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Poll...How many folks have had final drive problems

44K views 126 replies 70 participants last post by  kamakazi 
#1 ·
I get tired of people telling me how great Beemers are except for the dreaded final drive problems.
I have asked a few different service managers about the reports on the Internet that claims the Beemers are notorious for final drive problems.
They keep telling me that it is very rare and to ignore the crap your read on the Internet.
I would like to get an idea of the percentage of Beemers on this forum that have had final drive repairs?
Thanks,
Ellie
 
#2 ·
missusfinz said:
I get tired of people telling me how great Beemers are except for the dreaded final drive problems.
I have asked a few different service managers about the reports on the Internet that claims the Beemers are notorious for final drive problems.
They keep telling me that it is very rare and to ignore the crap your read on the Internet.
I would like to get an idea of the percentage of Beemers on this forum that have had final drive repairs?
Thanks,
Ellie
I second your question.
 
#3 ·
missusfinz said:
I get tired of people telling me how great Beemers are except for the dreaded final drive problems.
I have asked a few different service managers about the reports on the Internet that claims the Beemers are notorious for final drive problems.
They keep telling me that it is very rare and to ignore the crap your read on the Internet.
I would like to get an idea of the percentage of Beemers on this forum that have had final drive repairs?
Thanks,
Ellie
For starters, click here and read 'some' info.
 
#4 ·
A related and important question should also be about how your bike is set up. The FD failures seem a lot more prevelant in the Iron Butt style of riders. I have a strong suspicion that this is the straw that breaks the camel's back when tolerances get stacked.

For the record, I ride about 1000 miles per month, almost all of it commuting and have not had a FD issue on any of my 3 BMWs (2004 1150GS, 2007 GSA and 2007 RT).
 
#5 ·
Ellie - I think there is a poll function you can use to get a count like the one used recently for surveying the age of riders. I have not had any problems with my '08 RT.
 
#9 ·
7seas10 said:
In 19 years of riding GSs (100, 1100, 1150) and never, but not even once had a problem with final drive.

Hopefully I won't happen with the new 2011 RT (I am about to get it in 8 weeks). .02
No problem with my 06 RT that had about 63000 miles.
No problem with the F800GS, about 23000 miles (it does have a rear drive, different design :) )
No problem with the 2011 RT, too few miles to form an opinion yet. :bmw:
 
#10 ·
No problem on my 99 Lt with 65,000 miles. However...Im so afraid its going to happen I dont ever drive it any longer. I just sit on it with the engine running and listen to the tunes.
Okay, the last part is absurb...but so is the expressed fear of breaking down. All mechanical devices break down. I bought it, I will ride it and if she breaks I will fix it. Two percent failure I can live with...
 
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#14 ·
R1200RG said:
11,365 miles on my 2008 and no problems, final drive or other. Oh, one problem, I now have too much fun riding.
No problem here..... ;)
 
#16 ·
I'm one of the unfortunate ones that had a final drive fail on my LT while on a trip,
in a word, it sucked, I got it fixed ($400) and continued on a ten state trip the next day,

That was five years and almost a 100K on LT's ago, no problems since,

so..... shit happens, this is BMW # 6 for me and by far the best bike I've ever had,
you ain't gonna hear none of that pussy whining from this rider.
 
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#17 ·
A few months ago (?) I was doing the push/pull on the rear tire thing and thought my final drive was going - felt (?) some freeplay.

Well let me tell you... 1,500 miles or whatever later it's... the same or not even any play. It's fine. Think what I felt was a loose elbow or shoulder.

And boy I love those heated grips and seats! :dance:
 
#18 ·
I spoke with a local independent BMW mechanic who operates his own business about the final drive failures. His initial response was "stop reading the crap on the internet". He then went on to say that yes, he has seen a couple final drive failures, but not at the alarming rate, implied on the internet. I just purchased my second LT, my first a '99 that I sold with 77K and never had a final drive failure. None of my friends with or who have owned LT's in the past, had a failure either. So my take is to be aware that it can and has happened, but not to be overly stressed over it, or to not buy an LT because "the final drive might fail"
 
#20 ·
I have an 08 RT with 36k on the clock and at 28 had a final drive go out but it limped home with me and was fixed under warranty, same with bad rotors and a fuel strip failure. So whatever can go wrong usually does as I ride hard and a LOT over 24k per year and so you wanna play you gotta pay.............as for durability of the final drives, there is indeed a flaw in the design or none of them would fail so make of that what you will it is way more than the 4 percent quoted . Still the best Sport Touring or GS bikes on the planet so I probably will never switch to another mark.
 
#22 ·
Bummer...
final drive failure
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#23 ·
cliffy109 said:
A related and important question should also be about how your bike is set up. The FD failures seem a lot more prevelant in the Iron Butt style of riders. I have a strong suspicion that this is the straw that breaks the camel's back when tolerances get stacked.
Hmm. I guess you need to explain to me what you mean here. Are you implying that if I put a full fuel cell over my rear seat area - that weighs 35 lbs when full - causes FD failures - yet someone dragging a passenger that weighs 200 lbs all the time doesn't? Are you joking? What "tolerances" do you think we're "stacking"???

Here's my R12RT that's a rally bike. Maybe you can enlighten me on where I'm "stacking" anything.



The FD failures are due to a manufacturing issue. It doesn't have squat to do with Iron Butt riders, other than the fact that we put more miles on the bikes than the average rider does. Of course, that does have a lot to do with the fact that as a rule, an Iron Butt rider that puts 40 or more thousand miles a year on his bike is more likely to see that failure than the guy that rarely sees more than 5 thousand miles a year.
 
#24 ·
I'm not an IBA rider, but I do ride more than some. My 05 RT's final drive was replaced (not under warranty) at 72,000 miles. I ride solo 99.9% of the time, so I don't see mine as a weight issue. Longest single ride was a 12,000 mile ride to and from Alaska two years ago. Longest mileage day was a little over 600 miles.

IMO, if the failure rate is anywhere near 4%, which has been reported from some studies, that rate is much too high for what we pay for these machines. Even a 1% failure rate for cars is HUGE, so I do see this as a real problem. And since most of the weight of the bike is over that one wheel, should the drive seize, it's a definite safety issue.

Just my experience and thoughts.
 
#25 ·
Relax Mr. Aikens. You sound as if I attacked you. I did not. I am not an engineer but the term stacking tolerances means that a series of small things add up to a big thing. The implication is that there probably is not just one little thing that leads to the FD failures. The fuel tank by itself likely wouldn't do it. High miles by itself likely wouldn't do it. Extended time at a single speed by itself wouldn't do it. Any number of things in isolation doesn't seem to be enough to cause the failure. Taken together, it is obvious that something does (or did) happen.

Like I said... I am not an expert. I do find it interesting that when probed, the "experts" to whom I have spoken agree that the "hard" riders seem to be the ones who experience the problems. Its not that the problem shows up at 40,000 miles. It seems just seems to happen to those riders who will eventually put the big miles on the bikes. I can't tell you why that is the case. My post was only meant to add to the discussion in trying to find a commonality between those with failures.
 
#26 · (Edited)
Check with the LT folks

OK, you guys, before you start hitting each other with Final Drives over the head, I suggest you visit the LT section of the forum. The big bikes seem to have most of the failures - as a matter of fact, my previous LT did experience it as well.

I do mean here the failure of the crown-wheel bearing of the "classic" Paralever, which is a very severe incident - not the side seal leak on the new-style inverted Paralever of R1200 bikes, which is just a minor inconvenience (and yes, I experienced that, too).

Faced with the high probability of failure, LT owners are understandably anxious and a tremendous amount of related posts in that forum section attests to that.

Several forum members, notably CharlieVT, investigated this at depth, building specialized equipment and developing techniques to measure internal tolerances.

The current concensus is that the problems were caused by wrong preload of the big bearing on a long production run of the final drives. This appears to be confirmed by postmortems performed on failed drives by CharlieVT and by a few other forum members.

So, the bottom line is:
- If you do not have an early 2000's LT, your chances of failure are very low (not zero; after all, things do break).
- The problem is an OEM failure, not caused by overloading, long distance, etc.
- The repairs by most BMW shops, consisting of bearing replacement, did not correct the underlying cause - wrong shimming - and thus resulted in repeated failures of the same housing. Talking of BMW shops and their service managers, they always maintained that they never heard of the problem - at the same time, when I needed replacement, a big North-East dealer 'coincidentally' had nine drives in stock.

So, missusfinz, relax, enjoy your ride. It's not so bad as you were told. I think of the issue similarly to the electrical system lore surrounding Brit cars. I could tell you many Lucas stories I experienced over the years, but my present car is a modern and reliable machine - and yet, I do like to laugh about it sometimes. Part of the fun. Picking on BMW's drives is fun, too.

I am not worried - I actually bought another early 2000's LT. Of course, I do have a spare FD in the garage, rebuilt by CharlieVT, ready to be shipped out to me in an emergency. :)
 
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