Bike hypochondria?

[birdseye]

Do you think that all the postings about problems on this site encourage bikeing hypochondria? Puting buyers off and leaving owners listening for every creak and rattle, wondering when their brakes are going to fail, when their gearbox is going to stop working etc.

Trouble is, fewere people post good news than bad.

 

[swebb]

I think you're right, however it's the nature of the human beast that when everything does as we expect, we don't sing it's praises, because we already expected it....

when something goes wrong, we moan like women (no offence) because we didn't expect it.....

 

[Dave Price]

I think it probably depends on the person and how they interpret the information. We all know that there's loads of misinformation on the internet.
However, to my example. After reading about final drive failure on this forum. I checked the play in the rear wheel on my 6000 mile 12GS, and found it to be significant. The final drive was replaced under warranty. I probably wouldn't have checked so closely on a bike of this mileage, if not prompted. And before you mention, the play wasn't noticed at the service 2 weeks earlier, and infact, varied between 0 and 1.5mm run out, depending on who knows what.
Another usefull thread was the windsceen rattle and fix which, certainly transformed my riding pleasure.
Also keeps BMW and dealers on their toes.

 

[SQD8R]

I think it does add to a bit of hysteria even if you are conscious of the fact that most posts will be one of the following:

1. Negative but legitimate i.e. top box failures
2. Negative but just whining, i.e. take your pick
3. Negative but only in the sense of someone trying to make the bike their own and comments on changes they would like to make
4. Positive but no need to keep going on about it, so very few
5. Negative and have no f...ing clue what they are talking about, i.e. again, take your pick.

Three extenuating factors:

1. From my experience with primarily sportbikes and sport tourers this level of negativity seems to only be prevalent on adventure tourers and the ilk. I've never seen it on Motorush, 600rr.net or any other dedicated sportbike site and I've been a member of.

2. When I was in the market for an adventure bike I narrowed it down to the 950 & the 12GS. Having used internet forums to good effect before regarding purchases I consulted Advrider. With the 950 having been out and the 12GS just released, most of the negativity fell onto the 950 ranging from points 1-5 above. Now fortunately I don't take the internet as gospel and use it only as a tool. But if someone was to take the internet as gospel then it might be an issue and result in an incorrect purchase. While I made the correct purchase for me and my needs I think if I was in the market now I'd be very wary of both models and it would be undue because if you really look @ the info and the posters involved, the legitimate complaints are few and far between. I can't speak for the 950 as much, but when you see the most negative posters regarding the 12GS, look @ their profile. Most consistently negative posters don't even own the bike. Pretty weak in my opinion.

The internet is only a tool. Use it properly and it's a benefit. But it's not gospel.

 

[GSmonkey]

People always report the negatives, it human nature.

Sportsbike riders bitch just as much as GS owners. Try going onto a CBR site and doing a search on Cam Chain Tensioner......you'll find your bitchin'