BMW Bikes / Land Rover Cars - Similarities?

[PhaedrusMC]

I had a 92 Discovery for a year.

It was a 7 year-old car with over 100,000 miles on it when I bought it.

The only thing that went wrong was the CV joint which cost £80 Irish parts & labour.

I asked a lot & read a lot about Discoveries & LRs in general. In one Discovery biography the early second-generation models (built 94/95) were reported to have hugely inconsistent panel gaps.

Owners tolerate consistently crap build quality (misaligned body panels & inconsistent gaps, leaking windows & sunroofs, weak engine components turning to mush in very few miles... etc.), because they're sort of cultish.

I even saw a 07 Range Rover a few weeks ago at a set of traffic lights and had to ask my wife who was with me if she was seeing what I was - the indented waist-line running along the side of the car dipped for the rear door: the waist-line on the rear door was maybe 2mm lower than on the front door and the rear panel. On a brand new car!

As I read more about BMW bikes, I'm getting the impression that owners & enthusiasts might be similarly tolerant of the "quirks" of the bikes (agricultural gearboxes, short gearbox lifespans), whereas owners of typical Jap bikes (for example) wouldn't accept these as quirks, but reject them as faults.

Is this correct?

I understand if it is the case - infatuation with the charm & character of anything can increase the tolerance level for the negative aspects of that thing, be it a bike, car, camera, partner or whatever.

GSs are becoming immensely popular, so reports of any defects / quirks don't seem to be that big a deal. Like all things, people talk mostly about (and want to know about) what goes wrong with stuff.

I guess if you want one, you want one?

Mark

 

[bisbee]

Pretty much tend to agree I have had a range rover and two discoverys (glutton for punishment ) before finally buying japanese now I don't have to get the bailer out when it rains

 

[Big Al Litch]

It's just a personal thing.

I have been around LR's all my life and have owned my own for 20-years now, I don't own them because I need the off-road or towing ability any more (though this was the case once) but just because I don't want to own a normal car as I find them very uninteresting.


The franchised dealer network seem to run along the same lines on both LR's & BMW m/c's. They charge too much money, do a poor job while taking no notice of the concerns of the customer.
For example, three years ago when my Defender 90 went in for it's initial oil-change I was charged £175 for an oil & filter change that took just 20-minutes to complete. To add insult to injury they then over-tightened the sump-plug and caused a leak which was only fixed after I threatened to instigate legal proceedings. When I later complained that the quality of the gearchange was not very good (in cold weather you have to miss out some gears completely as you just can't get the lever in) they said that LR were not interested until at least 10-15K miles had been covered. I commented that with the low mileage I do it would in all likelyhood be out of warranty by the time I reached that mileage. The service manager said that was too bad and there was nothing more he could do about it. Needless to say that with the expiry of the warranty I put synthetic oil in the gearbox (helps quite a bit) and do all my own servicing.

My local BMW dealer have done themselves out of my business by their slap-dash attitude and lack of concern.
When I picked up my 1150GS the last time it was in I found brake-fluid had overflowed from all the fluid reserviors and not been wiped away. As a chap who was also waiting for his bike commented, at least it proved that they had removed the covers to top up/replace the fluid! They have NEVER managed to fit the rear seat correctly, without fail it has always just been resting there ready to fall off at the first opertunity (I got into the habit of checking it after the first visit there) but how come I have never had this problem myself? Likewise queries about the poor performance of the rear brake were completely ignored and the throttle ballancing has never been done (I have had to take up the slack myself).

Ahhhh main dealers, don't you just love them?

 

[dragontest]

Main agents.... unless you are buying new from them they normally treat you like your second best.... As there is such little profit in anything not new, they can obtain massive discounts from the vehicle manufacturer if they hit certain sales targets. £250,000+ is not an uncommon figure.

(Had land rover's since 1983.. and motor bikes since before 1977)

 

[jimbo]

Similarities.
Yes both were once simple beasts that would go around the world.
Both have grown over complex and lost some of there purity of design.

 

[Arthurwg]

I loved my 1973 Series III. Bought new in London, drove it trans-Sahara and West Africa to Mombassa, Kenya, then by ship (Karanja) to Bombay, then back to Paris. Only problem was a bent front differential when I hit a ditch across the track in Niger while traveling at 50mph. Still, I drove it another 500 miles like that, before I found a used one to replace it. On the same trip I teamed up with a young UK woman riding an old R60 to Cape Town, carrying her fuel and helping to pick the bike up when she dropped it in a mud hole.

I wonder if the present LR and R1200GS would do the same trip without problems.