tranny death?

Well after 35+ years of riding i got the boxer bug. The reputation of the GS and a 9 mile streach of dirt road between me and the asphalt led me to get a 1995 1100GS with 50 K on it. now for the punch line. The independant BMW shop that i found is telling me that the 95 BMW was the first year of a new tranny ,and that the bearing design is ... well ... sucked. something about tapered bearings v/s roller. His prediction is a trashed gearbox within 10K. At preasent I have no shifting problems and the gear oil looks fine. Is it possible that I have finally paid my dues and the reward of good luck has been granted? Or has the page just not turned yet. question is ..... what experiance have you all had with success / failure of 1995 gearboxes,and what can be done if failure is coming to prolong its arrival?

Don't worry about it...

I really don't know why people worry about this stuff.

Your bikes running fine with no problems - go out and enjoy the thing and quit the lamenting. Do your regular maintenance like your should and the odds are your bike will treat you well.

If it breaks, you'll fix it. Simple as that.

Manon:

Some of them last a long time and some of them don't, so it's hard to predict. The first thing I would do is check to see whether a previous owner had it rebuilt / upgraded.

In any event, it should give you lots of warning before it fails.

When the time for the rebuild comes, you should get a '97 or later gearbox.

If you look at Anton Largiader's website, you will see a whole bunch of good information on this topic.

For now, I would just ride the bike and enjoy it.

tranny

Thanks for the replys. I guess the reason for concern (worry) is /was the report from someone that "knows" that I needed to. Guess that not everyone who knows it all really knows it all. Ive owned this bike for almost two weeks now ,so I really have not had the time to get to know her. So far the beast is a real sweety. In the two weeks since I got her, Ive put just over 1200 miles on it ,and no complaints other than the 100 degree plus weather. The big advantage ,as I said at first ,is the dirt road ability. Every time it gets fired up it faces a minimum of 18 miles( 9 in ,9 out) of poorly maintained dirt. Most often about a third to half of the rest of the trip is dirt as well. Ive never been one to fix it if it wasnt broke,but I try to check my climbing gear before I go out on a limb.Thanks again for the info. The Largiader site was great.

Ride like you stole it. There's plenty of help on this site if any problem, not just tranny, should pop up.

tranny

I just checked this for any other answer and got the "ride it like you stole it"" Hummmm... I just walked in from a ride to town where one of our newly installed photo speeding ticket cameras let go of the flash on me. Guess I should of kept a lower profile on my "stolen " bike. Oh well there goes a $181.50 bill. Opps.

manonthemule said:

I just checked this for any other answer and got the "ride it like you stole it"" Hummmm... I just walked in from a ride to town where one of our newly installed photo speeding ticket cameras let go of the flash on me. Guess I should of kept a lower profile on my "stolen " bike. Oh well there goes a $181.50 bill. Opps.

Click to expand...

You must be in the Phoenix area

i believe the phrase "ride it like you stole it" would have you running with a stolen plate as well, allowing the $181.50 to continue residency in your bank account rathe than the state's.
if you're going to follow suggestions, be sure to follow the implicit suggestions as well as the explicit one.

Like I stole it.

First. I live in the mountains south of Tucson. While in Tucson I came up to an intersection and turned right on red . To put a little distance between the cars that just got their green and me I gave it a little encouragement with the right hand . The little sign that tells you about the photo enforcement was just before the light on the street that i turned onto. As I started to let off on the beast I noticed a flash and ,well I guess I was speeding. I think about the good ol days on the 46 knucklehead when I was part of an undisireable ,and not so well thought of type of people, when it was common practice to make sure your jacket or something was over at least half of the licence. Maybe just a little mud on the tag? Now if it would just rain. I do have 9 miles of dirt between me and the first bit of asphalt. Seems easy enough to explain.

They have to be able to clearly identify the driver's face before a citation is issued. With a full face helmet on that might be very difficult. Even if you get a citation you'll have the opportunity to contest the identity of the rider/driver by submitting a copy of your DL picture.