BMW enhances customer satisfaction with their new driveshaft maintenance strategy

[Grumpy Goat]

Gotta love this ... finally I got my letter from BMW regarding the driveshaft debacle, and was amused (not in a good way) at the BS opening to their missive. (Italics & font colour mine).

"Dear BMW Motorrad Owner:

BMW Motorrad USA would like to take this opportunity to thank you for the confidence in our company
and the BMW Motorrad brand you have demonstrated by purchasing this vehicle. Our commitment to
justifying your trust in us continues after the purchase. We are dedicated not only to providing premium
vehicles for our customers, but exceptional service as well.

To enhance customer satisfaction over the full vehicle lifetime, BMW Motorrad has decided to change
the maintenance schedule for all R 1200 and R 1250 models of the K5x series, even retroactively for
vehicles already sold."


The way this "whatever" was rolled out (some called it a "service bulletin" some called it a "recall", BMW clearly is calling it a "favour" to us) was crap. This started months and months ago and RS owners got no notification of this action. Not sure if all GS and RT owners actually got letters but somehow owners of those models managed to go in to dealers and get their driveshafts changed (and the duck-bill valve fitted to the underside of the swingarm), despite them saying since that time that all K5x models were affected. I went to two BMW dealers and the service person put in my VIN and declared there was nothing in the system for my RS; and I had not received any letter. Meanwhile I was [occasionally] riding my RS and could have suffered yoke failure leading to expensive repairs and possibly injury or death. That sort of commitment failed to justify trust in this consumer, I can tell you that. That also does not speak to exceptional trust either.

They should have issued letters to *all* K5x owners at the same time, even if it meant that doing the replacements were to be staggered / phased to allow driveshaft supplies to meet the demand.

Then there is the funny bit ... by this action they are seeking to enhance customer satisfaction ... 

To my mind, you "enhance" something that is already good ... satisfaction that is already there. Confusing all the K5x owners and then coming up with this finally stated strategy is not an enhancement at all, but is a putting right what should have never had to be put right in the first place.

I am an engineer, and I have an appreciation for materials and mechanical failures. I can also understand how parts can fail in the field even if they appear to be adequately designed at the outset. It is what the company does after finding those failures that either supports the confidence in the consumer or destroys it altogether (or at least significantly). How the "falling on the sword" is done also matters to some people, and I am one of those. It takes class to show humility while at the same time doing appropriate damage control, and clearly this letter - to my mind - falls short.

Driveshaft is now a BMW-funded consumable

So, the money paragraph in this letter states:

"Driveshaft health check using a new tester led diagnostic method and re-grease of splines every
12,000 miles (20,000 km)

Replacement of the driveshaft every 36,000 Miles (60,000 km) (Driveshaft milage not vehicle milage).
- The replacement, check and re-grease will be carried out at the expense of BMW Motorrad
USA over the full vehicle lifetime."

What this means is that every 12k miles you the consumer will probably pay for the labour for the health check / spline regrease (I had decided on my own to do a regrease every 12k since my bike hit 48k miles, thanks to these failures!), but they will replace your driveshaft every 36k [driveshaft] miles and the regrease at that time (?).

So up until these failures they were assuming that the $1200 driveshafts would outlast the bikes and would not fail, I guess. Once the failures started happening, guess what - the part number for the driveshaft changed and the f*&(^$ price dropped to $200! I know because I bought one using my own money! (Bet you I can't get that back now that BMW is going to cover it!!). What this also means is that they are only 36k miles confident that the yokes would not fail ... imagine, going from totally confident to 36k mile confident in what? Just over a year or so? Nice.

I just have to remember, they are enhancing my satisfaction.

(PS - I started the RSWasserboxer website and forum because the RS model was relatively unknown amongst BMW owners, and that was largely due to BMW Motorrad marketing strategy, so I will admit to a bit of a chip on my shoulder regarding the short shrift that it has received over the years. This debacle is yet another example.)