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NHTSA opens inquiry on BMW final drive failures

rritterson

rritterson

wish I was the bike
Joined
Mar 2, 2005
Location
SF
Moto(s)
None now :( Many previously.
Crossposted from ADV rider, which is a crosspost from an Iron Butt forum:

Thought some of you might not see this elsewhere, so I'm putting it here too.

After over 145 individual complaints filed between April 2001 and August 2011, the NHSTA has finally opened its first official investigation into the failure of crown gear bearings on BMW models equipped with the Paralever style final drive. NHSTA investigation DP12001 opened 1/20/12 is centered on 1999-2005 K1200LTs for now. But, if the findings are what we all believe they will be, the scope of the investigation should be expanded. I found the only way to get NHSTA to listen and focus was to pepper its director, David Strickland, with repeat letters as well as inquiries from WA Senator Patty Murray who chairs the subcommittee over funding for the NHSTA. If you have had a final drive failure on your Paralever equipped BMW, and have NOT already reported it to the NHSTA, I urge you do it now.

You will need your VIN, (est.) date of failure and mileage. State your model as well. While they should be able to identify from VIN, their data was wrong 50% of the time. Specify if gear oil leaked.

www.safercar.gov

or call (888) 327-4236

or mail to:

NHSTA

Office of Defects Investigation (NVS-210)

West Building

1200 New Jersey Ave SE

Washington DC 20590


In your complaint, select "Power Train" as the component and reference that you have had the same failure as described in ODI No. 10439549, and currently being investigated under Campaign DP12001.

Send an email to your Congressman and US Senator to follow up on your behalf as well.

Chris Cimino
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This should be interesting. FWIW, I owned two Paralever bikes, and experienced no failures, but a good friend had two failures on the same bike. If anything, he took better care of his bike than I did mine. It will be interesting to see just how prevalent these failures really are.
 
Waiting for all the BMW guys come yelling that no one knows anything about BMW's and to stop spreading false reliability rumors we pulled out of our asses.

Why doesn't BMW just fix those 145 bikes. Doesn't seem that much worse that all the bad press and $ they have to spend on this now.
 
ALANRIDER7 said:
I think they should study the problem for another DECADE before doing anything. :rolleyes
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Where is the like button? 145 failures over 10 years? This is a problem, or just whiney BMW owners?
 
Interesting. I heard that the failures were due to improper bearing fit and preload. And I also heard that the problem was made worse by the fact that you couldn't open up the housings easily and change the lube. It'll be interesting to see where this goes.
 
theAmazingKickstand said:
Waiting for all the BMW guys come yelling that no one knows anything about BMW's and to stop spreading false reliability rumors we pulled out of our asses.

Why doesn't BMW just fix those 145 bikes. Doesn't seem that much worse that all the bad press and $ they have to spend on this now.
Click to expand...
It was a bean counter decision to not fix those bikes out-of-warranty. In this case, I think the bean counters win again. 10 years for an investigation?

BMW has repeatedly changed the final drive oil change service interval, the recommended oil, AND the recommended spline lube.

If memory serves, the final drive oil service interval changed from lifetime (READ: 100K miles), to 36K, to 24K to the current 12K interval.

To make matters worse, the final drive only got a drain plug in 2007! Prior you had to remove the rear brake caliper, rear wheel, rear torque bar, and lower the final drive to drain it. http://www.motorcycleinfo.co.uk/res...Qs/FD Oil Change/Final_drive_oil_change17.jpg

Compound the problem with the final drive spine lube changes. Use a high moly content lube (like Honda Moly 60). Period. Cheap lube will let the splines overheat, fracture and shear.

Full disclosure: I've owned four BMW cars and three BMW bikes. At 34K miles, the X5 had a transmission slip twice in San Francisco on a hill with my wife driving. It went right to the shop for a new (warrantied) transmission. No bike final drives have failed.
 
That's just dumb, everyone knows that the vibrations caused by waving at other riders are what causes the failures :loco
 
hayabusafiend said:
BMW has repeatedly changed the final drive oil change service interval, the recommended oil, AND the recommended spline lube.
Click to expand...

They've also changed the recommended oil level. IIRC it used to be 220mL and is now 150, but I can't keep track. In 2010 or 2011 the final drive got a vent on it too.

It's obvious from the sheer number of changes BMW has made that they are aware of the problems. I think what made it tricky for owners is that they never reduced the problem to a "Do X-->Grenade, Do Y-->Happy Owner" type formula. The failure pattern was random.
 
The article states "145 individual complaints". The number of failures is likely much much higher as not all failures will be reported/recorded as complaints.

That said, I am 19k into my 2006 1200GS, I changed the FD and trans fluid recently and used Honda moly on the splines, everything looked great :fingerscrossed
 
2001 K1200RS here.

In September the rear end bearing failed at 84K. (The grooved bearing developed a bit of play, brought to my attention by an unexplained ABS fault waring..)

Swapped the rear end out for a "spare" I had. Took less than two hours to do.

Rebuilt original and have it waiting as my current spare. I'm at 93K and the spare is good so far.

And, I think that link in the OP should be www.safercar.gov not some clickly org site.
 
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