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

'02 R1150R w/62K, pulling away from a stop, and in the shift from first to second it felt like it jumped out of gear, so I toed the lever again and eased the clutch back out. No power to the back wheel and it sounds like a blender full of marbles. Best guess from reading here is that it's the clutch splines, which looks to be a $1000 - $1500+ repair.
To say I'm disappointed in BMW is an understatement. I bought this bike because I thought BMWs had a great reputation. I originally had an R75/7, which never gave me any problems and the only reason I sold it was that I was enticed by the power and brakes on the Oilhead. I wish I'd never sold it. I also owned a K100RS that I used hard and never had any problems with.
I love(-d) my Oilhead but it's getting to be too much.
So here's my problem: I have a high mileage bike that's R titled (I'm the original owner and wrecked and rebuilt it-mostly cosmetic) and needs (another) expensive repair. I'm tempted to try to get $1500 for it as is (would anyone take on a project bike like this?), sell all the farkles on the side, and go back to Jap bikes.
I wanted to keep this bike forever and took care of it and yet it suffered a major mechanical due to some factory problem. That's unacceptable. In all my years (30+) of riding, this kind of thing never happened to any of my other bikes.
Any thoughts, advice, offers?

My sympathies.......I wrote about this problem a few years back, some will say they are isolated instances, however, the nature and the extent of the damage simply point to poor engineering and little product stewardship by BMW.

In any event, I think is best you cut your losses and get from under the bike as I would have trust issues.

Good luck

Sure sounds like spline failure. Sorry. I'd post my standard Spline Sympathy card, but don't want to salt the wound.

Perhaps cut & run is your best option.

Try BeemerBoneyard for potential cash value of bike as-is, destined for parting-out.

I fully expect my Rockster to spline-fail sometime down the road. Just planning to deal with it via transmission rebuild, hopefully with an improved part or two for longevity.

Note that our newish F800 is having its problems too. So much for BMW heritage of engineering and reliability.

Sure it's not the final drive?

It's an 8 year old $12,000 bike with 62,000 miles on it. You're looking at a major repair that will cost 1/10th the original cost of the bike and total less than five payments on a new bike. I know such an unexpected expense is a disappointment but isn't it to be expected at some point in the life of any machine that you love and intend to keep forever? Remember that you haven't cleaned, replaced or maintained chains and sprockets for the last eight years on that bike but you probably overlook the savings you realized there.

The clutch spline design does seem a pretty shockingly bad idea but you would only be disappointed by a $1,500 repair at 62,000 miles on a BMW. Any other bike would have already been retired.

I have rebuilt the most difficult transmission to rebuild known to man: the old Ford "Toploader". It was designed to handle hundreds of horses and feet pounds of torque. I recall holding a snap-ring open with needle nose pliers and banging a tiny screwdriver into the gap with my forehead. Did it all on the porch of a house in college then used the crawlspace opening and a piston jack to press the new bearings into place. Lifted the house about an inch off the foundation in the process! How I learned to love that old Mustang.

I know you're pissed and disappointed but find a good manual and start taking the bike apart. Take pictures if you have to. When you get to the offending part, replace it, then start putting it back together the same way you took it apart only using a torque wrench. With the internet as a resource this stuff is more accessible than ever before. You'll wind up loving the bike more than ever and have a wonderful story to tell about how marvelously clever you are. The chicks will dig it. Of course this is easy for me to say. I'd be pissed as H311 if it happened to me!

John

Sign my name on Sweatmark's sympathy card too.

If you decide to go for the do-it-yourself repair.
Your RR may look like this.
Disclaimer: I only had to replace the slave cylinder, my splines were only mildly worn.
So I wasn't nearly as pissed about the breakdown.

Note: I also disassembled way more of the rear sub-frame than actually was necessary.

I don't know that I felt the love as Xdot noted about his experience, but it certainly was
a satisfying feeling taking care of the issue myself. Um, with many trips back to my computer
double checking relevant posts on this forum of course.

Many tools pictured are the cheap stuff from pepboys and harbor freight, but I did buy and use
sockets, wrenches, and especially the allen/torx tools from Sears.

First of all, I'm positive it's NOT the final drive. Did the shaft bushing/bearing swap last summer, so I'm not unfamiliar with the rear end of my bike (why did that sound so dirty?).
Secondly, while I appreciate all of your encouragement to repair it myself (and I'm pretty sure I could, with time) Boxermania hit it on the head with the trust issues. I'd have to wonder what's going to go next - starter? clutch slave? rear drive? These bikes are not as well-built as the older BMWs and almost appear to be disposable. A shame, really, because I love (-d) this bike.
I'm thinking of getting in touch with Beemer Boneyard and seeing what they'll give me for it. I think I'd take $1800 at this point. It's a sweet looking and running bike but this is a fatal flaw, for me. Or I may part it out on my own. It is R titled, from an '03 accident, which reduces its value further. However, it is PA registered and titled, and I put 5 years on it since. If you, or anyone you know, wants to get into a project BMW, here you go. I'll make you a screaming deal.
Thanks for the encouragement and support. That's a killer picture of your disassembled bike! I've got a line on a low mileage '73 R75/5 Toaster for $2200, which I'm thinking about. Those older bikes are fine examples of solid, simple engineering, and I miss owning an old Airhead.
I'm going to miss the Oilhead and this forum, which I have found informative, entertaining, and just full of like-minded riding nuts. Thanks to all!

Great picture, keithbw. Nicely taken to reveal the whole process and your inventory methods. Reminds me of many a happy project, as memorable in the doing as much of the riding/driving that resulted from undertaking it. Right now I have a rust bucket Lancia Fulvia spread across my shop just like that.

Ok, I'm trying to get beyond the emotion (disappointment) of this event and make the right move here. I'm getting all kinds of advice, most of it good, though sometimes contradictory. Anyway, a buddy found a good transmission on Ebay and suggested putting that in, then selling mine as a core to San Jose or someone else who refurbishes them. Apparently they have "upgraded" versions for $900, which is also tempting because it suggests a once and done type of thing.
I'm up for putting a new transmission in, mechanical-wise, not so much with replacing the transmission splines. Am I on the right track here? I really like this bike and have a lot into it, both time-wise and accessory-wise, and would just as soon keep it. It'd be tough to duplicate at the price.

22

This might sound weird but that torn-down R reminded me of C3PO all taken apart. Yeah, I know.

Upgraded transmission? I haven't heard of that, if true 900 bucks would be a good price.
A member of this forum thought he could have just the input shafts machined for about 900 in
quantity if I remember correctly.

I've seen "upgraded" clutch plates from a 280 dollar Wunderlich to almost 700 for a Sachs.
Even if a transmission is for available with a better input shaft, you still may need need a
correspondingly upgraded clutch disc/plate.

From the pictures posted here and in the ADV forum that I have seen, it seems that both parts fail.

I tried to buy a sprung clutch plate from rbracing, but gave up and canceled the order after
waiting over four months. At 340 or so dollars it seemed like a good deal, but apparently
they will not make the part if they don't have enough orders to justify a production run.

Just hoping that the Honda Moly60 I lubed the splines with will help mine last longer.

Transmission swap is fairly straight forward if you go that route. Definitely an upgraded level
of mechanical aptitude needed to rebuild it.

Beemeridian wrote:IMO, it's worth keeping and repairing.

....stuff breaks....

+1
There's no such beast as the the perfectly reliable motorcycle. For every story of complete
reliability on a given model there's another of nothing but trouble and grief. That's life!

There are several issues associated with the clutch spline failure that have been extensively documented. The reason that some bikes fail drastically as early as 10K miles while others (the majority of the failures) run around 30K miles and some just don't fail has to do with how the combination of the little problems, design, metallurgy, alignment, etc. stack up.

It's like when you have a group of parts that will work together as a unit and all of the measurements are close to the high end of the specified range, once the unit is assembled the working clearances, albeit within the specified range, are going to be on the loose end of the spectrum this will ultimately affect the operation and durability of the unit.

Boxermania, spot on reply (as always). And after sleeping on it, I've decided to walk away from this bike (well, and modern BMW's in general) because there are just too many questions. If I repair this, how long before it happens again? It's not if, but when. That's kind of unacceptable. Then there's the final drive issue, which so far it hasn't suffered from, but that too may just be a matter of time. I've already had to change out the needle bearings in the pivot of the drive with one of those cool bushings from Rubber Chicken Racing (if you haven't done this, I'd recommend it). My wiring harness already burned up once but I think that's repaired for good. As much as I have and still want to love this bike (especially the engine!) there are just too many uncertainties. And that's true for all machinery but I expected more from BMW, which may have been unreasonable, I don't know. Coming off of Airheads (loved my R75) and K-bikes (K100RS), I had a sense of a well-built, reliable bike under me and they never let me down. But the trust issue, with the way I ride (commuting and touring), is an important one. I rely on my bike for transportation and exploration. I use my bike as a tool and it needs to be reliable and trustworthy. I don't mind normal wear and tear (brakes, clutches, etc.) and doing some minor work occasionally to repair or make the bike better but mostly I like to ride and not wrench. To be fair, this bike's got 62K on it and perhaps I got my money's worth out of it. I think I just wore it out. I was just hoping it would occur on the other side of 100K.
It's a great bike and if you have one of the good ones, you're lucky and ride the hell out of it.

I've been watching this thread, as well as others concerning the failed clutch splines, and I'm curious about a couple of things. First, a comment if I may. This is my first BMW after having many Japanese bikes, some american bikes, and one from Italy, (I have 7 bikes as we speak...) and I, too, was counting on better engineering and more reliability than what I'm reading about. My R bike only has 7000 miles on it as of yet, but I'm planning on putting alot more on it as the years pass. I just thought I was going to be able to do it without having to worry about spline issues, final drive issues, stick coil issues, wiring harness issues, etc. etc. If I had read this forum BEFORE I bought my R, I might very well have avoided it altogether. But I didn't, so I plan on enjoying the bike as much as I possibly can and dealing with any issues that pop up. It's not easy riding with your fingers crossed, but I'm learing to adapt.
My question is this... I have decided that somewhere around the 30,000 mile mark, I'm going to pull the back of the bike apart and check the splines. I read somewhere that this can be done in a weekend, and God knows we all have a weekend to spare in the middle of the winter, so I'm just going to bite the bullet and tear into it when it gets some miles on it. I would rather do that than tear up the shaft and REALLY have a mess on my hands. Is this the way to go about this, or should we just keep riding until it blows and we have a huge repair bill on our hands? If a person didn't have the tools or the courage to tackle this on their own and had this done at the dealer, any idea what it would cost them? Anybody know?

If my RR looked like that one, I would need a lot more than bottled water, O'Douls and the heat gun in the photo. I think vodka, guinness and a 44 magnum would be required to ease my pain.

As for WorkinMan's question, there was an article concerning splines in an issue of BMW Owner's News published by BMWMOA sometime in the last six months. The discussion focused on proper lubrication. Apparently, some bikes that have received no maintenance have rusted splines at 10,000 miles while others look perfect at 60,000 miles. The article discusses proper lubrication, service intervals, etc. It also discusses the relative difficulty of performing the task.

Sander Abernathy wrote: As for WorkinMan's question, there was an article concerning splines in an issue of BMW Owner's News published by BMWMOA sometime in the last six months. The discussion focused on proper lubrication. Apparently, some bikes that have received no maintenance have rusted splines at 10,000 miles while others look perfect at 60,000 miles. The article discusses proper lubrication, service intervals, etc. It also discusses the relative difficulty of performing the task.

But that is not an item on the maintenance schedule, right? Why would lubrication even be an issue at 10,000 miles unless there was a manufacturing problem.

To me, the worst part about this is BMW's denial that there is any issue.

I have used this example here before, but we have a GMC Yukon XL with almost 90,000 miles. At around 63,000 miles the transmission went, leaving my wife and one of the kids stranded on a busy highway. We do not tow anything, and we had all the scheduled maintenance done. A heavy duty transmission like this should not fail at 63K miles. It was out of warranty, but GM offered us a choice of a rebuilt transmission for free, or a brand new one for a $100 deductible. I took the new one for $100. That was my total cost to fix the problem, including labor. Yes, I would buy another GM product. I don't expect perfection, but I do expect a manufacturer to admit there is a problem if something fails prematurely.