Lost my final drive at just over 55,000 miles. The driveshaft was bad too. Bike history: I'm the 3rd owner of this '05 R12GS & have had it for about 3,000 miles or so. I know the 1st 2 owners, know it was serviced by dealers and personally on the proper schedule. I have no reason to believe it wasn't serviced properly. Bike was wrecked 2x, neither time (obviously) bad enough to total it - mostly cosmetic damage. Not long after I got it, I noticed the front swingarm boot was not sealed properly. No idea how long it was like that. Paid my trusted mechanic to replace it, lube the splines, check things out. FD had been drained & properly filled since that time, at which time we noticed cracks on the rear wheel carrier - I bought that part but never got around to having it replaced. Lately I'd been noticing some ... hesitation ... between when I would open the throttle & when the bike would "feel" like it engaged during upshifts. Nothing major, every bike has its quirks, etc. Wasn't worried about it. Tuesday night I thought I heard some a grinding noise from the rear end as I was pulling into the garage. In first gear with the clutch lever pulled in, I thought I heard a weird noise. Put the bike up on the center stand, couldn't reproduce the sound. Rear wheel had very very little play when tugged at 12/6 or 9/3 - maybe a millimeter or 2 at most. I wrote it off to my imagination. Thursday night I got pulled over. As I was doing basically the same thing, in 2nd gear, slowing down, clutch lever pulled in, I know I heard the grinding noise, worse & louder - through my helmet & ear plugs, no doubt about it. Dealt with the cop, rode the rest of the way to my folks' place out in the country a bit more tamely. Friday morning, went out to do the spin-the-wheel-in-neutral, tug-the-sides-of-the-wheel thing and again - no significant play, and no noise. I noticed some gunge on the outside of the FD; a friend I texted a photo to thought it might look like the seal going bad, but it wasn't very much gunge. I knew I heard the icky noise though, and fearing the worst, I trailered the bike to my mechanic (George at Beemers Uber Alles). He did the same things I'd done - spun the wheel in neutral (no noise) and tugged on the sides of the wheel (no appreciable play). "I don't know, man..." he started to say, right before he took the bike off the center stand & rolled it backwards. All of us (me, George & my stepfather, the guy with the truck & trailer) heard a nasty grinding noise and a very loud "clunk" come from the back of the bike. 15 minutes later, the bike was up on the lift and the FD dropped. The FD oil smelled (and looked) terrible, the inside of the FD smelled worse, and while there was no play at the rear wheel, there was significant play at the thingie (that's a technical term) that mates up with the driveshaft. I could move it side-to-side and in-and-out with my hand. Also, the end of the driveshaft moved very poorly, with obvious notchiness in its range of travel. Bad all around. Diagnosis was fried driveshaft and fried final drive. Likely cause was glop getting in through the floppy boot (for who knows how long) and fouling up the driveshaft, which then took out the final drive. A bit of labor and some used RT parts later, I was back on the road. Upside is 4000 rpm is now 75 mph. So chalk up another FD failure at 55k. Hoping this one lasts at least that long :) Lucky I had access to used parts and an independent mechanic. Can't imagine what the repair would have cost otherwise.
This really sucks. I am sorry to hear about your FD. It sure would be nice if BMW could figure out something as simple as a final drive. Honda has, Kawasaki has just to mention a few.......this was an issue on these boards when I owned an 06 Adventure........now I own a 2011 and it is still an issue.......not good. BMW is not listening.....5 years later I am still reading about F/D failures.....wow! not good. I am not sure what the mystery is here for BMW. Is it engineering? Is it assembly line quaility control? Is it that they just do not care? hmmmmmm? Yeah, I guess you could say I am bashing BMW a bit here but to sum it up the this its getting old reading about BMW final drive issues/failures. Its 2011 already and the brilliant engineers at BMW should have figured this math out.... BMW if you are listening........or reading it's time to catch up with the rest of the planet on the final drive engineering issue. Time to design a final drive that will out last a Honda final drive. Just an observation..... and I am done venting.
I would like to chip in my view on this issue as well. For my 05, I have 2 leaks after putting on about 25000KM on the bike. First leak is from the side seal, easy replacement and not much problem. Second was the pinion gear seal. For this seal job, you will need the special BMW tool. What I do gather from the leak is that the FD Gator plays an important role of keeping the FD internal clean. The second leak arise from a poorly mated gator that somehow didnt manage to prevent the dust and sand bitsfrom entering the FD. If I have not notice the leak earlier, the foreign particle might have casued more damage to the FD. Recently, after another offroad session, I dropped the FD again to see how is the gater performing. No suprise to me, it was full of dust and sand bits. :huh If I were to leave it as it is, I am pretty sure I will be looking at another leaking FD very soon. So my advise is to monitor the gator, and ensure that is it held up properly to ensure that no dust or tiny bits of material can enter.
Wes, Just a reminder, your bike had two significant crashes in it's history, plus a leaking FD at one point. That may, or may not, have any bearing on this. Anyhow, glad George could help you out! Jim
Yup, taking all that into account - not REALLY entirely surprised that it failed. Given the wonky swingarm boot (and who knows how long it was ganked up) I think I'm more surprised it didn't happen 10k miles ago. It's like that "waiting for the other shoe to drop" cliche. Now that it's happened, I'm kind of relieved. No more worrying about it. Plus, now I know another thing to watch for in the future (i.e. not just the seal leak thing). I'm not usually a lucky person; I'm still a bit astounded at my luck at finding the right used parts on the exact same day the problem got figured out!
Yup, taking all that into account - not REALLY entirely surprised that it failed. Given the wonky swingarm boot (and who knows how long it was ganked up) I think I'm more surprised it didn't happen 10k miles ago. It's like that "waiting for the other shoe to drop" cliche. Now that it's happened, I'm kind of relieved. No more worrying about it. Plus, now I know another thing to watch for in the future (i.e. not just the seal leak thing). I'm not usually a lucky person; I'm still a bit astounded at my luck at finding the right used parts on the same exact day the problem got figured out!
So I'm the noob here with only 4 months of ownership and 10k miles of smiles on my face. So I've come to understand it's going to happen. Ok. So what? The chain gang has to change their stuff out too - rings from chipped teeth, chains, bearings - no dif, albeit cheaper. I read all these FD failures, but then read on the new Alaska died-FD thread the guy who's had NO problems and tries to inject some positive good news...we tend to see the negative on forums aka "bitch and gripe pages", when there's bunches of bikes we haven't heard about... That being said - if this is a consistent problem, let's fix it ourselves. Someone get a kit together and let's sell them -profits go to downed rider support fund. Look at the guys making vids, or the IICE Air, or a whole multitude of "necessity is the mother of invention"!
Stage 1 kit - Both bearings and seal Stage 2 kit - stage 1 + spline lube, toaster oven. Stage 3 kit - Stage 2 + freezer.
Hmmmm, 05 bike that was serviced 05 guidelines that was changed at least twice that I know of. FD oil levels are now set at 180ml which is down from 220ml. This was done to alleviate pressure as oil heated and expanded causing seals to fail/leak. I hope I am not jinxing myself but I change my FD oil every 12K and it is always clean with NO metal on the magnet. People that know me, know I am no granny rider so my bike sees alot of hard miles on and off road My bike is 08 GSA with 42K miles
Chiba, Please, yes it sucks that happened in so short a time. I'm particularly concerned as I bought a bike that was hit from behind, so I'm expecting this to happen, even though I was assured "no problem, all was replaced and repaired..." uh huh? As the noob, and a new fellow BMWBMW member, no intention to ruffle old-timers - from "damn upstart punks, what do they know".... Hope George sorts it out for you quickly and back on the road!
I've always admired the GS and have it on my list of wants; however, none of these posts inspire confidence! Is the problem more of a maintenance thing or a side effect of dual sporting? I can understand if it's a comes with the territory thing! Allow me to offer some ideas for any backyard engineers or entrepreneurs. Maybe dual sports aren't meant to have shafts? Somebody design a chain final drive conversion kit for the GS.
To an extent the RT's are 'plagued' by final drive failures, also. It isn't just GS. And LT's also. dc
IMHO It is a bit maintenance, a bit abuse, a bit of build tollerance, and a bit of luck. Of the 30+ BMW R1200 owners I know personally, only 3 have had a failure, 5 seal leaks easily repaired. I can't be sure of the miles, but my two have over 60K without fails, and no sign of potential. By the way, come to a tech day and learn more in person! Jim