Hi folks, Just thought I would bring this to your attention. I was thinking of fitting the BMW metal rocker cover protectors, as fitted to the new GS 1200 Adventure, to my GS12. I enquired at my local friendly dealer, ( who will remain nameless in case the BMW Gestapo might whisk him away in the night). He strongly dissauded me from buying them because of a fundamental design flaw which causes more damage than protection. In fact he is actively encouraging people not to buy them.
If you look at how they are fitted they are mounted on to lugs on the cylinder head. One of his customers had them fitted and the bike fell over, no speed involved, just gravity from a standstill. The resulting bash snapped off the said lug on the cyclinder head!! Dealer contacted BMW whose response was, 'well he shouldn't have let the bike fall over' !!!!!. Dealer replaced cylinder head under warranty.
What a total naff set up. Needless to say not bothering with said items prefering just to fork out for a new rocker cover should the dreaded tumble happen!!
Adventure riders you are probable ok as you have engine bars fitted as primary protection.
To be honest Spagforth, don't think there's anything which you can fit to the bike which doesn't damage it in some way or another at somepoint.
I bought my TT engine bars for my my South America trip and the first time it went down heavily the bars bent into the cyclinder head and caused more damage than if I was simply using covers.
I know what your saying about the covers, the mounting points are all into the softer magnesium casing and I've already stripped the screw threads from one mounting point due to this problem.
It sucks as a design and the responce from BMW doesn't surprise me at all....the more they sell the more their attitude will harden.
