Consumer Reports

[Dr. Strangelove]

No, that is right on the mark. replace replace replace and never delve into the real cause. Talk about it on the fora, long threads titled "another XXX-XXXX thread," and rehash possible causes, couple of flames doubting the existence of the problem, and ultimately doing nothing . And then talk about all our excitemnt over the helium cooled r2400r with time travel option and tubeless tires and spoked wheels. Shiny things with a Roundel distract us very easily.

By replacing it repeatedly, it is shouting OUT LOUD that QC or manufacturing or design or something outside the realm of riding across country, or dealer service, something on the Munich end is amiss. And we drink the kool ade and bring it back to the dealer time after time for replacement until we finally sell the bike --and buy another BMW. The devil you don't know instead of the devil you know.
The fault, dear Brutus is both in our bikes and in ourselves.

Ask yourself, those of you that produce a product, if you had a failure rate or just a complaint rate like we have here, what would your company do? What would you do? What we often do here is manufacture fault in the consumer, and drink more Kool Ade, this time a "better" Kool Ade. If I had the failure rate of the clutch splines on the 1150 s or the fuel strips on later models, I would not be able to practice. FYI recall during anesthesia is about 1:25000 and death is higher than 1:10000, maybe 1:100000. And generally that happens in patients who are VERY sick. Can the R1200R say the same about anything? Can the Rt? The GS?
Legendary reliability = Resting on your laurels

[deilenberger]

I guess this is off subject but if I replaced the same component five times (and it wasn't a problem common to the model, ie: fuel strip) I would start to wonder if something else was causing the problem. As long as it's under warranty the dealer (tech) will just get the bike out of the shop. When the warranty is over the customer is at the mercy of the company as to whether they will pay, or the next owner gets stuck with it.

It's pretty much given that it's the actual part in this case Harry. My last failure was on installation - it never worked. Got my 7th one a week later.

As far as the warranty - my bike is the same age and miles as yours - and I haven't paid for a fuel strip yet, and I really don't expect to. They reliably fail at less than the 2 year parts/labor warranty BMW provides on every part replaced on the bike. First one failed under the initial warranty, each subsequent one has failed in less than a year. Cross-Country keeps them in-stock for me now. And the warranty goes with the part, not with the owner, so a subsequent owner could continue to get replacements as long as the failure interval is short enough.