I was just wondering if all these FD failures I read about are on ALL year LT's, or on the pre 05's. I've yet to read about failures on the o5 thru 09s.

Most of them were in the early years but failures have happened on the later bikes also, just not as many it seems. I don't have any stats handy.

I think it's possibly more the case that as the root cause of failure was understood, more of the later model FD's were caught prior to catastrophic failure. My 05 was over-shimmed when I dismantled it around 36,000 kms. I think even some 09 FD's have also been found the have too much pre-load, so BMW never did find that technician on the assembly line and "eliminate"him (or maybe her).👎

My 2007 failed the pinion seal at 27,000 or so. Tom Cutter did a full rebuild with new large bearing, seals, etc. I don't know if he checked if mine was originally shimmed incorrectly, and I didn't think to ask him. He returned the original parts, but I admit to not taking a close look at them.

So, I can't say I had the traditional large bearing failure, but the pinion seal failure is just as annoying and inconvenient and takes special tools to replace so I hired Tom to do mine.

The 05 and up are more prone to the smaller taper bearing spinning on the spigot opposite the big bearing. This can be detected early by looking for a darkening of the drained drive oil (shows aluminum wear). But they have had a few big bearing failures as well. Just drain the drive often and inspect the oil/magnet for darkening or shiny bits.

My 09 just lost a bearing at 57 k.

Over shimmed was the cause..