Wilbers suspension - not good!

Initially I had problems on my first Ohlins on my 1150 in 2003.

It was bought secondhand and nearly new, but set up stock from the box
The preload O ring blew, 2 up and with luggage and the shock lost its oil.

I had it rebuilt, but KAIS said the spring was too weak for the load.

A heavier spring and rebuilt shock............no further problems

In 2005, when I bought my new 1150Adv, I ordered new Ohlins, with a 180nM spring on the rear and fitted at Pdi time.

20,000 miles and nearly 4 years later, the shocks are fine

Ohlins or WP have it in my book, you only get what you pay for..............BUT you have to know what you want and what you are buying and how you want it set up
 
Very interesting thread Margus, I was about to buy a Wilbers fitted with stiffer spring etc. for my trip to Mongolia and the 'Stans' in a few months.

Now I'm unsure what to do, the trip will be very tough on the bikes and a knackered shock is the last thing I need.

My present thoughts are, to use an OEM shock possibly with a stiffer spring or to investigate WP which is fitted to 3 of my other bikes and no problems despite hard use. But WP could be too expensive.
The OEM currently fitted has only done around 13k miles.

Ohlins?? Hmmm I'm not sure:confused::confused:

But from what I've seen here and I appreciate a Wilburs spokeman will disagree, the proof is in the pudding as they say, Wilburs is off my list of options unless I'm convinced otherwise.

Good luck with :)

Tim,

IMO stock is always the way to go if you look for trust/reliability over the racing-hype! BMW has paid loads of €€€ for engineers to make their products reliable by testing in real-world riding conditions. True, there's always faulty units, but certainly IMHO they've put a lot more effort into this aspect. While aftermarket suspension manufacturers only rave about their racing achievements on the race-track and theirs need a lot more service and tend to blow up noticably quicker in the real-world riding conditions.

Being stuck in third-world, my Öhlins buy this time was mainly based on last-minute chance and careful timing with worldwide holidays (Öhlins is a company situated in my neighbour country Sweden, so it was a quickish to transport one to Estonia where friends of mine delivered it to South-America with airplane w/o paying the outrageous 100% tax). Stock suspension costs outrageous money (100% tax on anything that's imported) here and I have to wait for ages to get it even in Estonia that would be miss to anyone to deliver it to me. But if I had time to wait, indeed I'd go for OEM Showa and added stronger spring (i.e. from Hyperpro) for 2upping+full luggage spec.

Now my main hopes for Öhlins are the following:
  • Does it hold better than the Wilbers?
  • If it doesn't and breaks as frequently as wilbers, will I be able to take advantage of their better dealer-network around the world?

We shall see...
 
What the feck is wrong with the stock strut.My first one done well over 120k before it was ditched and the only reason I have a Fournales on mine now,is that I'm seeing what they're like for my special(and 150k on,they're pretty fecking good)

How did we manage 25 years ago with a big C spanner and 3 or 5 settings for preload(only on posh bikes though)

Mini rant over:thumb2
 
What the feck is wrong with the stock strut.My first one done well over 120k before it was ditched and the only reason I have a Fournales on mine now,is that I'm seeing what they're like for my special(and 150k on,they're pretty fecking good)

How did we manage 25 years ago with a big C spanner and 3 or 5 settings for preload(only on posh bikes though)

Mini rant over:thumb2

In a nutshell:clap but we crave anodised alloy, brightly coloured springs no matter.....even electronic adjustment:eek::D
 
My 1150 got through three standard rear shocks in 12k. Two replaced under warranty I gave up after the third and fitted a Maxton.

I recently bought a Wilbers for my 80 g/s from Every accessory. It seems like a decent bit of kit, certainly rides well. Time will tell on how well it lasts. I can't believe Wilbers shocks are getting a hard time because a couple of people have had problems

Every accesory get the thumbs up as well for good friendly service. They'll get my money next time I need anything :thumb2

That wilbers shock in Margus's picture is the spitting image of a Technoflex shock. Anybody know if Technoflex and Wilbers are one and the same?
 
I had a wilbers on my F650 Dakar. Under heavy offroading the shock destroyed the shock linkage. Investigation showed Wilbers were using a poorly designed bracket different to the BMW stock (possibly a universal type) which allows the bolt to bend under heavy use, placing pressure directly onto the bearings.
 
Very interesting thread Margus, I was about to buy a Wilbers fitted with stiffer spring etc. for my trip to Mongolia and the 'Stans' in a few months.

Now I'm unsure what to do, the trip will be very tough on the bikes and a knackered shock is the last thing I need.

My present thoughts are, to use an OEM shock possibly with a stiffer spring or to investigate WP which is fitted to 3 of my other bikes and no problems despite hard use. But WP could be too expensive.
The OEM currently fitted has only done around 13k miles.

Ohlins?? Hmmm I'm not sure:confused::confused:

But from what I've seen here and I appreciate a Wilburs spokeman will disagree, the proof is in the pudding as they say, Wilburs is off my list of options unless I'm convinced otherwise.

Good luck with :)

Tim

I put Hyperpro springs on the standard shocks on my 1200ADV.

Much stiffer springs and around £65 a spring.
 
This is hard to figure. I have been fitting Wilbers to all makes of bikes for eleven years.
We have some big boys and girls here in South Africa and we ride the crap out of these bikes in some very testing conditions.
Add to this that very few customers follow the service rules and have them serviced every two years like they should and I can report an extremely low failure rate.
You can fit the Wilbers with confidence, they are not rubbish.
 


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