Stolen:A Winter's Day Ride.....

[Engineer]

I have ordered my 1200GS with plain ordinary non-servo/non-ABS brakes precisely because of all this servo failure 'weirdness'.

ABS brakes may well save you in extreme circumstances - but it seems to me that this benefit is more than cancelled by the poor reliability of the servos. A braking system MUST be reliable - there seems to have been too many reports of servo failures for this to be ignored. I wonder how many have failed?

 

[Engineer]

Oh come on!

I work for a well known telecommunications company and drive a mass-produced van. It has servo brakes and ABS.
My employer services it when they can be bothered.
The brakes have never failed.
It is not new technology, just teething troubles due to down-sizing the components.............

That car you drive has servo brakes without a doubt - Get a grip!

"Teething trouble" in a safety critical system is NOT acceptable. Safety critical components should have all the "teething troubles" sorted out BEFORE going into production.

 

[~Stef~]

From the look of that bike, it looks like it has no brakes.
I'd be carefull with that Dutch.

And if you look really closely, in the background, in Kirkcaldy, you will see a black Audi with about 100 black alarm wires coming out of every orifice.
My day stolen as well !!

I'll give ya 50 quid for it, take it off yer hands

 

[~Stef~]

Oh come on!

That car you drive has servo brakes without a doubt - Get a grip!

Cars have vacuum operated servos not electric.

 

[Pressurized]

Turbo ones don't.

I think. Perhaps. Maybe.

Hey, have you seen the size of a vacuum servo? It wouldn't look pretty, even on a GS.

 

[andy malton]

Re: Re: Brakes

You're in luck Andy............1200GS is available without ABS now and comes with plain jane hydraulic brakes............no Servo.

Dutch's experience is exactly why my Servo equipped 1150GS is now sold and bloody good riddance.

JimB, Swooper and myself were debating this yesterday @ Rainbow.

Thats good news Johnny,but I'll hang on to mine for a bit still.Andy

 

[Mr K]

"Teething trouble" in a safety critical system is NOT acceptable. Safety critical components should have all the "teething troubles" sorted out BEFORE going into production.

Hmmm, I agree and presumably they tested everything before going into production but would they sample every batch of components before using them?

My point which I failed to put over was, as servo and ABS systems are normal on cars and vans but not on motorcycles, are we making more of it than we would otherwise?

I know brake-failure shouldn't be trivialised and having had it happen with my bike, I was not very impressed, but should we really regard the servo/ABS system as some kind of "witch-craft"?

If components are defective they can be replaced. If the whole system is flawed, that would really be cause for concern.

 

[MikeO]

But servo brakes fitted to cars and vans produced a net improvement in braking - which is a positive thing - where is the improvement in braking produced by the introduction of the BMW Servo braking system? - Where's the progress?

Mike

 

[Mr K]

Does it improve braking.....or just reduce the human effort to attain it?

 

[schnauzer]

I'll give ya 50 quid for it

flippin heck.....£50 for Kircaldy....... far too much

 

[birdseye]

Cars have vacuum operated servos not electric.

Not sure what difference that makes. My wife had to drive a Citroen ZX into a wall to stop it when the brake servo failed on a steep hill. There might have been residual braking, but the pads were so hard she couldnt stop the car.

I dont see why BMW dont make the brakes fail safe ie if the servo doiesnt work, the brakes are fully applied. Servo pressure is needed to release the brakes like air brakes on trucks.

From personal experience in business, the change to supplying bikes without servo and abs is a classic German reaction. Never ever admit you are wrong. The customer is never right.

 

[MikeO]

I dont see why BMW dont make the brakes fail safe ie if the servo doiesnt work, the brakes are fully applied. Servo pressure is needed to release the brakes like air brakes on trucks.

What if your brakes failed when the bike was leaning into a bend, or on a slippery surface etc?

Mike

 

[Den]

I'll give ya 50 quid for it, take it off yer hands

Sorry Stef, all fixed now. De-immobilised and de-alarmed. Refreshingly simple now.

Anyone any use for 3 miles of 1mm black wire and several multiconnectors ?.
In the end, it actually only required 2 wires joined at the ign sw, and two joined at the starter relay. It was finding that out which was tricky.
Even washed it, looking loooovely.

 

[Tobers]

So who's going to be first to retrofit std hydraulic brakes to their 1200 then....

I quite like the idea of AP racing calipers and disks (discs?). The brakes on my Aprilia (Brembo goldline) are bloody stunning - never used the rear one cos it never works anyway - Italian nonsense

 

[Schtum]

I quite like the idea of AP racing calipers and disks (discs?).

The discs bit would be complicated by the fact that the BWM discs have no spiders, but bolt directly to the bosses on the front wheel.....

 

[~Stef~]

Sorry Stef, all fixed now. De-immobilised and de-alarmed. Refreshingly simple now..

Ok, Den you drive a hard bargain......£75 and you can keep the extra wiring

 

[bum125]

So who's going to be first to retrofit std hydraulic brakes to their 1200 then.

Has anyone compared the master cylinders & calipers on servo & non-servo GSs to see if they are the same? I know that I've already paid the extra money for servos & ABS, but if I could bypass everything with a couple of hoses & 4 hose fittings, the peace of mind would be worth it.

 

[Dutchman]

Return of the GS....

The GS has just been delivered back to me in Edinburgh.

The ABS unit has been replaced and the bike road tested by the dealer for 15 miles or so.....

I'm assuming all is well:the servo makes a noise now, when levers & pedals are operated........

No evidence of dealer induced damage & the bike was spotlessly clean & fully of petrol upon it's return!!

Thanks to everyone at John Clark Tayside in Dundee for excellent service, once again.....

Cheers

Dutch

 

[TheJoker]

Glad to hear she's back Dutch! Also glad to hear that you got excellent service, and plenty of petrol.