Thanks for the info. When I bought a BMW, I thought I was getting a high quality scooter. Now I am not so sure since they keep having engine troubles.
I don't think BMW produces bikes of particularly better or particularly worse quality than anyone else. In the absence of surveys such as the ones that
Consumer Reports shows on autos, with tens (hundreds?) of thousand inputs, we may never know.
As I reported three years ago (
www.bmw-scooters.com/threads/new-c400gt-owner-albany-ny-area-may-2022.2460/#post-21794 ), my buying a '22 C 400 GT (since replaced by a '23) had nothing to do with quality (perceived or real). My wife liked the ergos, I liked the pep and handling, and I was in the market for a new scooter with a generally competent local dealer and that was significantly lighter than a 650 Burgman.
That was pretty much it. Really nothing to do with quality.
I owned an R 850 R for three years ('97 - '00), and have followed BMW ever since, am a member of a couple of the non-scooter Beemer forums, etc.
In terms of quality issues, I had read for years about final-drive issues with RTs and GSes, for instance. And boxer-engine surging has been a prominent topic over the years, too. In much more recent times, I've read about gobs of problems -- perhaps more often than not -- with adaptive cruise on the top-of-the-line variants of those.
And then there's the issue of what I call "BMW being BMW," i.e., doing things just because they can, or just to be different, or just to show off, that sort of thing. I'm talking about such things as -- years ago, and only for a short time -- their implementing power brakes on some bike models; that made moving a turned-off bike around the garage an adventure. These days, you have what I think is a jackass move: the sideways Schrader valve positioning, something that I believe no other bike manufacturer does.
So, to my mind, BMW tries advanced technology more than most manufacturers, and offers a lot of features (with the exception of the C 400, anyway), but that's about it.
In terms of quality, advanced tech is more prone to failure, but that has nothing to do with drive shafts, for instance (and I believe that it was just within the last year that BMW agreed to
periodically replace those on latter-year RTs).
Perhaps
several decades ago BMW would have fared better than most moto manufacturers in a quality survey. Now, I don't see why it would. Our C 400s are made in a Chinese factory, as are chunks of their other models, many of which are no longer assembled in Germany, for instance. And this is true from Honda all the way down to, say, Benelli.
And we've all seen recalls on pretty much all brands, right? I mean, even Ducati for awhile couldn't make a gas tank that wouldn't warp with ethanol in it.
The other thing BMW is supposedly known for is cost ("Bring My Wallet" and so forth). In terms of initial cost, the bikes with advanced tech are certainly up there, but so are top-of-the-line Harleys, with just more chrome and special paint (and maybe a slightly bigger engine).
In terms of service, adhering my humble Royal Enfield Meteor 350 to its maintenance schedule costs about the same as my C 400 GT, even though the former cost about half the initial price of the latter. (I have a very competent RE dealer four miles away. At 77 now, I've farmed out any and all maintenance tasks on both bikes to their respective dealerships.)
So, in my opinion BMW's extra cost, like extra quality, is a myth, too, perhaps rooted in days of yore.
Corporate BMW itself, however, may still believe in these things. Otherwise, I don't understand how they expect to sell
any of the C 400s in Europe and Asia when Voge and Zontes, for instance, offer pretty much the same or beefier scoots in the 350 - 400cc range, with more features (with the exception of a second disc up front), and at thousands of euros less.
In any case, those are my thoughts on this. I think BMW is not significantly better or significantly worse in terms of quality and cost than most other moto manufacturers, and if they have some
particular offering that appeals to a buyer -- say, a C 400 GT in North America -- then that's reason enough to get one, just as would be the case for any other bike brand.
