lkchris
Active member
Perhaps in large part because their is no organized voice on behalf of owners.
Why yes. MOA has better things to do.
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Perhaps in large part because their is no organized voice on behalf of owners.
Why yes. MOA has better things to do.
Social media postings have little effect and really don’t reach anyone that may effect a policy change.
OM
In 2019 social media posting caused BMW to reverse its controversial decision to start charging an annual fee for using Apple Carplay.
My objective in posting on this forum is to express my continuing view that when it comes to policy and practice decisions by BMW that negatively impact BMW motorcycle owners the MOA should be putting aside its obligations to support BMW public relations and put the interests of its members first by acting as our collective voice.
Well, they don’t really seem to be interested in any contact via mail—only voice and email options are listed on the BMW Motorrad Contact Page:
“<I>Since the first one rolled out back in 1923 we have been building motorcycles for real riders. You, with your love of the ride and high standards for performance, have driven us to keep innovating, keep refining, keep improving. So if you have something to say, good or bad, we want to hear it.
Call our Customer Service Department at 1-800-831-1117 and follow the automated voice prompts. There is a live representative between the hours of 9:00AM - 9:00PM EST Monday-Thursday, and 9:00AM - 6:00PM EST Fridays. If someone's not there to take your call, you can wait and the automated voice will prompt you to leave a message.
You may also reach our Customer Service Department by sending email to CustomerService@bmwmotorcycles.com.
We will get back to you as soon as possible</I>.”
Best,
DeVern
My understanding has been that the pullback of service information was global, not just the US or North America. I don’t expect that input given to BMWNA would get upchanneled to the mothership, nor that it would have a lot of impact with the mothership given the relatively small size of the North American market.
Best,
DeVern
At some point, someone will pirate the info as mentioned, and/or the manual publishers will catch up.
Some of us do not agree with this statement.
My most recent purchase of a new BMW was in 2018 for a R1200 RT. I obtained the service documentation on a disk and the contents were installed on a laptop kept in the garage.
I was interested in a Triumph Tiger 900 and I told the dealer that I would not buy a bike unless the service manual was available. Triumph had discontinued selling a paper service manual a few years earlier. Fortunately in mid-2021 the Triumph service manual was available on-line and one could purchase access in chunks as small as one hour (about $7 or $8 US). Someone had written a program that integrated with certain browsers that would allow for the downloading of the entire manual for a particular bike and creation of a pdf file. I chose to do this before purchasing the 2022 Tiger 900. Subsequently Triumph has gone to a different presentation method for the service information that precludes downloading. One must either be online or go through a cumbersome screen-capture process. I let the Triumph dealer know that I would not be buying any new Triumphs until I could again get a set of service documents. At least Triumph only charges something around $9 per month for online access - I have gone this route to obtain the updates, saved via the cumbersome screen capture process.
I was interested in the new Ducati Desert-X. Alas, Ducati also does not make available a service manual. I let the Ducati dealer know that I would not be buying a new Ducati. Similarly, I let the local BMW dealer (same guy as Ducati dealer!) know that no service manual or document means no sale to me.
That is my feedback into the motorcycle universe.
As a side note - when the new oilhead bikes came out in late 1993; the first model was the R1100RS, I bought a nice red R1100RS (still have it). There was no service info available. Someone obtained a copy of the notes made available to various BMW techs and sent paper copies around to interested owners. I still have these notes along with many handwritten notes in a 3-ring binder.
In the early days of the more widely available internet (early 1990s), the Internet BMW Riders (IBMWR) was formed. The "organization" officers had to be named. It was decided that everyone in IBMWR would be "president". A website was created and interested parties could contribute tips and service hints. There have been electronic compilations of these tips. See - IBMWR.org
Nowadays, we have electronic manuals in pdf or other forms. I miss being able to write and keep handwritten notes. But on the plus side we have folks (like BoxFlyer) producing excellent videos illustrating various service procedures. In many ways these videos are the next best thing to having a "guru" in the garage providing advice and lending a hand. These videos are accessible on YouTube. I think that the BMWMOA could make a list of links to these videos as a service to the owners.
"Someone is going to bootleg a copy and put it on the internet and things will return to somewhat normal."
Copy of what? There is no RepROM for the new models as they come out.
"At some point, someone will pirate the info as mentioned and/or the manual publishers will catch up."
It hasn't happened with the BMW cars so there is no reason to believe that it will happen with the motorcycles. This is a false hope.