service manual options

[Pyrrho]

There's been a surge of interest in right-to-repair legislation recently, both at a state and federal level in the US. Although focusing primarily on consumer electronics it really should apply to everything, including bikes. Regulation-heavy states like California have requirements for manufacturers to supply service parts but unfortunately not the manuals.

It's all about protecting their dealers' profit centers, which I can understand given how many shops have closed. No easy answers that I can see. One of my best friends was looking at sport-touring bikes recently and would have gotten a BMW but chose a Tracer 900 GT instead for the sole reason of dealer shop availability. He's comfortable doing most of his own wrenching but didn't want to be left out to hang should something major come up.

I just spent nearly a half hour trying to find a dealership near me that had R1200RS or R1250RSes in inventory. None in Wisconsin do. Closest is a single bike at a dealership in another state over an hour and a half away. Even there, the pictures of it are out of focus, missing descriptions, etc. Are they even trying to sell these? You'd think BMW would see this as a problem and offer an online bike locator for potential customers looking for test rides. Total chicken-and-egg situation; BMW has the resources to address this but for whatever reason doesn't.