2011 bmw g 650 gs fork failure

Discussion in 'Face Plant' started by antiquewidow, Jun 22, 2011.

  1. slide

    slide A nation with a future

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    The published weight wet w/o fuel of my bike is 320 lbs. It does feel about the same as my wife's DRZ 400s so it's believable. IIRC, the Husq is 410 lbs. Not sure if that's wet or wet w/fuel, though.

    I may be wrong on these but I doubt by much.

    I was just at the BMW dealership buying some parts & gave an eye to the F's there. While it's probably silly, I just cannot see myself riding one since I don't trust the fork bosses.
  2. astroguy

    astroguy Astroguy

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    You're likely correct Slide about this concern being 'silly' because it is far more likely that a car will try to off you! We maybe worrying about the wrong things.
    I've 10's of thousands of km on my 2001 F650 with the old style fork boss and occasionally I do get that little feeling of wondering what might be happening in those fork sliders but it quickly leaves my mind. Like I mentioned....probably worrying about the wrong stuff but it does seem to be one extra dumb 'risk' thing that I wish didn't exist.
    Evey time I let a friend take it for a spin they peek down at the fork bosses before jumping on!! I don't know if they do this to joke with me or because they actually want to see that there isn't any oil seeping!!
    Oh well. I would ride with more peace of mind if BMW/showa had not taken it upon themselves to retool the design at likely great expense in 2004 for simply asthetics! What's up with that?
  3. slide

    slide A nation with a future

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    The problem, IMO, is mostly in BMW 's silence. Lets the mind run wild.
  4. madeouttaglass

    madeouttaglass Hippie Ki Yay! Humboldt changed my life.

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  5. reenmachine

    reenmachine Rain or Shine

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  6. GS-A-Day

    GS-A-Day Been here awhile

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    When I was at the dealer today, I noticed that the forks on the new BMW F700GS now look similar to the forks on the G650GS. The forks of the F650GS Twin were a different design.

    FWIW, it seems that BMW has a good deal of confidence in the G650GS design, as the forks on the F700GS are equipped with two disks and the bike has a good deal more power that the G650GS.
  7. Davidc83

    Davidc83 Long timer

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    32,000+ miles on my 2009 g650gs, no problems or other issues of any kind.
  8. nomad5326

    nomad5326 Xventurous

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    Own three Dakars (01, 02, 03). Over 40k, 35k, 25, respectively on each and never had a problem with the forks on/off road. They are ridden equally hard between myself a 220lb rider, my brother a 210lb rider and my GF a 125lb rider on/off road loaded/unloaded. I think a few isolated incidents have created a windstorm for those ambulance chasers or BMW haters. Either upgrade to a YZ front end (which I have on one) or move to the Terra. The bike is excellent in it's purpose.
  9. twinjet

    twinjet Been here awhile

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    I really hate to drag this thread back but when you Google "motorcycle fork failure", only BMW and KTM come up. And KTM did a mandatory recall to fix their forks.
  10. stromsurfer

    stromsurfer Stromsurfer

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    Does anyone have an actual count of failures. Seems to me we have 656,499.0 comments with only a few actual confirmed failures. Just wondering.......
  11. Got2Moto

    Got2Moto Got2MotoGraphics

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  12. reenmachine

    reenmachine Rain or Shine

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    Not on a 2011 G650GS, which is what this thread is supposed to be about. Nor a 2012 G650GS. 2013 G650GS...nope.

    The older failures are a different fork design.

    The one late-model failure that sparked this thread (and which is the only one seen all over the Internet) was most likely caused by a pre-existing condition stemming from shipping damage or improper assembly.

    We'll never know for sure, because no helpful information was ever posted and OP disappeared, moving on with her life. The tinfoil hat crowd says this is because she was silenced by BMW in a grand cover-up of a defective fork design that continues to be foisted upon the public because human lives are cheaper than redesign costs.

    The other 99.9% of us are too busy out enjoying our bikes for thousands and thousands of rough miles to pay them any mind.

    This thread has been dead for a long, long time.

    That's all I have to say about that.
  13. Got2Moto

    Got2Moto Got2MotoGraphics

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    Yep, I didn't see that this thread was titled 2011.
    Just one in U.S. Out of a few thousand made thereabouts.
    Wish the OP would have some consideration to update us
    fellow riders with some pertinent details to the outcome.

    Put the scare into a couple thousand riders and then go quiet.
    Weird.
  14. WayneC

    WayneC Long timer

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    Nothing weird, she let us know what happened, Insurance Co wrote machine off, she bought a new machine and moved on in life
  15. ratze

    ratze RIDE ON,,,,

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    DAM, thats the first time ive seen such a thing. been around to.
  16. slide

    slide A nation with a future

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    I think this thread was started by a chick who experienced a failure on a new design fork.
  17. windowto

    windowto Long timer

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    2011 G650GS, to be exact
  18. reenmachine

    reenmachine Rain or Shine

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    It was, and I'm aware of that. If you read a bit more carefully, my response was to a post citing a specific report which only addressed the earlier-model fork failures. I was pointing out that that list of failures didn't pertain to the current-generation G650GS.
  19. windowto

    windowto Long timer

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    Agreed,

    Didn't mean to outdo you. I was just confirming what slide said.
  20. Adventure MotoX

    Adventure MotoX Been here awhile

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    +1 !