BMW R1200R R1150R/T F800 K1200R R1100R/T R1250R RnineT Message Board

builtforcomfort wrote: I believe the comments made above speak for themselves and reinforce the notion I have that some brand specific forums are nothing more than marketing tools for the manufacturer. Don in an earlier statement asserted that BMW marketing folks are monitoring this forum and that they have made deals with unhappy customers involving non-disclosure contracts. In other words if you keep your mouth shut about a problem and don't advertise it to the world, as I have, they'll take care of you quietly. I suspect this sort of thing may be going on on other forums.

You have no idea how absolutely wrong you are. This forum a marketing tool for BMW? I don't think so.. and if you want to cast aspersions - do them in plain English. Name another forum that is a marketing tool for BMW..

I have never been one to shut up about something that's wrong. If the "owners" of this forum don't like me telling the truth about this problem or any other problems that may arise in the future then they should ban me from the forum. However, if they do then every legitimate BMW owner on this forum and any others I can find will hear about it and the Forum will be exposed for what it really is. Think about it. I've been threatened because I've told the truth about a real problem BMW doesn't want too many of you to know about.

Sounds like paranoia to me. Did *I* threaten you somehow? I have nothing to do with this forum except as a paying member (which you can be also if you actually want to support and participate in the forum.) Did BMW threaten you because you don't like their turn-signal buttons? I really suspect they really could care less.

I think you're here with an agenda - and I hate to see what is a friendly forum get caught in the middle of it.

Your threats to expose this forum "for what it really is" just seem like plain old paranoia, or the refusal to accept that most other people really don't care what you don't like about the R12R - we're pretty damn happy with ours. Luckily - when someone acts this way in one forum, he generally has acted the same way in others, and becomes known for it - and gains the exact amount of respect he deserves.

BTW - I don't hide behind a screen name, and most of the other people here don't either. There is a reason for that. As you would say "Think about it."

This is not an intermittant problem. It happens EVERY time the bike is cold.

I don't know what kind of bikes you've been riding but I've never had this happen with any other bike I've owned.

Just read all the suggestions from others on this thread about the tricks they use to get it in gear. I don't see why any of us should put up with it on a new $15,000 motorcycle.

As one of those who gave a suggestion for getting into gear while stopped, I must say that this has happened to me probably twice among hundreds of stops so far. Overall the transmission on this bike is worlds better than on my previous bike ('99 R1100R) and is a significant improvement over the Guzzi I was considering prior to my purchasing this bike.

This 1st gear thing happen to me yesterday and the day before and the day before that.............etc. I just double pump the clutch and like magic, it goes into 1st gear. After the bike warms up, no problem at all. I love this bike, I love my Kawasaki, I love my Harley. Oh hell, I love riding anything with two wheels.

I think you have every right to express your opinion, Builtforcomfort. No problem with that.

AND you also, here and now, have the opportunity to listen to the responses. Even, to consider them.

The actual mechanical reasons for the transmission's characteristics, stemming from its design, have been explained.

Some strategies that we riders have shared to accommodate these characteristics have been graciously shared.

Yet you persist in seeing this design and its consequences as a flaw.

So now, it appears, you have arrived at another point of choice:

a) Practice the above techniques until they become second nature and you don't have to think about them anymore

or

b) Make all other BMW riders as well as the manufacturer wrong, because YOU have to "put up with" something that "should" be otherwise on a $15,000 machine, and you have chosen to focus on it every time you ride until you sell the POS machine, and end up being right, right, dead right.

Hint: one of the tunnels has more probability of having cheese in it.

By the way, I prefer the unified switch gear of my Honda, but, again, habits can actually change. Even at my age. Thanksgiving.

Happy riding,
Bill

builtforcomfort wrote:I'm amazed at how forgiving/understanding everyone is about the first gear shifting issue. I guarantee that if this was your everyday transportaion ( car/truck) and you had this issue you'd be complaining to the new car/truck dealer about it.

Reading this brought back memories of a 1930's Chevy pickup truck a friend restored...

Square-cut gears. (Not helical cut).
No synchronizers anywhere.
Had to double-clutch to down shift AND double-clutch to upshift.
Every gear.
Every time.

But that tranny was STRONG!
And my friend shifted it like butter.
When I tried, let's just say it wasn't pretty

If one didn't "understand and forgive" that tranny, the truck didn't move

Paranoid? I don't think so. If I've got the wrong impression about this forum ( which I doubt) I got it in part from you Don. See his quote below from another thread. As far as being threatened... I'll let the those reading Don's other quote below about the lack of free speech and "enforced quietly behind the scenes" decide if it was a threat or not. I didn't start this to get into it with Don and some others. My reason was to see how many R1200R owners have the same first gear issue and what we could do collectively. Obviously the "owners" ( Don's term) of this forum are going to use any means to stop that from happening including personal attacks on me. Pathetic.


"there is no "right" of free speech on an Internet forum. You are allowed to discuss what the owner of the forum allows. We 'muricans tend to get over excited by any thought that there is a place where we can't speak our minds - but there are, and sometimes you just gotta choke it back and go with the flow. But enough on that.. the standards of behavior here are pretty clear and enforced quietly behind the scene."




"Well - in that case - BMW marketing is smart. I can promise you they DO monitor the larger BMW forums, both car and bike. It's done at BMW-NA headquarters for the US and Canada, and in Germany for Yurop. There is a full time staff that does nothing but that.

BMW isn't dumb - this is the cheapest information source they could find. And occasionally - people have been contacted by BMW if there was a problem that wasn't resolved correctly - very quietly, sometimes with a non-disclosure agreement - but it does and has happened."

builtforcomfort wrote: Pathetic.

I think we can all agree on that. Nice job of selective quoting, since you took off the important part of my statement to try to make me attacking you:

deilenberger actually wrote:Actually - speaking as the moderator of quite a few other forums (and not at all for the moderators of this forum) - there is no "right" of free speech on an Internet forum. You are allowed to discuss what the owner of the forum allows. We 'muricans tend to get over excited by any thought that there is a place where we can't speak our minds - but there are, and sometimes you just gotta choke it back and go with the flow. But enough on that.. the standards of behavior here are pretty clear and enforced quietly behind the scene.

Right. Pathetic and paranoid. I've risen to your bait enough times - you're now on my ignore list. Congrats - you're the only the 2nd person to gain that status. Say HI to Wildpig in there..

I really don't want to drag this out any longer than is seemly, but I have to pose a question:

If you (builtforcomfort) really wanted a Beemer, and presumably did the research (for instance, by logging in here and familiarizing yourself with all the 'gripes'), why would you buy one, and not just move on to a Yamzuki, if these annoyances are such deal-breakers?

You'd never have these issues on a Burgman...

I think you're preaching to the choir, except we've all learned the new sheet music. Grab a stool, or ride a washing machine. Your choice...

Peter

Builtforcomfort,

Chill, people are starving, unemployed, homeless, impoverished out there, you've got to fiddle your bike into first gear when it's cold, the Greenland ice cap is melting, a little perspective maybe, SHEEESH! No wonder the third world hates us. $15,000 is a life savings, a king's ransom in probably 90% of the world. Free speech? How about enough food to feed your family, or clean potable water, or basic sanitation facilities, notwithstanding aides epidemics, endemic civil conflict, and and and.

Find something positive to engage your intellect.

Rant not excepted!

Oh yeah, if you want to engage us in this forum, maybe you should become a paying member.

Doug

I had no idea this first gear situation was a problem. I never knew it existed and when it happened to me (several times), I just released the clutch a smidgen and that was that. Heck, I could have just as easily turned the turn signals on to go left in the same amount of time. Hey, wait a minute, those signals are all screwed up too!
Bruce

Builtforcomfort, If you so hate the bike might I suggest you go trade it in on whatever else floats your boat? Harley perhaps?

I have to tell you that they do the same thing when the gears do not line up. Then please go over to the HD or HOG forums and whine to them because you cant figure out how to shift into first gear. Perhaps an MSF course would also help. Most of my students figured it out on the Buell Blasts within 5 minutes. Especially after I explained (as has been done here) what was happening.

"Say HI to Wildpig in there.."



I miss all the caps too, Don.

Mollygrubber wrote:Except noise pollution...

And bandwidth !

All this time I thought the first gear thing was just a "characteristic". Now I find out it is a "defect".

Damn.

When they say a bike has character that's what they mean. It's finicky to start or it vibrates or in our case first gear is sometimes less than perfect.

Mark

I have now had, and loved (more than any other bike), my R for the past three years, and have owned innumerable bikes in the past 45 years, and think I will weigh in here.

1. I have the first gear problem. If you shift into first before stopping it doesn't occur. When it does happen, let out on the clutch, pull it in, try again, it goes. It's a minor pain. I posted on it when I first got the bike because I wanted to know if it was "normal" or there was something wrong that I should get fixed. A number of other people reported having the same problem, so I decided it was "normal" and dropped it.

2. I also found the turn signal set-up to be a pain. On my Harley you press the switch to signal, you press the same switch to cancel. It was simple and natural. I find the addition of the cancel switch to be another minor pain (it's something else I posted about early on and got a relatively benign response from other readers). The BMW set-up wasn't so minor until I got used to it, now it's second nature. To have only two minor gripes about a motorcycle, neither of which I onotice anymore, is a blessing

3. The aerodynamics of my "tall" BMW windscreen are a non-issue. It works fine even for extended cruising. There may be a better set-up out there but never having experienced one I have no complaints. It's a motorcycle, for cripes sake, not a car. There's gonna be wind. But yes, some windscreens for the R are atrocious, judging from many, many complaints posted on this very forum. Don E. once posted on the problem of wind-tunnel testing windscreens before foisting them off on an unsuspecting ridership. Because of the cost and the small size of thte market it simply isn't feasible. However, some mfgrs do listen to reasoned feedback about their product and try to improve it. Don can post about any windscreen mfgrs who have made modifications as a result of feedback if he feels like it.

As far as "rights" on a forum go, right, there are none. There is, however, a unique culture to each forum that people either recognize right off and adapt to. or are pressured into conforming to. If one doesn't get it in a reasonably short time, he or she is more or less shouted off, especially if one hasn't "paid their dues." Someone who is not a member with only a handful of posts is not in a position to complain vociferously about the bike or other members or even anything that goes on in the forum. It's more that it goes against the culture than any sort of formal rules. So don't take it personally, builtforcomfort, just be sensitive to the nuances and go with the flow.

Commenting, even complaining, about problems with our bike, the incomprable R1200R, is perfectly okay. If you REALLY don't like it, or the other people who own one, like WILDPIG, sell it, go somewhere else, but nit-picking about one's ride to others with the same ride is just a natural thing people tend to do. I have no problem with builtforcomfort's nit-picks, nor even with his suggestion that people get on to BMW about them. So what? No harm no foul, as they say.

" I have no problem with builtforcomfort's nit-picks, nor even with his suggestion that people get on to BMW about them. So what? No harm no foul, as they say. "
Maybe we all have our problems with people , I know I do but I didn't have one with builtforcomfort or for that matter Wildpig. I think that both were treated shabbily. I don't remember the moderators treating anyone shabbily and that is encouraging. Maybe they should both just come back and see if they can take it longer than their antagonists. The price of membership would be worth the admission to the fight.
" I have the first gear problem. If you shift into first before stopping it doesn't occur. When it does happen, let out on the clutch, pull it in, try again, it goes. It's a minor pain. I posted on it when I first got the bike because I wanted to know if it was "normal" or there was something wrong that I should get fixed. A number of other people reported having the same problem, so I decided it was "normal" and dropped it."
I would like to hear from someone who has replaced his stock gear oil with Red Line gear oil.
As far as "Rights" on a forum go it may be true that those rights are for the most part determined by the moderators and so it is untrue that we have none, as I haven't seen the moderators wading in with heavy hand. So it seems like our beneficent moderators have given us a number of rights. Our inalienable one being that right to walk if our neighbors become too nasty and we don't have the desire or stomach to maintain.
I love my bike but I will gripe about it I want to.

Mark

celticus wrote:I would like to hear from someone who has replaced his stock gear oil with Red Line gear oil.
Mark

I just filled my /5 with Red Line heavy duty gear oil yesterday, trans, rear drive and driveshaft. While putting it in I did some testing (ie:rubbed the oil between my thumb and forefinger) pretty scientific right Don . The oil does have a strange feel to it and although I don't have a problem using it where plain bearings or roller bearings are involved I would be hesitant using it where fine roller bearings are used. I have two spare rear drives and two transmission for the /5 sitting on the shelf, When it comes to putting it in a R1200R, I'll wait for someone else to be the test monkey.

I have a hard time believing that the Red Line products would be so highly thought of if they were iffy. I could on the other hand be mistaken. I have not used it on my hex head but I have used their products on Air Heads, BMW cars and Ford trucks.

Mark