Final drive failure

[Callahan]

Last week I learned that the final drive on my 2005, R1150R has "catastrophiclly failed." It's about $1,700 to fix it, along with the attendant rear brake damage. I bought this bike on May 22, 2010, with a one-year extended warranty from Northern Colorado Euro Motorcycles, Loveland, Colorado (an authorized BMW dealer). The warranty paid for a new transmission seal (in June, 2010), and for a new front fork seal. But of course, it expired before the final drive failure. I'm posting this because I'm in quite a pickle. I don’t have credit cards or savings, and I don’t have an auto… the motorcycle is my only means of transportation. It will be a good 6 months or more before I can afford to buy the parts.
The staff at the dealership didn't bother to mention the final drive issue when I purchased the bike, nor when they replaced the seal a month later. BMW customer service says they can do nothing. The dealership will not accept $800 now and regular payments. Now that I know what to look for, I see this has been a point of regular discussion for some 6 years. Has there been any helpful resolution? Seems like this is quite a safety issue, the staff at the dealership says I'm lucky that the rear wheel didn't lock up on me; should I spend the time to fill out a complaint with the National Transportation Safety Board? Any suggestions?

[eduardobelmonte]

Can I ask the current millage in your bike?

Second question would be,
did you notice anything besides the transmission seal, that could have let you know something was coming?

Thanks

Eduardo.

[Callahan]

The bike has 28,597 miles. Unlike the first seal problem, there was no leaking from the final drive until I drove it from my home in Fort Morgan, Co., to Loveland, CO, a trip of about 73 miles. What caused me to take the bike in for a diagnoses was the grinding sound coming from the rear end, and a bit of rear end slip when I would downshift.

[bimmerguy]

Beemerboneyard.com has final drive unit for $250, also on ebay there are some.
Match up your bike with abs or not and ck out parts on A&S cycle.com fische section.
Get you tools out and youtube has lots of r series vids, get haynes manual for $25.
The more you work on your bike yourself, the fewer surprises you will have on the road.
I do 80% of the work on my BMW cars and bikes myself because the dealers don't work on it like it is THEIR car.
Hang in there bud, you have a great bike.

[Callahan]

This is most helpful, thank you.

[f4tweet]

I have a 31/11 I took off my 02 R1150 non ABS I could sell or trade with you.

[eduardobelmonte]

As a reference I can tell my RR has 55k miles.
no problems yet.
Also I heard this problem you're having happens,
was told so it is not so common.

Best luck man.
hope you're riding again soon.

[Arbreacames]

What type of catastrophic failure did you have? Normally, the problem is simply the big bearing going bad, and it is far from catastrophic. I rode on a rough bearing for a couple thousand miles and it was not getting noticeably worse before I changed it.
A DIY bearing replacement is much cheaper than a used FD.

[Callahan]

Catastrophic was the term used by the service repair guys at the dealership. They thought either a complete rebuild or a new final drive. They showed me a several inch long grove in the ring gear (crown gear), which they thought was caused by a bad bearing, as you say. Now that I have the bike back at my home, I'll take it apart to see what I can determine myself. I'm hearing that knowing how to properly 'shim' fhe final drive is all important. Does that ring true?

[Arbreacames]

It sounds like your ball cage disintegrated. The pieces can cut the seals and cause other damage. In my case, the balls were pitted, but there was no catastrophic failure. If the gear surfaces in your drive are scratched, you may indeed need another FD.

knowing how to properly 'shim' fhe final drive is all important. Does that ring true?

Regarding a re-build, I could be wrong but I doubt dealers even attempt to re-shim. It's a messy measurement to do and, if you're off by a fraction of a mm in the difference between two awkward measurements, you'll make the preload worse than by leaving the shims as they are. Taking the measurement as shown in the manual seemed impossible for me to do. I measured instead the gap between the cover and the housing with the cover barely pressing on the bearing and then after tightening the bolts. The difference in gaps, if measured correctly, is the preload. I also measured the old and new bearings and found them to be absolutely identical, which is not surprising considering that they are high precision parts. In the end, I think that ball bearings have a lot of lateral give and it's OK to leave the shims alone.

For other nervous owners: its really important to check the smoothness of the bearing every few thousand miles by spinning the rear wheel by hand.

[wncbmw]

Carlos gives good advice. I do believe the instance of failure is amplified by the internet but because of the PR on the symptoms, I was able to find out my own final drive bearing was failing early and make it home without further damage. Since I don't have the repair abilities of Carlos, I had it fixed but it was much cheaper than replacing the entire unit. Only the one bearing was required.

It happened at 47K and at the 60K service, the final drive oil was clear with no signs of metal wear.

Just be sure it the entire unit is indeed shot before going to the expense!

Good luck.

[bimmerguy]

Since the final drive is critical, I will change final drive oil with every oil change and look for large metal shavings on drain plug magnet and use that as health gauge. And IF it does start to fail will buy used one from Beemeboneyard, have my tech friend inspect it before installing, pull driveshaft, put moly lube on splines.

[yao9]

As stated before get use to working on the bike yourself. I have been to cliffs bmw which is now max's bmw in ct., they do not tell you if their maybe a pending issue with your machine. You must do it yourself, example I needed to have a battery this year took the bike to them a year before and there was no mention that this could be an issue as a result bettery died and they wanted 300.00 to replace work included.....I did it myelf in 1.5 hrs.......

2004 r1150r blk

btw gel battery lasted 7 yrs.