Brake Discs - reasonable rate of wear
Hi, thanks to all of you for your comments.
In the spirit of information sharing, which I assume is the main purpose of this forum (or is it for witty comments?), I'll address some of the questions/issues you've raised.
Yes 180,000 kilometres. Those of you familiar with Australia will know it's large and mostly flat with long distances between cities, towns and places of interest. Not much need for braking, and the boxer engine does most of that too. I avoid riding in cities as much as possible (too dangerous and frustrating) and I've done most of the few hilly twisty roads on my previous bike. Besides, they generally carry too much traffic and are too heavily policed to be much fun. So it's the great outback for me. Until recently, I was on Warfarin, a blood thinner, and I've stayed mostly on bitumen to minimise the risk of a fall. All in all, pretty good riding circumstances for low wear and tear.
I've had absolutely no issues with the driveshaft. In fact, the only significant issue was failure of the fuel pump early on. Replaced under warranty within 24 hours and, touch wood, fine ever since. All other issues relatively minor. I got about 1000 hours of use from one tyre sensor (replaced under warranty) and about 2000 hours from the other. Pity you have to replace the whole unit and not just the battery.
I generally don't use the rear brake on its own. I prefer to rely on the linked proportional front/rear brake combo (ABS II?) - I figure it'll do a better job with the rear brake than I can. On a bike like this, I see the main use of the rear brake is for down hill riding on loose surfaces (with ABS & TC both off), and perhaps for washing off speed in overcooked corners. So that might explain the comparative low wear rate of that.
I'm no longer rich, but my dealer probably is now. But seriously, I'm retired, addicted to riding (after a 30 year break) and unfortunately getting towards the end of my riding career. Do it now!
Have I got the information I sought? Yes and no. Based on comments above and some asking around, I get the feeling that 2-3 sets of brake pads per disc is typical,. This confirmed my expectations. Why that has been different in my case, I still don't know. However, I'm beginning to wonder whether BMW are too conservative with their tolerances, for safety reasons only, of course.
By the way, the quote for genuine BMW front and rear discs and pads came to somewhat over Aus. $2000 (over 1200 UK Pounds?) plus labour. That's what really got my attention. I've decided to go for aftermarket for about 1/3rd of that.
