You still have the issues of high cost to buy, reliability, cost of maintenance.
...not to mention their highly anemic dealer network (could also fall under "cost to buy" and "cost of maintenance"). Five years ago, the closest one to my house was about 10 miles. After that one closed, the next closest one was about 25 miles. Now THAT one has closed and the closest dealer to me is about 40 miles :blink:
I'm not sure if you're talking about the Yamaha dealer network or the BMW dealer network. As far as I can tell, most folks are going to have to drive a good ways to get to a decent dealer with either marque. We've got a Yamaha dealer in town, and its not noted for its excellent service. The nearest dealer with a professional service department is 80 miles away. D&H is probably 220 miles away.
I never wanted a BMW either. I sort of backed into it at BMW Motorcycles of Daytona. These guys have been awesome, and trips to Daytona are generally fun if you don't stay too long anyway. I'm heading to Orlando for the SAE Race Car Data Acquisition and Analysis Seminar next month, and I'll stop by Daytona on my way down, even though its not on the most direct route.
In any event, according to the BMW Owner's News, BMW has been warranteeing the final drive failures that occur, even after the original warranty period is over. It appears that BMW is generous with their customers if the customers follow the rules. They use the word generous in their description of warranty. The two owner's manuals I have now both say that if you have the service done at an authorized BMW dealership, they will be generous with warranty claims. I know this idea would send chills down the spines of most FJR owners because of the general belief that the dealer service departments are not as competent as the guided novices who learn as they go. Maybe that's right. I dunno... Any hint that you had to take your bike to an authorized Yamaha service center for routine maintenance would bring out the claims that litigation and threats of litigation would somehow get satisfactory performance on warranty from Yamaha. Frankly, I hate dealing with lawyers unless the stakes are a heck of a lot higher than getting service done on a bike. If a lawyer can give me good advice on a 6 or 7 figure deal, I don't mind paying for it. I am sure not going to bother with a lawyer on a typical warranty dispute.
And we still come back to the observation that modern K bike final drive failures appear to be few and far between. All BMW final drives are not the same. The new K1300 series will have a new final drive, and maybe this time there won't be any failures. I dunno.
Then we come back to the observation that when you break in a drive shaft driven bike, you are lapping in the mating gear surfaces and this will affect their life. Surface fatigue eventually leads noise, and then to bending fatigue, and finally to catastrophic failure. I often wonder how many of these drive shaft failure bikes were broken in using an accelerated engine break in strategy.
Even my 08 Toyota Tundra gave rules for break in which appeared to me to be driveline related rather than engine related.
