08-10-2013, 02:35 AM
(08-09-2013, 11:35 PM)Jim21680_imp Wrote: Well, despite my personal bad experience with BMW, there's no denying that just about all of their boxer twins (GS1200, etc) are thoroughly great bikes. There's just too much evidence to support that to say anything to the contrary. They're simple, durable, easy to work on, and will gladly take their owners 100,000 miles or more with just routine maintenance. It's easy to see why these are clearly BMW's trademark bike.
My F800ST had a vertical/parallel twin, built by an Austrian company called Rotax. BMW supplied everything else.
The best I can guess is that these two units were combined and rushed into production, without suitable time to work out the bugs (instead, they let the consumers do that). Sure, I can understand any new bike needing minor tweaks, but to have the pistons begin slapping the head on every single upstroke? That get's old quick!
A new bike should not have those kind of problems...and if they do, the company should own up to it and make it right. BMW was too proud for that.
I'm sure that that is true in the overwhelming majority of cases. But in the odd chance that the dry clutch oil seal springs a leak, I remember seeing in horrific photographic detail everything that is required to remove the transmission from the bike just to get to the oil seal (the entire back end of the bike has to come off).. yipes ! the sight of that really put me off.. If a shop were to do that job, it looks like about 6 hours of shop labor total (when they know what they are doing.. and of course, we hope that it happens so infrequently that they won't be practiced at it. say whaaa ?..)
That said, I'm saving funds for the day that the Harley will need a belt/pulley replacement, a job that I will not do myself... The time ($$$
to pull off all the primary drive and clutch assembly just to get to the counter shaft then put it all back together is going to be considerable.. at least that job is *certainly* well practiced at the shop though.. I'm sure that when the worn belt service customer comes in, they see the dollar signs just rolling on in...crazy bike design hall of famerz....