• Welcome, Guest! We hope you enjoy the excellent technical knowledge, event information and discussions that the BMW MOA forum provides. Some forum content will be hidden from you if you remain logged out. If you want to view all content, please click the 'Log in' button above and enter your BMW MOA username and password.

    If you are not an MOA member, why not take the time to join the club, so you can enjoy posting on the forum, the BMW Owners News magazine, and all of the discounts and benefits the BMW MOA offers?

Another RT Final Drive Bites the Dust '07 R1200RT

Sounds similar to mine. I had vibration that I thought was from worn tires. Vibration got worse after I had new tires put on. No play either at 6 or 12 o'clock.
Turned out to be the crown bearing. Miles were low enough on the bike that BMW paid all of repair.
The service manager said that they have been seeing an increase in final drive failures on '07 and '08 RTs in the last few months after seeing very few in the last several years. Doesn't seem like BMW fixed the perpetual FD problems.
 
Sounds similar to mine. I had vibration that I thought was from worn tires. Vibration got worse after I had new tires put on. No play either at 6 or 12 o'clock.
Turned out to be the crown bearing. Miles were low enough on the bike that BMW paid all of repair.
The service manager said that they have been seeing an increase in final drive failures on '07 and '08 RTs in the last few months after seeing very few in the last several years. Doesn't seem like BMW fixed the perpetual FD problems.

Obviously, they haven't.

Made draining and re-filling easier, but did not fix the problem. Sad. :banghead
 
I don't get my bike serviced at a dealer because I don't like driving or towing 90 miles west or 120 miles east through peristant ongoing Interstate construction. If it weren't for the fact that I just like my BMW's I would buy Japan bikes that I could get serviced locally.
 
is there any data that indicates the average mileage for an fd failure and what percentage of bikes (by model) have fd failures?

i'm guessing the average mileage at failure is around 40k and the percentage of bikes with an fd failure is about five (which the company might well find 'acceptable').
 
Last edited:
While we're on the data; it would be interesting to look at it in terms of models (GS, RT, RR, etc) since the geometries are different.
 
re:" If it weren't for the fact that I just like my BMW's I would buy Japan bikes that I could get serviced locally."

that would make too much sense.
 
is there any data that indicates the average mileage for an fd failure and what percentage of bikes (by model) have fd failures?

i'm guessing the average mileage at failure is around 40k and the percentage of bikes with an fd failure is about five (which the company might well find 'acceptable').

Sadly, no.

Only corporate BMW possesses such aggregate data, via feedback from individual dealerships, and they ain't talking. :banghead

Their silence is deafening, however.
 
Update on my FD. Still at dealer. BMW covering 60% of cost to replace the FD with the updated model. Fingers crossed.

They must have some data that is making them more generous.
 
They did not say. From the Internet, it looks like they made it more serviceable, but I don't know if the internals changed. I sure hope so. My dealer, who I generally trust, said if I was given options by BMW, to choose the new replacement. His tone and body language certainly led me to believe it was updated internally. However I could be overplaying that. It is definitely a different part number, and the original part number is no longer available. FWIW.
 
They did say it is "vented", and more "serviceable". Does not come with any "breakin" oil so good for 24000. If any of those comments mean anything.
 
Back
Top