BMW R1200RT/R1250RT Forum

Thought you might want to know about serious gearbox issues on the watercooled RTs. I'm a blood bike rider and my charity has 5 new watercooled RT-P blood bikes, 2015 and 2016 models. Out of the 5 bikes, 4 bikes have had new gearboxes and clutches, completed under BMW warrantee. Granted our bikes do high mileage of about 25 to 30k a year but there is a serious problem with the gearbox.  Combined with the gearbox problem, we've also had significant problems with the emergency lights and sirens (only an issue on RT-Ps which have a different wiring loom). They come on whilst riding and some lights stop working without input from the rider. These issues have mean bikes off the road for long periods, in some cases 6 to 7 weeks whilst electrical problems are investigated. Police/paramedic/blood bike riders might want to let their fleet managers know. The older air/oil cooled RT-P bikes which we've owned for a long time have been great. The problem has been so bad that our charity has decided to switch to new FJR blood bike. Such a shame. BMW have really slipped up. PS, I'm a loyal BMW rider for many years and currently own a 2016 RT which I love

Hi thanks for the warning, what was the g/box problem/symptoms,  just wondered how the bikes are ridden IE are the blood bikes exempt speed limits as police bikes are when lights and siren are active not that it should make a difference, are they warmed up before emergency riding and are they serviced by BMW. Any one out there covered more than 25.000 on your 1200 RT LC or had any issues?   

There is a pattern here.  Wonder what the link is.  Mass failures like this I think is a first and all in one place.

My Sept 2014 LC has done just shot of 20k mikes.
Is this something I can look forward to?
:wonder:

Our RTP air cooled has been pretty good, just shy of 54k now. The new FJR we have is suffering from intermittent electrical problems, you switch the ignition on and the lights on the panel come on, but no other lights, they haven't managed to sort it yet.

Blimey you would think things move on with progress this is worse than when Joseph Lucas did the electrics

My 2014 had a new clutch and basket @6k, IMHO was never as nice a box as the new 2017 bike in my garage now

futterweasel wrote: Blimey you would think things move on with progress this is worse than when Joseph Lucas did the electrics

On an FJR forum, they suggested it is a known issue with the earths - lol - sound familiar  8)

elephant8869 wrote: we've also had significant problems with the emergency lights and sirens (only an issue on RT-Ps which have a different wiring loom). They come on whilst riding

We've also had an issue with one of our new FJR's with the blues not been able to be switched off, this turned out to be water ingress in the switch that had caused it, not what you expect on a new bike and will be interesting to see if any of our other FJR's suffer from this.

Just checked the symptoms on the RT-P gearbox failures.  With all the failures the symptom was the riders could not get the bikes into neutral.

That was how my bike ended up getting a new clutch, neutral was impossible to find.

Our bikes started with a few clutch replacements but then gearboxes were replaced.

There must be hundreds of RTP in service all over Europe, is this a known issue?

Casbar wrote: There must be hundreds of RTP in service all over Europe, is this a known issue?

It is now!

Just doesn't make sense that 4 out of 5 bikes all at the same place and presumably used by the same riders suffer identical gearbox problems.  Wonder how long it will be until the replacement components give up.