BMWs 2007 Ironbutt Woes

[ebincia]

The Ironbutt rally is over, but BMW's performance in this 11 day endurance is a point of contention. The following is taken from the official Ironbutt site, by this years rally reporter Tom Austin.


"The Tarnished Blue and White Roundel


A disproportionate number of the DNFs fall on the shoulders of BMW. BMW failed several riders, demonstrating that they are no longer capable of building motorcycles that can run 11,000 miles in 11 days without a significant fraction experiencing a catastrophic drivetrain failure of some sort. BMW of North America has requested contact information for the riders who experienced failures. The riders BMW should be more concerned about are the thousands of unsuspecting souls who will breakdown in the future because the company has lost its previous ability to either design durable drivetrain components or (more likely) adequately monitor production and assembly quality. It's way, way past time for BMW to fix its drivetrain reliability problems. A good start might be to acknowledge that there is a problem " (Austin 2007).


The full text is at,

http://www.ironbuttrally.com/IBR/2007.cfm?DocID=45

[MikeCam]

Those words are well stated to summarize the issue.

[toolinalong]

I don't know how to make this table read well in this message but here it is anyways...

WHO Entered Finished DNF % Finished % DNY

BMW 40 24 16 60% 40%
HONDA 29 19 10 65% 35%
YAMAHA 14 11 3 79% 21%
H-D 3 1 2 33% 67%
SUZUKI 5 5 - 100% -
VICTORY 1 1 - 100% -
TRUIMPH 1 1 - 100% -
BUELL 1 1 - 100% -
KAWASAKI 3 1 2 33% 67%

totals 97 64 33 66% 34%

Further analysis of the results revealed that:

only 6 of the 33 non-finishers were due to mechanical or electrical reasons, but 5 of those were BMW's; 3 final drive failures, one engine (other), and one mechanical (other).

there were 5 non-finishers due to accidents, and 4 of those were riding Beemers.

hmmmm.

[toolinalong]

This is one of the bikes that suffered final drive failure.

It made me laugh out loud; is it tres cool or my worst nightmare?

http://www.maxbmwmotorcycles.com/IBRB/