Shaft Drive Replacement Cost? V BMW warrenty cost per year

[vertically challenged]

Went out over the weekend and test road both the GS12 and the ADV models... Adventure came out tops ... so now that I know what I want just need to get the pennies sorted out!!

The advice that I'm after is that with all the press on this site both good and bad about the issues with these bikes (and has been discussed quite a bit..) I was wondering if to get a bike with a BMW warranty still going (looking at buying second hand private) so that this can be extended 'just in case' the drive shaft goes 'Bang' or just buy one private without warranty and if the drive shaft bearings 'give up' sort it out then myself...
I know there are other advantages of the warranty such as recovery etc, but I've already got that covered..

Just wondered on the cost of replacing the driveshaft 'V' paying the warranty over a number of years...

Any advice would be great before I take the plunge

 

[Belizibub]

i bought my GS from an independant dealer, no warranty at all, called up BMW and had warranty slapped on it, only thing they said was i couldnt claim for a month.

However, even though i checked the bike over, i failed to see a well covered over a hole in the final drive,(metal shaving held in by the seal, which fell apart once the seal was removed) which wouldnt of been covered under warranty, so paid out to get it repaired, total cost £1061 inc labour.

So pay the warranty and ride worry free.

 

[patzx12]

My 06 1200GSA FD is showing the first stages of failure at 17500 miles.
I will be rebuilding it myself. BMW would probably contribute to the repair but the nearest dealer is a 320 mile round trip away and it's not worth the hassle.
Its only a couple of bearings anf some seals.
I will be posting information on this when I get around to doing the job.
My pre BMW ZX12R chain and sprockets would still be in tip top condition at 17500 miles.

 

[ebbo]

My 06 1200GSA FD is showing the first stages of failure at 17500 miles.
I will be rebuilding it myself. BMW would probably contribute to the repair but the nearest dealer is a 320 mile round trip away and it's not worth the hassle.
Its only a couple of bearings anf some seals.
I will be posting information on this when I get around to doing the job.
My pre BMW ZX12R chain and sprockets would still be in tip top condition at 17500 miles.

What’s the symptoms, it doesn’t look particularly oily in the picture? (well ok, it is a bit)

 

[patzx12]

That slight mist is a seal on the way out and when I spin the wheel i can detect the slightest whoosh-whoosh noise when my other BMW's are completly silent.
It is important to fix the FD at the early stage of failure if i continued to run the needle roller could break up and the bits would munch up the whole FD.

 

[Deleted account 211025001]

You could always buy yourself a spare FD.

I got one off ebay for £150. The intention being that it will be used to keep me on the road should the one on the bike fail and need rebuilding (which I aim to do myself - looking forward to your write up patzx12 ).

Andres

 

[karnevil]

I have the extended warranty with breakdown recovery,bike is showing 15550 miles.Since my original warranty expired and i started the monthly payment extended one(£33.00/Month)I have had the following.
I think I have had my monies worth.


1 FPC
1 Puncture recovery.
1 Gearbox to swingarm robber seal.
1 FD Seal
1 Gearbox seal.

Its a no brainer as far as I am concered well worth it.

 

[vertically challenged]

Thanks for the replies gents....
Looking forward to the write up PatZX12, if you could do some photo's as well I think it'd help alot of people
Oil mist - so this is the first sign of failure.. good to know

Belizibub- didn't know you could get a new warranty from BMW after the original one had run out.... mind you I think the small print would be something to read carefully.

Are the FD's identical on both the GS and GS Adventure ?

 

[Pukmeister]

Pat, before you rush in with a hot spanner in your hand, try cleaning carefully under the lip of the seal with the corner of a piece of paper:

My rear drive lip seal leaked a tiny bit of oil when hot. I removed the plastic trim ring, and there was a bit of dirt and grit beneath it. I cleaned it then wiped under the knife edge lip of the rubber seal with a piece of paper, and the seal bedded down and has not leaked since (despite a couple of thousand miles riding).

Obviously if you do this and it keeps leaking you'll need to change the seal.

If my seal leaks again in the future, I will drill into its backing ring and use a slide hammer and self-tappers to pull the old seal out and drift in a new one. I would have to make up some special tooling to strip the FD unit down, plus all the aggro with shimming up the crownwheel etc afterwards so I'm reluctant to do so unless the bearings show signs of failure.

As for extending the BMW warranty.....my bike is an early 2004 model and if I had paid for the warranty cover I would be well past the cost of a final drive unit or ABS modulator by now.

 

[VAL. H.]

My 06 1200GSA FD is showing the first stages of failure at 17500 miles.
I will be rebuilding it myself. BMW would probably contribute to the repair but the nearest dealer is a 320 mile round trip away and it's not worth the hassle.

Its only a couple of bearings anf some seals.

I will be posting information on this when I get around to doing the job.
My pre BMW ZX12R chain and sprockets would still be in tip top condition at 17500 miles.

I don't think you'll be able to service the FD yourself.


When my FD was replaced under warranty, it was a non serviceable sealed part.

Is it now possible to get the tools to do the job yourself?

Would be well worth asking the question of your dealer before attempting to pull it apart IMO.

I was lucky enough to get hold of a new unused FD for £75.00 which I'll be keeping just in case mine fails again.


Val.

 

[Belizibub]

Belizibub- didn't know you could get a new warranty from BMW after the original one had run out.... mind you I think the small print would be something to read carefully.

Its exactly the same extended warranty as you get from a BMW dealer buying a second hand bike, no issues with the small print at all.

 

[Deleted account 211025001]

I don't think you'll be able to service the FD yourself.


When my FD was replaced under warranty, it was a non serviceable sealed part.

.

Not sure how accurate the following is but my understanding was, in the early days, the dealers did not have the 'factory' tool to remove the seal and / or couldn't be arsed as it was a warranty job and easier to replace the whole unit

In my experiance self tappers are good for getting seals out and if a bearing needs replacing that's not usually much harder to do - where there's a will there's a way

Andres

 

[cookie]

Not sure how accurate the following is but my understanding was, in the early days, the dealers did not have the 'factory' tool to remove the seal and / or couldn't be arsed as it was a warranty job and easier to replace the whole unit

that's what i heard too.

i think the outer seal can be replaced in a few minutes by drilling it.

i'm wondering how hard complete disassembly can be? wouldn't have thought there'd be any need to reshim crownwheel and pinion unless you have to change them anyway.
i've done it on guzzis. bit of a black art i think, but doable.

 

[(RIP) Bobble]

I had a 400 mile old loner bike the other week and it had more oil around the seal than the photo above I just thought it was a normal thing on 12's?

 

[ebbo]

From the few pictures I’ve see of the inside of a 1200 FD the crown wheel small roller bearing just floats on the hollow shaft, it doesn’t look to be a tapered roller or positively located in any way.

If that’s so, it means the large output bearing is not shimmed to produce a preload between the two bearings, but it maybe shimmed in to the FD housing to locate it securely. it would also explain why its allowed a small amout of movment measured at the wheel rim, it has a little play in it.

These are just assumptions from what I’ve seen from pictures, anyone got any thoughts or further knowledge?

 

[ebbo]

Did a bit more research last night on the 1200FD and found this write up by Anton Largiader. Here’s what he says,

“the small end once again has a needle bearing, so the ring gear bearing cannot be preloaded. Axial position of the ring gear is now controlled entirely by the ball bearing at the wheel, and the needle bearing does not (and cannot) contribute any axial load due as a result of the weight of the bike. Those axial loads on the main ball bearing, therefore, are eliminated. Furthermore, there are only two clearances to shim: the pinion and the backlash.
That ball bearing is held in the cover, and the backlash is controlled by positioning the cover with shims. Without preload on the ring gear, the inherent play in the bearings can be felt as a tiny bit of looseness in the wheel. This is normal; BMW specifies that up to 1mm of play can be measured at the rim before a final drive is considered defective.”

Source: http://www.bmwra.org/otl/finaldrive/