So, the number of bikes you see in your neighbourhood, tells you about its reliability then? There are lots of areas, where the Vstrom is very popular, too. Mostly the 650-version. I dont think anyone "avoids" it because of reliability, because it simply has not been an issue with this bike.

With the R1200GS, general reliability has been an issue, and no matter how many they´ve sold, and how well they´ve taken care of their warranty claims, it´s still had an awful lot of reports about various problems, several of which will at the very least mean a trip-stopper. Reported problems with Vstroms have been small in nature compared to these.

I´ve nothing against BMW. In fact I like the 1200GS, its a great bike to ride. But you keep hearing this very similar story from several sources, the net, other motorists, the magazines, over several years, and I dont think its all just "village gossip" anymore. BMW built a machine, that is a bit too full of advanced (=complicated, relatively untested) technology to work well on a bike, thats supposed to be capable of going far away from their dealer network, still without a worry.

If you had a statistic about, say, 1000 pieces of GS1200´s sold, and the same number of Vstroms sold, and their respective number of warranty claims over the same period of time, I think you would get a very clear picture of this.

Is that really so hard to admit?