BMW R1200R R1150R/T F800 K1200R R1100R/T R1250R RnineT Message Board

The story- Riding to work yesterday 8:45 a.m. rush hour and my 2002 r1150r dies. Entering freeway shifting into 4th gear and the engine whines a high pitched squeal with no gear grab. Clutch in, down shift, nothing but same horrible sound, pull bike over and shift into first gear. Engage and gear grabs until 5mph and slips and squeals. Turn bike off. Push her to next exit off ramp with 75mph traffic whizzing by. Nice. Local BMW shop picks up bike. Diagnosis- Clutch and Input Shaft are shot. Parts and Labor estimate a disgusting $2,600!
Bike History- Purchased two years ago. I’m the 3rd owner. 1st a women who put 3,800 miles on weekend riding. 2nd A man who put 40 miles on it and wife hit him with divorce papers. Sold it to pay for attorney. Bike now has 22,000. I purchased BMW due to reputation and engineering prowess. Bike is farkled to my comfort. I love this bike. Stunned at this current circumstance.
QUESTION- Has anyone on this fine forum run into a similar castastrophe ? I can’t believe that a bmw with 22k could blow up like this. Service managers explanation is only way clutch/input shaft would go this early is from “very aggressive” shifting. I’m a 47 yr old conservative rider and have babied this fine machine. My take is the intake shaft caused the clutch to fry not the other way around. Does BMW Motorrad back their product and assist in similar instances from anyone’s previous dealings? Trying to figure out what direction to go from here. Don’t want to pour money into a potential “lemon” that may have major future issues.
Any input from you is greatly appreciated.
Thanks and Cheers.

Service managers explanation is only way clutch/input shaft would go this early is from “very aggressive” shifting.

That's an outright lie !!! Besides that, “very aggressive” shifting would damage transmission gear dogs -NOT- the input shaft splines.

These spline failures, a design/materials/heatreat shortcoming, are common enough that BMW may soon be forced to cover the entire repair cost.


$2,600 !!!!
.

Out right lie, lack of knowledge or what not I'm freakin cause my daily mistress is in the shop and being held for ransom.
In the best case scenario the local BMW dealer's mechanic will agree that this failure is NOT rider caused and maybe...just maybe I can get a tad bit of relief from motorrad. I don't know as this is all new territory for me but I must admit that my level of utter disbelief and frustration is quite high. This is NOT what I expected from a quality machine such as BMW. Not to mention how much I enjoy riding this awesome bike. Still shaking my head.

ncator-

Sorry to hear about the drivetrain failure. Please add your experience to the growing spline failure records in the threads you see here with the R1150R section. We are all concerned about this issue, but love our Roadsters/Rocksters all the same. The RT and GS folks are also involved.

CycleRob wrote:

... “very aggressive” shifting would damage transmission gear dogs -NOT- the input shaft splines. These spline failures, a design/materials/heatreat shortcoming, are common enough that BMW may soon be forced to cover the entire repair cost.

Rob is right. Unfortunately, some noticeable percentage of the R series develop this clutch spline failure at low mileages. Many smart guys are trying to figure it out. Does not appear that any of those smart guys are working for BMW. For your purposes, it is also worth noting that clutch slave cylinders, ABS pumps, and final drive bearings also have problematic failure on some number of bikes.

The bad news for you is this: BMW North America has no requirement to make you whole with any kind of compensation, labor cost reduction, or parts discount. They might. You will have to explore that through the repairing dealer and regional reps. But the bike is 3 years out of warranty and you are a third owner. Under U.S. regulated procedures, the company need not accept responsibility for what could be [prior] owner abuse, neglect, or improper care. The burden will be on you to show a defect in workmanship or materials that the company knew or should have known caused the failure and prevents the item from being used for its intended purpose and to disprove any hint of prior owner abuse or neglect. That's a tough burden to bear.

I am sorry that your first experience sucks like this.