BMW R1200RT/R1250RT Forum

There is loads of information out there about crunching and clunking gears, bikes jumping forward, poor clutch disengagement, inability to find neutral etc. Certainty enough for BMW to try and address the issues with a revised design. The link in this thread describing methods about how to improve gear selection by things such as rolling the bike backwards etc is laughable. Why on earth should you be expected to do this, and fortunately I haven't felt the need to do any of those things.

However, it didn't stop me buying one. I live with the very audible clunk into first. Earplugs help. All gears positively select and neutral is easy to find. Free panniers, Nav5 and a P/X at retail price for a new 2016 bike was to good to resist. However, my 1150 has a 'nicer' gearbox. In fact my 1961 Triumph has a better box.
The 2017 is a lot less vocal. But we now have a charcoal canister and fork leg reflectors added for 2017 MY :-( .


Gearshift pro - brilliant. It makes an adequate gearbox quite nice.


Now, forget gearboxes, what about leaking water pumps or faulty switch gear? After just a few months and a couple of thousand miles mine is sat at the dealers waiting for these repairs.......
Oh, and I have asked them to sort out the noisey clunk into first :-).

BMW can be a bit funny about the pump change.  Most of us have had like a blue haze out of the drain hole in the early life of the bike and then it stops.  Mine did anyway .  Switch replacement takes all of 15 minutes so push them.  They have of course given you a replacement bike in the meantime. Loosing the clunk, no chance.

Yes, your right, lots of info about the pump seal taking a while to bed in, and in most cases the weep disappears. Unfortunately mine didn't and even popped the little piece of foam they stick in the hole out, so they are going ahead with a pump change. No quibbles of course. Interestingly the 2017 doesn't have the weep hole in the same place, and has what looks like a piece of brass tube sticking out of the engine near the original weep hole location. I suspect the internal weep reservoir has been increased in size. The switch start button has failed to turn her over a couple of times, so again they just ordered a new one. I preferred the older switch gear with the paddles for left and right indicators, but sadly bmw bowed to demands to normalise it )-:
F800GT loan bike. Fun, but not something I would buy.

Mainly MCN moaning about 3 buttons when you only need 1.  Last time I bought the rag they were singing the old types praises.

RTman10 wrote: Not sure if this is a bit of banter or he's buggered off.

I hope not - he's funny.


For those of you also on UKGSer, do you think he knows Engineer?

Thank God BMW saw sense and moved to one switch indicators, the 3 switch system was absolutely shambolic in my humble opinion of 40 odd years motorcycling.

scunny1 wrote: Thank God BMW saw sense and moved to one switch indicators, the 3 switch system was absolutely shambolic in my humble opinion of 40 odd years motorcycling.

funny - I miss it!

The best thing about the 3 switch system.  It NEVER broke.

Used to have two switch indicators on the Harley. What was a three switch system, left, right and and a separate cancel?

Yep.  Quite big  paddles all thumb activated.  Last used on 2009 models.  What we have now started on the K1200GT about a year earlier.

So similar to Harley controls,except you cancelled (they had self cancelling) by pushing the same button. Worked really well and easy to use

RTman10 wrote: The best thing about the 3 switch system.  It NEVER broke.

That's true.  The move to the more common single-switch indicator control does seem to coincide with the marked decline in the quality of BMW switchgear...

richardbd wrote: ..... That's true.  The move to the more common single-switch indicator control does seem to coincide with the marked decline in the quality of BMW switchgear....

DEFINITELY !!

The old 3 switch indicators were easy to use, especially with big thick gloves on. However I always hated the fact that, when driving on the left as we do in the UK, a warning toot to a vehicle waiting to pull out from the left, could easily result in a left indicator signal, the very last thing you wanted. For that reason I'm happy with the newer arrangement.