RECALL: G310R European Commision :Alert number: A12/1200/17

European Commision :Alert number: A12/1200/17https://ec.europa.eu/consumers/cons...200/17&exclude_search_term=0&search_year=2017
Category: Motor vehicles
Product: Motorcycle
Brand: BMW
Name: G310R

Type / number of model: Type-approval number: e1*168/2013*00017* Type: 5R31
Batch number / Barcode: The vehicles affected were produced between 15 December 2016 and 1 April 2017.

Risk type: Injuries

The front brake caliper is not correctly secured and may come loose.
Measures taken by economic operators: Recall of the product from end users (By: Manufacturer)

Should be an easy recall in the US. I don't think any have arrived yet...

Well...at least this recall isn't for final drive failure.

recall

tangoalpha said:

Well...at least this recall isn't for final drive failure.

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YET !

Friedle

310 R recall

What is happening with BMW Motorad? What kind of product oversight, at the manufacturer level, do they have? This past year has seen recalls on nearly all their motorcycle lines. Quality Control has apparently been eliminated by the "bean counters" to the detriment of the Dealers and customers. The reliability of their units has to certainly be in question.

It seems to me that as more and more is thunk up by a company, as more and more parts are outsourced to others than that thunk up the concept....further farmed out to a "random" company for assembling, with a dash of bureaucratic "specksmanship"...... it's a wonder anything gets rolling.
OM

It amazes me how folks think a recall is some sort of apocalyptic event. Or that they represent a sign of anything at all.

"Quality" exists more in the design and materials used than it does in the production process. I'm certainly not interested in junk perfectly assembled.

Back in the 1980s my R100RS arrived with dabs of green paint on the screws holding the calipers to the forks and the rear bracket. Guess this means somebody checked them. Today I suspect caliper mount screws are tightened via pneumatic or electric drivers, which I'd suppose required periodic calibration. I'd not be interested in helping pay the salary of a second person double checking each and every screw and then putting a dab of paint on them. In the end, the power tool is almost always more reliable than a human process.

When we buy new bikes from dealers we always want the best deal. To afford this, the dealer may not have an employee checking every fastener on the bike. They only get paid to do this when there are recalls ... and that's why there are recalls.

In another thread here a year or more ago, I researched economic data to determine that a new R1200RS sells for virtually the same in constant dollars as my 1984 RS did. So ... fuel injection, brakes that work, ABS, 125 vs 60 hp, 6 speeds vs 5, better suspension by far ... for the same price? Cool! I'd suspect some automation contributed to this ... and it's then in the monitoring and calibration process for the machines.

No, these are the good old days, and a few recalls are just noise.

The value of having the best design and engineering and using the best materials is negated if the production process doesn’t reflect the same commitment to quality. What the recent recalls/campaigns indicate to me is that BMW needs to pay more attention to the entire manufacturing process if they want to maintain a reputation for making premium bikes.

Chicota said:

The value of having the best design and engineering and using the best materials is negated if the production process doesn’t reflect the same commitment to quality. What the recent recalls/campaigns indicate to me is that BMW needs to pay more attention to the entire manufacturing process if they want to maintain a reputation for making premium bikes.

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My "premium" motorcycle came from the factory with misaligned camshafts, and burned lots of oil at first.
I learned that high quality (materials, process, or assembly) and high price are not necessarily related.

Robotics may be cheaper and faster, but unless programmed correctly, it is not better than humanity. Calipers too loose is a robot not programmed correctly. A human with a torque wrench would be more reliable but also more costly. So, in today's age these kind of thing happen. So, I will go get my torque wrench and loosen and then correctly tighten the brake caliper bolts on our two G310s. It will take two minutes and then I can laugh at the recall notice if I ever get one.

Paul, I like your plan. A technique question occurs to me though — what is the advantage of loosening the bolts before correctly tightening them?

irish said:

Paul, I like your plan. A technique question occurs to me though — what is the advantage of loosening the bolts before correctly tightening them?

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Great question. I can set my torque wrench and then turn the bolt clockwise. I might not know if it was too tight or too loose, or if "stiction" caused by the thread interface is fooling me.

Or I can loosen the fastener and then re-tighten the fastener to the specified torque. I prefer the latter because it is me, and my feel, and my wrench that I am depending on.

PGlaves said:

Great question. I can set my torque wrench and then turn the bolt clockwise. I might not know if it was too tight or too loose, or if "stiction" caused by the thread interface is fooling me.

Or I can loosen the fastener and then re-tighten the fastener to the specified torque. I prefer the latter because it is me, and my feel, and my wrench that I am depending on.

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In case they've ever been overtightened (I haven't read the recall), maybe good to replace the bolts while you're at it?

PGlaves said:

Great question. I can set my torque wrench and then turn the bolt clockwise. I might not know if it was too tight or too loose, or if "stiction" caused by the thread interface is fooling me.

Or I can loosen the fastener and then re-tighten the fastener to the specified torque. I prefer the latter because it is me, and my feel, and my wrench that I am depending on.

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Thanks!

PGlaves said:

Great question. I can set my torque wrench and then turn the bolt clockwise. I might not know if it was too tight or too loose, or if "stiction" caused by the thread interface is fooling me.

Or I can loosen the fastener and then re-tighten the fastener to the specified torque. I prefer the latter because it is me, and my feel, and my wrench that I am depending on.

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Paul,

regarding your personal torque wrenches; do you ever get them calibrated? I work as a federal technician on Blackhawk helicopters and our torque wrenches are sent into calibration annually.

I didn't know if there was a civilian version of our calibration lab.

Daryl

DBCasey said:

Paul,

regarding your personal torque wrenches; do you ever get them calibrated? I work as a federal technician on Blackhawk helicopters and our torque wrenches are sent into calibration annually.

I didn't know if there was a civilian version of our calibration lab.

Daryl

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I have had my 3/8" drive wrench checked once - I forget the lab - but I did find transcat.com has labs at 20 locations. I also have beam style wrenches and can compare the two types from time to time.

Torque Wrench Calibration

Daryl and Paul: While I was vaguely aware torque wrenches should periodically be re-certified, I've never understood just how that's done. Does the inspection involve "resetting" the wrench to spec, or merely advising the owner how far out of specification the wrench is? I've never sent one for certification and until this thread, didn't have a clue where one might do so. Would be nice if vendors included that information at the time of purchase. I am a little surprised they do not - you'd think there is some liability involved. But come to think of it, I do not recall ever buying a torque wrench that came with an inspection certificate when new, either. Mmmm....

Yes - When I was working aerospace, there was an on-site Metrology Lab that handled all instrument calibrations, with traceability of their own equipment right back to the National Bureau of Standards.
If a torque wrench was out of spec, it was taken apart and adjusted.
We also had several certified torque measurement devices in the smaller project labs (also periodically recalibrated), and we were required to verify a wrench before using it.

Torque = Force X Distance, both easily measured quantities, no rocket science or voodoo here.

Calibration takes time and care, but is not very difficult. See YouTube and Google for the how-to. The desired precision is not as great as you might think.

The ANSI Standard allows 4% of reading error between 20% and 100% of wrench capacity. Below 20% ANSI allows an error in reading
equal to 0.8% of wrench capacity.

Use a known force - weights measured with an accurate scale (digital is nice).
Use a known distance - measured with a ruler.

I have two beam wrenches, three Harbor Freight clickers, and a Harbor Freight digital torque adapter. The click-types had 0 - 1.5% error at 80% capacity, now adjusted to 0-0.5% just because I could. Re-tested yearly, only one has ever needed re-calibration.

Learn Something Here Just About Every Day...

Thanks fellows. Now I have a project mission - torque wrench calibration! (Thanks to a thread on the G310R recall and I don't even own one.....)