Disaster!!!! (I think)

[Daryl_stamp]

I'm very sorry to hear about your bike Johnny; your's was the coolest looking one at the bash; thumbs up for sticking out the rain to get there too.

I'm pretty disappointed to learn about this issue w/ BMW. The early '80s add with the guys on their high mileage (200K+ miles) really left a lasting impression on me. When it was time to get another bike, the R seemed perfect. It still is for me, but the thought of it croaking on me put's a damper on those 600 mile weekends.

Good luck.

DLS

[CycleRob]

If/when my splines fail, I'll fix it myself and trade it in on a non ABS R1200R.

What about the R1200R? Aren't they exempt from spline failures?

It's just me, but, I refuse to ever again own a (messy/noisy) chain drive bike . . . . . . . or one with a wimpy alternator or without a TeleLever front fork.

What about an R1200R?

.

[frbank6]

I'd like to think about the 1200R, but if I turn out getting the fuzzy side of the lollypop from BMW on my 1150R, I can't see paying a sizable premium for reliability that just is not there. What will it be next time? My money is just too hard to come by for me to experiment with. I wanted a reliable, easy to work on bike and I thought I made a wise choice, but seeing these problems pile up for others really is depressing.

Given these problems, a chain I can see, clean and maintain, versus a hidden timebomb instead of a clutch, looks pretty attractive.

And don't forget the constantly shrinking dealer network that might just leave you 500 miles from the nearest help when it fails. I travel some pretty remote parts of TN and KY, and I don't go twenty minutes in any direction without passing a Honda, Suzuki or Kawasaki dealer.

[PhilDinAZ]

OK, here's the information I've been able to find out from certified techs and BMW dealership owners. One of the worse things you can do to the drive line is to lug the engine below 3000 RPM. So if you do a lot of around town driving try and keep your revs at 3500 RPM's or higher. Also another thing that will be detrimental to the drive line is trying to roll on and accelerate when in the 6th, overdrive gear. If you're going to speed up and pass someone when cruising in 6th gear, always and I mean always down shift into 5th.

Proper maintenance and these driving tips could save you a lot of money and even more aggravation in the long run.

[boxermania]

Columbia03BMW

I'm growing old and cantankerous, I also have the knack to see and smell BS a mile away, that being said, I challenge John's diagnosis as having no basis and extremely dangerous. Let me begin by categorizing the response of the dealers you contacted as:

1) They are lying
2) They don't see many of the affected bikes in their shop
3) John's recomendation as to how to diagnose the clutch spline failure has as much mechanical fact as having screen doors on a submarine (heard the quote the other night, so I can't lay claim to it's originality)

Let us review the statement

and John said a good way to find out if you are having spline issues is to go 60 mph, pull in the clutch and shift through all the gears, down to first and back up to sixth (without letting out the clutch of course). If, while going 60, the transmission shifts through all the gears and back up, then you don't have anything to worry about. He said he knows it will feel very clunky, but it will let you know if you have any problems.

What happens when you do the above is that the front and rear faces of the clutch disc are no longer compressed (read captured) by the metal surfaces of the pressure plate. This in effect isolates any engine influence from the tranny, as there is no power being transmitted. The clutch disc is freewheeling, just like an electric fan that has been shutdown, driven by the decreasing road speed, provided by the rear wheel driving the tranny gearset.

Shifting into a lower gear at this juncture forces the lower gear to come up to the speed of the higher gear and a fair amount of gear clunk will be heard as the gears are being forced to mesh. Think of it like shifting down to first gear as you come to a light or a stop sign....can you recall the clunking? Now think about the same procedure at 60 mph and I'll venture to say that there will be some clunking......I might add that it is also quite dangerous as if for some or other reason you miss the gear count or let go of the clutch while in a lower gear this will invariably result in major rear wheel lock-up preceding a spectacular slide with the ensuing significant, painful and expensive damage to both the rider andhis mount.

Last but not least, my recomendation....don't do the test, as it provides absolutely no information as to the condition of the clutch disc or the input shaft splines. The frickin disc is just free wheeling on the tranny input shaft, driven by the road speed of the rear wheel, just happy as a lark.

Let's thank the powers to be that John has elected motorcycle mechanics as this profession as I would have been extremely worried for my life if he had chosen to be a neurosurgeon. I wonder if that is the reason why they haven't seen any failures in their shop.....

BTW, feel free to share my reply with the shop in question. I stand on fact and personal experience and if proven wrong I'll pay reverence to the greater knowledge.

[Boxer]

Johnyjs1,
Call Ves...Where is Ves?...I think he's somewhere up in the north country area..err..around Chicago or somewhere...not sure...BUT call him. Get together and put his transmission/engine into your bike's frame, and there you go. One good Rockster! Sell it and split the money to buy another bike.

[johnnyjs1]

Ok. so I trailer the bike to the shop. They take it off the trailer for me. I say "You wanna hear it?" "Sure", the tech says. He puts it on the center stand, turns the key, and cranks it. Sounds pretty good for the first .5 seconds. Then the racket starts, grinding, whining, yelping groaning you name it, it was heard. I can see both techs cringing at the sound coming from my baby. The tech says to me "Follow me, I want to show you something." He leads me over to another bike in the shop. Turns it on. Same exact noises coming from it. Then he says "C'mon over here." and leads me to a GS. Turns it on, yup you guessed it, same noise. I brought the response from BMW with me to show the tech guys. Dave, the manager, told me he would see what he could do, and that it was a good idea to write them, saying making first contact and getting a reply is a start. The sales manager also told me that their Rep/Engineer that handles these things will actually be at the store on tuesday. I am willing to bet, that all the dealers that say they have never seen this before, are lying their a$$es off. My dealer had absolutely NO PROBLEM showing me and starting 2 bikes sitting there with the same issue as mine. The tech said, he would break it down, figure it out, call bmw and call me with the results and see what i wanted to do. If BMW does nothing, I think I will part out the bike, and go in a completely different direction, unless they can give me a heck of a deal on a R1200R. I was also looking at the F800ST, nice bike, belt drive, 85hp 135 top speed. Any comments on the F800ST?

[johnnyjs1]

On a side note.....not sure if this has anything to do with a symptom of the failure, but I did notice that about 1000 miles before it happened, I was having trouble shifting down from third to second gear. The shift lever, just would not go down sometimes.

[owldaddy]

Any comments on the F800ST?

One of the guys I ride with now and then traded his 06 R1200GS for a new F800ST a couple weeks ago, He loved the GS, but had a hard time reaching the ground on it, The 800 is lighter, lower and since he wasn't taking the GS off road, he saw no need for a bike that could go off road. He is a happy man, the 800 fits his needs much better, and I have to admit, I love that blue paint. If BMW would put a telelever on the front I think it may be perfect. His report is the bike is much easier to flick about in the twisties, it fits him better, but the front end does dive when the brakes are applied. So I'll keep the R, I love the suspension.
Don

[OU812]

I rode my buddies F800ST last year and it is a fun, light bike with all the power you could want/need. Great choice! I hope you don't have to go that way though.

[johnnyjs1]

Can it be considered a decent touring bike? I can pretty much go all day on the Rock. Big enough engine for slab? I just have a hard time dealing with the fact of going from an 1150 to an 800, stupid I know, but i cant help it

[johnnyjs1]

How about this?
http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/2006-06- ... dZViewItem

[OU812]

Looks nice and nearby. I am not very comfy with the lean to the bars but that can be fixed.
BTW the F can be a great touring bike with the rig installed.

[ColumbiaBMW]

Columbia03BMW

I'm growing old and cantankerous, I also have the knack to see and smell BS a mile away, that being said, I challenge John's diagnosis as having no basis and extremely dangerous. Let me begin by categorizing the response of the dealers you contacted as:

1) They are lying
2) They don't see many of the affected bikes in their shop
3) John's recomendation as to how to diagnose the clutch spline failure has as much mechanical fact as having screen doors on a submarine (heard the quote the other night, so I can't lay claim to it's originality)

Look, I have no idea what is going on with these bikes, I'm not a mechanic. I just figured I could try to help all of us out by calling around and getting a little bit of information, if the way I posted is not a good way to diagnose a spline problem then I apologize, I was only relaying a message from a BMW service tech. The point of my posts was to give us hope that maybe this problem isn't as widespread as we thought, I'm not going to worry about it anymore though, I owe too much money on this bike to try and sell it now, and I'm leaving tomorrow (weather permitting) on a 2000 mile trip. I can't stress out about the clutch splines anymore, if they go out they go out, and life will go on. But, I would like to wish the best of luck to Johnny again as he deals with this unfortunate mess.

PS A Suzuki SV650 is a pretty good idea though....or maybe a KLR650. Maybe in a year or so...

[Turk74]

On a side note.....not sure if this has anything to do with a symptom of the failure, but I did notice that about 1000 miles before it happened, I was having trouble shifting down from third to second gear. The shift lever, just would not go down sometimes.

Not what I want to hear. I have an '04 with just over 24,000 miles. I just started experiencing the random hard shift from 3rd to 2nd. Does anyone else concur that this is a symptom of the CS issue?

Dave

[SecondWind]

Sorry for your problem, Johnny, I wouldn't want to be in your shoes for sure and I hope that your end result will be that you have a MC that you can ride w a great deal of confidence, BMW or otherwise.

As a new R1150R owner this year (2004 model acquired used) this Spline Situation is a bit troubling to me because there are so many great MC choices that are not experiencing serious and expensive internal problems, that also have a proven HIGH LEVEL of RELIABILITY. Quite frankly, the reputation of BMW's HIGH LEVEL of RELIABILITY was one of the primary decision criteria that I weighed when I acquired a 2004 r1150r w 4500 miles. There seems to be more than a occasional "R" spline failure out there which is making me question my decision to own a Beemer. Frankly, I want to ride, not spend $$ and repair my BMW.

Another thought comes to mind that if a BMW supplier of these key Spline parts provided a substandard batch to BMW(defects, not heat treated properly, etc) that the these bad parts COULD possibly end up in a specific run of biles (depending upon BMW's distribution process) in one area of the country which would have a greater incidence of failures - very hard to track but a possibility.

I think that this forum can serve all of its members well if the Spline failure dialog continues and somehow someone documents the actual facts re the Number of spline failures. Corporations react to BAD PRESS and Negative METRICS. This Spline failure problem, if verified as widespread, will certainly hurt the BMW Reliability Repution and therfore SALES. Reputation is built over time and destroyed quickly. This quote comes to mind: "The invisible thing called a good name is made up of the breath of numbers that speak well of you".  Edward Halifax (1881 – 1959), British statesman. 

There are plenty of other choices out there, BMW, are you listening??

[bmwr1150rbmw]

My question for Johnny would be the subsequent warranty on the work that is performed, should you have it done. I relaize the repair bill is high, and unfair, but should it be done you still have a bike I assume you love and a warranty. I also wonder if the repair includes parts that are considered an improvement over the stock parts that broke and/or caused the problem. If you go forward with the repair, it will still cost far less than the cost of replacing the bike with a K an F or any other. Different bikes, new or used, always cost lots of money especially when accessories are going to be on a list of must haves.

[johnnyjs1]

Not sure if the two are related. but up until that point, shifting was very smooth and easy, then the random hard shifting started, and about 800-1000 miles later, its a gonner . I very much hope that the 2 are not related.

[johnnyjs1]

My question for Johnny would be the subsequent warranty on the work that is performed, should you have it done. I relaize the repair bill is high, and unfair, but should it be done you still have a bike I assume you love and a warranty. I also wonder if the repair includes parts that are considered an improvement over the stock parts that broke and/or caused the problem. If you go forward with the repair, it will still cost far less than the cost of replacing the bike with a K an F or any other. Different bikes, new or used, always cost lots of money especially when accessories are going to be on a list of must haves.

I am not sure about the warranty issue if i do decide to go through with the fix. I would guess, that it would be a 1 or 2 yr warranty . But that probably would not do me any good, because it would probably be very unlikely that it would happen again within that time frame. My luck...it would happen after 2yrs and 1 day after the warranty expired . you are definately right about replacing the bike. It would cost me more $$. Maybe I am just angry about the whole lack of responsiblity BMW is taking with this spline issue. The biggest reason I paid a premium for a BMW was because I've always heard they are reliable and BMW takes care of their "own". Well, I guess you live and learn. Screw me once, shame on you. Screw me twice, shame on me. I'm not sure i'm willing to get to the "screw me twice" stage. I am not gonna jump to any rash decisions until I know exactly what is going on with the bike, what the diagnosis is, and what, if anything BMW is gonna do about it. Oh....and I absolutely love my Rockster. I just hate the feeling of going on a long trip and having that nagging feeling of "Is it gonna happen again? Is the bike reliable?". Those thoughts never, ever entered my mind before this happened, even after reading all about the potential problems. You never really think about it, until...it happens to you

[MikeCam]

Johnny,

One of the trends I have noticed since the 70's is the shift among corporations from treating reputation as a valuable item of the balance sheet (Goodwill) to ignoring it as long as sales, margins, and net profits keep share prices high. In the case of BMW AG I suspect the motorcycle division represents a small enough part of the total corporate earnings that the effort to remain committed to a reputation for reliability has been abandoned. Parts and major sub-assemblies are outsourced, quality suffers at the level of components. Assembly is no longer the province of German citizens with a high work ethic, but of immigrants with a focus on finishing the day, not producing quality items. Design and engineering standards are based on "design to cost" rather than design to perform. This across the company approach results in a slow erosion of the various formerly strong elements of the BMW mystic: durability, reliability, quality, technological innovation, systematic product improvement, and good motorcycles.

Meanwhile, the creation of BMW NA as the importer of the brand into the U.S. created an entity with no product except the one from Germany, no motivation to serve customers (in this case -dealers and buyers both), a disincentive to accepting warranty claims based on a weak numeric model of renumeration, an inability to engage the parent corporation with meaningful input, and a shift in focus from importing quality motorcycles to selling a brand lifestyle. Just as Harley-Davidson milked money from consumers with an inferior product for years - weak quality, overpriced components, anti-consumer selling practices, no technological innovation nor improvement, bare bones marketing of quality claims, and lifestyle over content, BMW has fallen into the same unsustainable model.

Sorry. My opinion about BMW quality and reliability is diminished and it will not be repaired in my lifetime. They will continue to sell based on that decreasing reputation until, sadly, BMW AG decide to leave the motorcycle business as unprofitable. Then some deep pocket aggregate will buy the name, destroy the brand, and go the way of so many other formerly good marques.