88bmwjeff
SF Bay Area
I thought I'd pass on my thoughts regarding the Puig headlight protector. It's made out of the lens is a 3mm thick polycarbonate lens, which appears to be the same material as other more expensive options. The positives are that it is less expensive and seems to be well made. However, there are two negatives. One is that it needs to be unbolted to clean the headlight, while others have a quick release or fold down for access. I'm hoping that the headlight will not need to be cleaned that often with the protector in place. The second downside is that the bolts provided are too long and bottom out before tightening things up. I noticed others complained about this too. Also, the bolt requires an Allen wrench to be removed, so that's another thing to carry while riding if you want to be able to remove and clean the headlight while traveling. BMW has the perfect solution for the bolt problem. The bolt removed to attach the protector is not the best to be used since it has a "shoulder" on it. However, BMW makes the same bolt without the shoulder (it's used to hold the body panels on). While it's BMW expensive (as bolts go), I was not able to find a similar bolt that uses a T25 Torx screwdriver. With the BMW bolt installed, the protector is more stable, and since the tool kit has a T25 Torx screwdriver, there's no need to bring any other tools along if the protector needs to be removed for headlight cleaning. I also picked up two nylon washers at my local hardware store to protect the black paint on the protector frame, since removal is required for cleaning.
In the following photo, you can see the difference in the screws and the protector on the bike. The black bolt came with the protector, the middle bolt is the one removed with the shoulder, and the bottom one is the BMW bolt without the shoulder.
In the following photo, you can see the difference in the screws and the protector on the bike. The black bolt came with the protector, the middle bolt is the one removed with the shoulder, and the bottom one is the BMW bolt without the shoulder.
