Wheel bearing disintegrates - F800

Yes, San Jose BMW. 408-295-0205. My bike has 1257 miles on it. The service manager twisted the sprocket carrier bearing that I had removed and the rotor side bearing and immediately agreed they felt bad. There was never a question that it wouldn't be warranty.

Awesome thanks, if you are near Dallas Texas PM me and I will buy you a beer because you prob just saved me 120 bucks

That's what I think. The pipe/spacer is too short causing undue stress on the single bearing when the rear axle is torgued. The sprocket side has two bearings and is stronger but still has undue stress on them. I dont know if it's the spacer or the mechining in the hub. One or the other.LaPorte

Just took my wheels off for a bearing swap. Gotta say, my rear bearing feel smooth as glass, and my wheels have been submerged a few times. But since I'm headed out in 2 weeks on a trip, I'm taking them out anyway. Can't risk getting burned like Glen did on a trip. It's all I can do at this point.

Mine were fine as well when I swapped tires yesterday. No time to replace them, so I'll just carry a spare and ride with my fingers crossed.

If the failures are due to a misalignment caused by the chain adjustment marks being off, there wouldn't be a single KLR on the road today.

Yabbut, KLR guys expect things to be a bit off on their bikes. BMW owners expect everything to be perfect and are shocked when it isn't. I checked my alignment (just eyeballed it) and it looks spot on.

Motorcycles are like airplanes to me. Replace it before if fails.
Other wise prepare for gravity to take it's toll.

I checked mine and it felt wonky so I am going to SSBMW today to get a confirmation. Either way I think I will replace them anyways. With 12K on the bike the chances are higher.

:huh

The word "warranty" was never used by either party in any exchange I had with the service advisor. Literally.

I've checked the rears and all were in great shape. I mas in the mud a few times, and a few good water crossings too. 8700 Km.

Take this post for what you will, nothing said here should influence your decision if you decide to act on safety related concerns (and other lawyer type speak).

I don't think anyone needs to replace their bearings automatically because they believe BMW uses crap bearings. If these have been installed on other successful bikes and have survived on other BMW F800GS bikes they should be fine (could be a bad lot but the evidence does not support this).

The reason I state this is that bearing failures have been observed in 1/5 bearings (grated it is the highest load bearing). We need more information!

WARNING: Anyone who has experienced bearing failure/premature wear or replaced their bearings check your hub and bearing spacer components for wear, orientation, and dimensional accuracy. There is reason to believe you could experience the same situation regardless of the bearing construction. :eek1

JP,
My fear:
ring......ring...
"Hello" ?
"JP, this is Fank, I'm at Serpentine, my rear wheel bearing just went south, bring me a set will ya" ? "Oh and it's raining hard and I need tools" !

SSBMW checked mine, thought they were "gritty" and scheduled a warranty service for Friday.


sorry if your dealer is giving you the shaft. They shouldn't be.

I have been watching this thread closely and was not happy to see that as guys started pulling axles, they were finding issues with the bearings. No offense to the OP but it would have been nice to see just an isolated issue.

I fly airplanes for a living and any issue like this would have triggered an Airworthiness Directive forcing all operators to check the bearings. I maintain my bike like I would an airplane, so immediately went to the dealer with this issue.

I could have checked this myself but went to the dealer for several reasons.

1) They are only 20 minutes away.

2) It will now be on record that a customer has had a complaint about the rear bearings. ( none of this hmmmm, we have never heard of this before ) If they find an issue, that too will now be a matter of record for any others who may have an issue.

3) Replacing the bearings myself with an aftermarket set, may only serve to cover up a greater issue. The problem may not be the bearing. So even with new ones, I will still be inclined to pull the back wheel and check every so many miles to make sure.

4) If enough people report this issue to BMW and they begin to see an issue, they will hopefully come up with a permanent fix or recall.

My dealer was great. I told him of the possible issue. Explained how I came to learn of the issue and was quite prepared to pay for them to check. They wrote up the service order with a " customer feels vibration in back wheel. Please check bearings, particularly the one closest to brake rotor." He said this way, it would be done under warranty, no matter what they find.

Can't ask for better than that.

Out of curiosity, how many of the bikes with the bearing failure have had either a chain adjustment or tire change?

The problem is and I suspect this will apply to the techs also, we do not have the design specs of how long the axle tube is supposed to be, depth of of the hub where the bearing is fitted and what the crush factor is supposed to be for the axle tube if there is one at all.
Some things you could measure is, if the hub is concentric where the bearing fits and if there is any space between the circlip and the bearing. I suppose if the spacer and the left bearing was fitted (spacer flange on that side) then look at the right side w/o the bearing and do a visual. The space being grossly too long or short may lend a clue, but again we don't know how it is supposed to be.

It's not going to be obvious by eyeballing it. The bearings need to be removed from the hub, and measurements taken (vernier caliper) to confirm the lengths are in very close tolerances. If the weather here sucks on the weekend, I may just do this...

I have to ask myself, did the same company machine the rear spacer as did the front axle??!!

Not being smart, serious question, what are you going to measure it against? I can assume if the bearings are bottomed out and a circlip to hold them in, I would expect little or no tolerance between the two. Do you know how long the spacer should be? The axle is torqued to 74 lb. which I would think bring the spacer into contact with the bearings, how much is too much pressure or should there be none at all?

I agree with itsardm, it's going to be hard to measure. Although things need to be measured BEFORE torque is applied to the axle. If you find several hundredths of a mm difference in the length of the spacer inside the hub to the distance between the two inner races of the center wheel bearings, then you can start to worry.

BTW... Who is still using Vernier calipers? I've got my digital coolant proof (IPX8) Mitutoyo calipers I've had for several years lol.

Trust me, you will never find them outside of their box without my hands on them though.

Well, being as anal as I am, and the fact I take off on an annual bike adventure trip in 10 days, I pulled the bearings. All of them. 1st, on my bike anyway, all the bearings are ok quality wise at least looking at them, but they are Chinese (LFD) and 1 NSK. All mine were in perfect condition too btw. I replaced them with SFK bearings anyway.
I took them to my friends motorcycle shop for his opinion. He does bearings all the time on sport bikes. He didnt think anything was unusual except for the fact that the rear bearings were the same size as the fronts. He said usually, the rears are bigger. Also worth noting, and for you guys who have already swapped yours tell me if you saw the same thing, when installing, the bearing kinda just drops in at first. Easily, without freezing. About halfway up the side of the bearing itself before becoming tight. The rest of the way it needs to be pressed in which I did and was tight going in from there. But usually they are tighter than a frogs ass right from the get go. Could this be purposely engineered that way ?
But in short my bearings were just fine and I have had my wheel off many times and have ridden it through deep water a few times as well. Snap ring was flush to the bearing and it seems normal. To me anyway. Go figure.

Oh no! Not the "my bearing went in easy half way" syndrome. What's next?:eek1

Frank, glad everything looked alright. I will be checking mine, but haven't had the bike for a couple of weeks.