Disappointed and Discouraged in BMW

OP

Just curious, how much did you pay for the used bike? How much did an '06 cost new in '06? Take that difference and apply it to parts and repairs up to one dollar minus the original new purchase price and your still getting a deal.

henzilla said:

.......And FWIW...my 72 Vega lost a cam belt at 39K and pretty much destroyed that powerhouse of an engine

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You bought a Vega?!?!?!

henzilla said:

And FWIW...my 72 Vega lost a cam belt at 39K and pretty much destroyed that powerhouse of an engine...

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You got 39k out of a Vega motor?!?!

Another Vega sufferer. I think we almost got 50K. It got us from California to Tacoma with almost everything we owned. Can't say much else good about the car.



Talk about frying pans and fires. I almost had to pay to get rid of the Vega so I could replace it with a... Fiat 128. Maybe my car history shows why I think BMW motorcycles are OK

marchyman said:

Another Vega sufferer. I think we almost got 50K. .. Fiat 128.

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At least, you don't have any AMC products in your past. Vegas and Pintos were really poor, but it took a special person to be a Gremlin / Pacer owner.

We went from a Fiat 124 Sports Coupe to Vega station wagon (yellow).

But I can hold my head high as we never owned a Pinto or a Pacer.

My husband had a Vega when he was a teenager and I had a Gremlin in college, lol!

akbeemer said:

You bought a Vega?!?!?!

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Actually it was my mom's that I had to trade her my 72 Camaro for due to insurance costs. Mom got the 4 speed hot rod, I got the yellow automatic turtle
Entering the freeway ramp was always an adventure.

my brother had a Pacer

clowry said:

My husband had a Vega when he was a teenager and I had a Gremlin in college, lol!

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I had a Vega myself back in 74. They used to ship those cars on rails in a vertical position. I met a guy recently who worked for the railroad and he talked about the block and chain process that they used to stack the Vega in the vertical position. He said that you would see pools of oil and dip sticks laying on the floors of the rail car after transport. But once at the dock, they were dropped down, and drove off, whether there was any oil left in them or not. It's no wonder that mine (like many) had a bad engine before 40,000. I was lucky, (or unlucky, I guess) to have mine totaled in a rear end accident and got out from under it before having to start working on the engine. I did like the body style though....

Had a Fiat 124 wagon bought used blew head gasket in 2 weeks and gave it to whomever came to tow it. Did not contact FIAT. They would have said fix again Cal


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Maybe I'm getting too old but whenever I buy something used it has always been caveat emptor. Whatever the seller says I basically disregard until I get it home and see exactly WTH I've bought.

A nice fat file of receipts are worth a lot to me. Very much a lot. Dealer service receipts are nice indicators.

Last bike had no engine leaks I could see, a couple recent busted side fins on crank pan, front fork and brakes completely soaked in fluid, leaking rear master, a nice re-paint job, worn out of date tires by a decade, hadn't been ridden in eight years, a few scratches from what seemed a static tip over.

I'm sure the water pump will start leaking, the rear main seal will give out, clutch cable will bust, the rubber doughnuts in the alternator drive will start wobbling, it'll need a valve job soon, or rings?, but I'm ready to go. And BTW, thanks to the guy who sold it to me.

About selling: with the current whinny litigious society I don't think I'll ever sell another bike, period. Charity or junk it. Stuff is all junk anyway. IMHO, FWIW, cheers later.

I remember touring the factory in Lordstown, Ohio when the Vega was in production. There were coils of steel marked "rejected" being loaded in the presses. Some already had started rusting. Yes, they were making panels with it and shipping them next door to the assembly plant.

henzilla said:

Mom got the 4 speed hot rod, I got the yellow automatic turtle. My brother had a Pacer

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Your mom was cool. Not sure about her two sons, though.

brucen8uty said:

...BMW should have helped out because it was a manufacturing defect...

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realizing that you opted to not disassemble the engine, did you find the root cause of the failure in order to declare it a manufacturing defect? In my experience, valve failures are usually due to another issue; carbon buildup, incorrect lash, ingestion of a foreign object, failure in timing mechanism...

Back to the OP. I know we will beg to differ, but a catastrophic failure of an 8-9 year old fuel pump is not a catastrophic failure of the bike. Fuel pumps fail. That's just dumb luck.
With regards to the engine, it sounds like the exhaust valve disintegrated. And that's typically not to be expected on a low mileage bike even at nine years. Many manufacturers do come up to the plate with at least partial reimbursement outside of the warranty if it is determined to be a manufacturing defect. I've had vehicles fail under warranty and I've had to agree to the cost of the tear down if the cause is determined not be manufacturer defect. BMW did offer to possibly pay if the exact cause was determined. You chose not to tear down the motor to find out the cause. BMW was saying in some circumstances they would pay some portion of the bill, depending on what the cause was. I don't think it would have taken that long to pull the head and cylinder on the damaged side to figure out the cause. If you wanted BMW to pick up part of the cost, you should have paid to determine the exact cause of the failure, in my opinion. Why should any company pay for a repair when the cause is unknown?

88bmwjeff said:

I don?t think it would have taken that long to pull the head and cylinder on the damaged side to figure out the cause.

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I agree with this. Pulling a head to examine the broken valve and the destroyed piston top is not a big deal on an opposed twin like an R1200.

I wonder if there was carbon build up that caused the piston to smack the valve. I've seen that happen before. Vulcan 800 engines could have that happen if the owner used premium instead of regular. For whatever reason the pistons would carbon up bad on higher octane fuel.

ponch1 said:

I wonder if there was carbon build up that caused the piston to smack the valve. I've seen that happen before. Vulcan 800 engines could have that happen if the owner used premium instead of regular. For whatever reason the pistons would carbon up bad on higher octane fuel.

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Only pulling the head or using a borescope would tell for sure. I'd have done one or the other for sure, just out of curiosity. But dealerships don't make any money being curious - except after hours of course.

36654 said:

At least, you don't have any AMC products in your past. Vegas and Pintos were really poor, but it took a special person to be a Gremlin / Pacer owner.

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Hey, the 390 Javelin wasn't that bad a car. I knew a guy when I was in HS who used one to burn through a lot of tires at the local impromptu drag strip. Orange and white, oh yeah!


DG

Although I never owned one I have known numerous folks that owned Ford Pintos and they swore by them. They were simple functional cars with fair reliability. Kind of like airhead beemers which for the most part are far easier to work on than oilheads, in my humble opinion of course and we could go on and on with this subject, no doubt, and accomplish little.

Oh, where the Pinto is concerned just don't get rear ended in one or you might have an explosive experience as in boom goes the gas tank. About the only thing I ever heard bad about them. OK, I admit to being sort of a Ford guy.