- Joined
- Oct 10, 2004
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MCN's headline, not mine. The text of my letter reproduced in today's Motorcycle News is as follows.
"The article in last week's MCN regarding failures of BMW's fuel pump controller (FPC) substantially understates the scale of the problem. The 179 failures quoted was an interim subtotal as of summer 2008 and the actual situation is that we have now documented 301 failures of this component, of which 128 incidents occurred in 2008 and 60 so far in 2009. But this is just the tip of the iceberg as it only includes UK owners, and indeed only those UK owners who utilise the UKGSer.com web site, and I would confidently predict the worldwide number of failures to be in excess of 1,500.
Although the vast majority of the failures have affected R1200GS and R1200GSA models, a small number have occurred on R1200RT, R1200ST and R1200S models which utilise the same technology.
Fortunately many BMW Assist vehicles now carry spare fuel pump controllers on board but when vehicles are out of warranty the failure can involve costs of £250 per incident including recovery, parts and labour, not to mention ruined holiday trips."
With the agreement of Paul G (BHT) the letter was signed by me as a representative of UKGSer.com
The bits of the letter MCN chose not to print were
"BMW's statement that this only affects "a small percentage of bikes produced in 2007" is at best disingenuous as BMW knows full well that these failures have affected bikes produced throughout the life of the R1200GS/GSA and continue to affect the latest model years. The most recent documented incident happened 29 June 2009 and involved a 2008 R1200GS.
VOSA, the government vehicle safety agency, previously issued a recall on the FPC in April 2005, however the replacement part was also faulty and the problem was never satisfactorily resolved. Over the last nine months I am personally aware of 15 FPC defect reports submitted to VOSA by BMW owners. Most of these documented failures whilst bikes were on the move and thus "liable to cause significant risk or personal injury or death." It is only a matter of time before somebody is killed through the failure of this component and trying to deny that the problem exists is the worst possible action BMW could take."
The MCN journalist who broke the story two weeks ago is still in contact with BMW and is aware of the VOSA involvement and possible news.
Tim
"The article in last week's MCN regarding failures of BMW's fuel pump controller (FPC) substantially understates the scale of the problem. The 179 failures quoted was an interim subtotal as of summer 2008 and the actual situation is that we have now documented 301 failures of this component, of which 128 incidents occurred in 2008 and 60 so far in 2009. But this is just the tip of the iceberg as it only includes UK owners, and indeed only those UK owners who utilise the UKGSer.com web site, and I would confidently predict the worldwide number of failures to be in excess of 1,500.
Although the vast majority of the failures have affected R1200GS and R1200GSA models, a small number have occurred on R1200RT, R1200ST and R1200S models which utilise the same technology.
Fortunately many BMW Assist vehicles now carry spare fuel pump controllers on board but when vehicles are out of warranty the failure can involve costs of £250 per incident including recovery, parts and labour, not to mention ruined holiday trips."
With the agreement of Paul G (BHT) the letter was signed by me as a representative of UKGSer.com
The bits of the letter MCN chose not to print were
"BMW's statement that this only affects "a small percentage of bikes produced in 2007" is at best disingenuous as BMW knows full well that these failures have affected bikes produced throughout the life of the R1200GS/GSA and continue to affect the latest model years. The most recent documented incident happened 29 June 2009 and involved a 2008 R1200GS.
VOSA, the government vehicle safety agency, previously issued a recall on the FPC in April 2005, however the replacement part was also faulty and the problem was never satisfactorily resolved. Over the last nine months I am personally aware of 15 FPC defect reports submitted to VOSA by BMW owners. Most of these documented failures whilst bikes were on the move and thus "liable to cause significant risk or personal injury or death." It is only a matter of time before somebody is killed through the failure of this component and trying to deny that the problem exists is the worst possible action BMW could take."
The MCN journalist who broke the story two weeks ago is still in contact with BMW and is aware of the VOSA involvement and possible news.
Tim
) last September.
onyack
