This would be a handy thread if it had people saying what bike they have, how many miles the have done and if they had any problems.
All these things go the same way, when someone mentions their bike has been anything other than faultless a crowd of "blinkered's" jump on them and tell them thier wrong the bike is great they sell more GS models than there are grains of sand and everyone does rocketship mileage on them
If just the straight answers were here with each respondant entitled to his opinion then it would be a useful insight, however I am far more confused.
Anyway my '08 model which had 6k when purchased 6 weeks ago - must have been clocked as they all do at least 50k a year don't they
And in about 900 miles has not gone wrong, so they ust be faultless and perfect, great
What is clear is they have had several show stopper common faults EWS / FPC / FD and a few other more typical niggles with other bits and pieces, corrosion etc.
Most bikes have faults but not too many show stoppers, in 3 years on a ZZR 1400 forum nobody complained about their bike leaving them stranded (a couple of punctures was all i have seen) maybe the forum was smaller, but generally the bikes do not let people down. I did 3 euro-tours on mine and had no worries about going away for 3,000 miles.
With the GS I am wondering if I need to carry an FPC and EWS and have the FD stripped and inspected before setting off, rightly or wrongly I am genuinely concerned this bike may ruin my holiday.
Similarly I am concerned I may regret buying the bike, I bought it because it was great fun and a wonderfully conceived machine, not so sure about reliable and well built, I am sure other owners and potential owners have similar concerns.
Even within this forum it is only really the 1200's that have this reputation and endless reliability threads, maybe it is not as bad as many people fear, but it is obviously worse than other BMW models and many Jap bikes.
For each person who defends it as being "as good as anything else" there is someone else who has been stranded more times in a short ownership period on a GS than on every other bike they have owned put together.
Maybe 95% are very reliable, but really the figure should be above 99%, EWS and FPC failures should have been resolved quickly with free parts to every owner, not still rumbling on 6 years after they were discovered.
The FD is obviously another big problem, but as other bikes do not suffer it must be down to the 1200 implementation or quality of components / assembly, again BMW should have resolved this in a lot less than 6 years and provide goodwill to any low mileage failures, and by low I mean under 60k as an FD should really last longer than 3 chains.
Cannot say if I am happy with bike yet, if after 12 months and a holiday I have no issues I would be happy, but if it then failed 3 times the following year I would not be chuffed.
Satisifaction can also be a moving target, I would expect the bike to last me another 5 years and hit 40k with no major troubles, even then I would not expect the FD to be buggered.
I will post back around 2015 with a definitive answer, but for now is it worth carrying an EWS and FPC when on tour?
All these things go the same way, when someone mentions their bike has been anything other than faultless a crowd of "blinkered's" jump on them and tell them thier wrong the bike is great they sell more GS models than there are grains of sand and everyone does rocketship mileage on them
If just the straight answers were here with each respondant entitled to his opinion then it would be a useful insight, however I am far more confused.
Anyway my '08 model which had 6k when purchased 6 weeks ago - must have been clocked as they all do at least 50k a year don't they
And in about 900 miles has not gone wrong, so they ust be faultless and perfect, great
What is clear is they have had several show stopper common faults EWS / FPC / FD and a few other more typical niggles with other bits and pieces, corrosion etc.
Most bikes have faults but not too many show stoppers, in 3 years on a ZZR 1400 forum nobody complained about their bike leaving them stranded (a couple of punctures was all i have seen) maybe the forum was smaller, but generally the bikes do not let people down. I did 3 euro-tours on mine and had no worries about going away for 3,000 miles.
With the GS I am wondering if I need to carry an FPC and EWS and have the FD stripped and inspected before setting off, rightly or wrongly I am genuinely concerned this bike may ruin my holiday.
Similarly I am concerned I may regret buying the bike, I bought it because it was great fun and a wonderfully conceived machine, not so sure about reliable and well built, I am sure other owners and potential owners have similar concerns.
Even within this forum it is only really the 1200's that have this reputation and endless reliability threads, maybe it is not as bad as many people fear, but it is obviously worse than other BMW models and many Jap bikes.
For each person who defends it as being "as good as anything else" there is someone else who has been stranded more times in a short ownership period on a GS than on every other bike they have owned put together.
Maybe 95% are very reliable, but really the figure should be above 99%, EWS and FPC failures should have been resolved quickly with free parts to every owner, not still rumbling on 6 years after they were discovered.
The FD is obviously another big problem, but as other bikes do not suffer it must be down to the 1200 implementation or quality of components / assembly, again BMW should have resolved this in a lot less than 6 years and provide goodwill to any low mileage failures, and by low I mean under 60k as an FD should really last longer than 3 chains.
Cannot say if I am happy with bike yet, if after 12 months and a holiday I have no issues I would be happy, but if it then failed 3 times the following year I would not be chuffed.
Satisifaction can also be a moving target, I would expect the bike to last me another 5 years and hit 40k with no major troubles, even then I would not expect the FD to be buggered.
I will post back around 2015 with a definitive answer, but for now is it worth carrying an EWS and FPC when on tour?
- I suspect most makes would struggle after 80k miles
