 25,000 thousand broken bikes - 140 breakdown reports per week to make that catastrophic 25% failure rate quote here. That's 17 breakdown reports per day - internet should have overfilled with bitter reports.

Yah, while I'm pretty sure earlier R1200GSes had their own teething problems just like Japanese cousinsins (like early V-Strom example, or any other), but still as is an overall picture it's over-emphasized if you count the production numbers.

I'm not a owner of R1200GS, but with the analogy posted above I'd say we, very probably, look at the "sauer-grapes" situation purely thanks to exceptionally large volume of production numbers per 1 model of bike. Happy R1200GS owners don't report their good experiences into forums, but un-happy owners most certainly will report. So count the bad numbers, divide it with production numbers and prove me wrong.

[quote=Margus;203918]So this proves the point, Japanese bikes aren't fault free eighter.

No, they are not. All bikes can have problems. But it is the number of problems that count, and while I admit the 1200GS has been sold a lot, you hear awful lot of similar stories from them. Similar from year to year, similar from forum to forum, as well as if you talk to users. I dont think its all just made up.




Apparently the guys complainig let the job be done by a Suzuki delaer, dealer induced faults then?

Not induced by Suzuki dealers, but usually by the owners themselves, or some workshops, who have no knowledge of the bike but still work on them.



So you have first hand experience to prove it outlasts any Beemer if both are ridden similarly and maintained similarly?

I said "it may well outlast", not that it will 100%. That will depend on so many factors other than build quality itself, it will probably be impossible to prove one way or the other. The point was, Suzuki is nowadays up there with the best, when reliability is in question. In the past, BMW may have been the bike that lasts (though Suzuki´s also had some pretty tough bikes, like GSX1100, starting from the 80´s) but now there are others to choose from, too. And newest generation Beemers seem to have become a bit too complicated to keep that reputation up to the fullest. Japanese know better to keep things simple.

That's true Japanese usually are simple average consumer bikes, but they also have some more complex and interesting bikes. I.e. single sided front Yamaha GTS, or radial-pistoned Honda comes into my mind.

In this week's MCN article BMW admits quality problems with ring antenae and fuel pump controller. Apparently with 7000 bikes sold (from over 100,000 produced) having suffered the problem in some way, which, when looking at one model basis, brings the reliability ratio close to the Bike mag survey which was also 1 out of 10 bikes (90% reliability) having problems IF you add other potential problems like final drive etc. So given the complexity of their electronics and technologies there might be some truth about being harder to control the quality from that side, especially like now when the market need grows over their heads - they still can't produce R1200GSes as much as the market requires them although they're constantly expanding the production.

Good thing is BMW addresses the problem and sure will fix it if it's already made a media scandal. Addressing a problem - something Suzuki hasn't been able to do with it's silly loose contacts and untaped electric wires for ages as I've seen with mine and other GSX bikes prone to end with complete electric breakdowns.

As always, there're two sides of the coin...

Good roads, Margus

in this weeks UK MCN there is an article about BMW and its recent quality control issues. The UK General Manager Adrian Roderick says that the company has been increasing its production run for the last four years (since LWR), and 'you are prone to things going adrift', when ramping up production.

This is modern business, and the same thing is happening over at Apple. Another niche company that suddenly lots of people wanted. They are happy to ramp up production and take the money, and then quietly deal with the problems later.

The article says BMW have appointed a troubleshooter, to help with the quality issues. This troubleshooter is reporting directly to Hendrick von Kuenheim, BMW's head of motorycles.

The UK GM says that quality is tracked by warranty costs, and as sales increased so did the warranty cost per bike. Now the troubleshooter has been brought on, they say the warranty cost is dropping.

The faults listed in the article are the immbiliser (across the range) and the 1200GS fuel pump relay. The UK GM says these are just the latest to arise since the surge in sales, going back 4 years.

Although faults under production strain are understandable, the firms response to this is a bit bad. Rather than issue recalls, they seem to have told dealers to replace the faulty parts at the next service (on the quiet). So if you service it yourself, you won't have had the parts replaced.

So, they danced with the media devil, took the money, messed up a bit, and now are coming clean and doing something about it. Fair enough. But I guess if you have a post-LWR bike, it's worth a trip to you dealer to find out about the faults list. As there's no convenient dealer servicing out on the road, which is what their GS/ADV bikes are all about.

I'm wary of posting at the bottom of this thread, as (like me) most people are probably ignoring it as a spat between a few interested parties. But if you're planning a trip on a new-ish beemer, I think it's worth being aware of this and getting your bike checked.

(this is all in UK MCN, so could be completely fabricated and blown out of all proportion)

This is probably the first post in this forum where you haven't lied and found information source other than village gossip. But don't think this has made up the rest of your bashing lies or false facts Mollydog

Never heard of it but BMW won the Dark Dog Tour, and they've sold over 100,000 R1200GSes already, so it can't be that bad eithter? I though you were supposed to talk about the big famous competitions only? I haven't seen any V-Stroms on podium spots on Erzberg or Pikes Peak.

I see you still haven't got my point. Never said V-Strom is bad (not crap, as you say), just using your very own analogy example to demonstrate how you bash BMWs in the same way, see yourself through mirror? (I've never owned V-Strom and I bash it with sauer-grapes examples - feels "good" to hear it as a V-Strom owner eh? )

It's always just sooo easy to bash. Especially if you haven't owned one


I don't think the V-Strom owners who had faulty bikes agree with you. If I may use your own analogy, while I haven't owned one myself: it's the COMMON KNOWLEDGE among V-Strom owners the early bikes will most certanly have clutch blown, throttle bodies vibrated loose already from factory, faulty EFIs or even ECUs and other silly problems unheard of on other makers, all the electricity fault reflect my own Suzuki ownership experience in the past While Suzuki hasn't fixed the problems on many bikes or denied the problem. See the links I posted.

You can always laugh and you're always free to do it, but don't forget to divide everything with production numbers, then compare to other bikes statistics numbers obtained in identical unbiased way to compile the real picture. We all look for truth out here.

Dogma - usage tends to carry a pejorative connotation—referring to concepts as being "established" only according to a particular point of view, and thus one of doubtful foundation.

So you tell me, which is more probable: the dogma coming coming from people who have never owned the product or those who've owned the product?

Or are you afraid to publish copyrighted publications? (in fact those would be the only sources I'd trust, as I've already mentioned before - it's only the credible sources we can rely on, not forum examples)


Unfortunately I don't understand Duch . Would be interesting to read the thoughts and discussions posted there.

Many similar polls have been posted in UKGSer and ADVrider that I've kept my eye constantly on, but certainly nowhere near 25% mark failures as you quoted. So would be very interesting to know how they obtain their rates.