It's a plate which is bolted to the frame. Requires some special tooling and new side stand/bolts etc.

Thanks Ted,

But if I put my own air in the tyres or buy a non logo'd lamp from Halfords* will they still pay up? Free parts aren't free if you have to buy their oil at crazy prices and have a day off work while their apprentice strips your drain plug and they get some araldite in**. Honda and Enfield have been fair on this, use genuine parts and they play.

*I kid you not, Alan Jeffries rejected a rubbed through F650 loom because I'd tried another bulb to get me there alive one December afternoon :(

**Alan Jeffries again, I was a slow learner.

I like doing my own work. There is a certain satisfaction in a valve shim changed on a winters afternoon.

I never keep a bike past 3 years, raised blood pressure over strident horns and the like just to keep a bike I'm bored with doesn't happen.

All good to know, Thank You.


Andy

WOW! I had no idea!

Just goes to show exactly how much wool is being pulled over customers' eyes.

So much wool, in fact, that I think the ewe is still in there, somewhere....

Today I had my in the flesh experience.

This is a cracking bike with a lot to recommend it. The engine is willing, the size and weight great. They got the design right.

I doubt I will buy one because :

Everyone from owner chat to the salesman is obsessed with the warranty and recalls. This is like when Aeroflot announce both pilots are sober today and run the safety drill a third time. It does not inspire confidence.

The demo bike needed the front brake bleeding (or its got the wrong sized master cylinder) which adds to the nagging doubt.

While BMW have moved on from the suited lizard style of selling and are willing to discuss it further, an offer only £200 better than Honda have made against a CB500X doesn't cut it. The "only £80" to turn off the service light each year I have simply added on, making the CB500X the same price if I keep it three years and the light annoys me once a year.

BMW should look at the positives. They got me in their showroom for the first time in 17 years and if they make them right for another 3 years without using the owners for test work I might look again. They need to get rid of latching service lights.

Andy

I've never bought a BMW bike (although I came close a couple of times) but we have been subjected to the full force of their marketing and lifestyle vision on the car side as my wife is currently on her 4th Mini. There's a lot of similarity between selling cars and selling cruises - both of them sell you a vision and deliver, well, metal. It's up to you to delude yourself.

Like you found with the bikes there's a lot of patter about warranties etc from the saleman (salesmen - we've had a load of them) but to tell the truth, in 12 yrs we've never had a single thing go wrong with any of the cars so how good it is or not isn't something we've ever had to find out. A few bald tyres is as much as we've ever had to spend out on. That's because, I suspect, because we buy new and p/ex it for another new one after 3 yrs. That has to be the lifestyle they want to sell to you and profit from themselves. If the local dealer ever kept salesmen for more than a few years I suspect we'd be on first name terms with them now - but if you have a more than three year old car - or bike, you're on your own and ostracised from the 'family.'

It's all bullsh1t really but my wife just wants the thing to work every time she get in it and she has no interest at all in the oily bits so she's happy if nothing goes wrong. I'm the opposite - if something isn't going wrong I get bored with it. :rofl: