Any experience of BMW boxers, and in particular their gearbox.

[agricola]

Ill continue to do without these very expensive additions until forced to do otherwise. In almost five decades in engineering, I have doubts regarding the reliability of these systems, and the costs of repair when failure occurs. It'd hardly be within the talents or financial reaches of most of us home mechanics to repair and service these systems as they age. Good luck to those that have them. Driving up the cost of motorcycling will drive down the number of riders

I suspect that basically precludes you from buying any modern bike. :eek


Yes, it probably will. My current FZ6 is likely my last ever bike at my age, injection and ABS but nothing other than that. Todays similar sized bikes dont have the same power (MT07/CBR650 etc)


  They are loaded with electronic and microprocessor technology.  Pretty much everything is fly by wire now.  I do like the fact my old thou has a push pull cable to a bank of carbs – it can go wrong but it’s pretty predictable in terms of failure.  But yeah if I refuse such technology then I don’t have the option of a new bike.  Further I think in general everything is more reliable than it’s ever been.


Probably more reliable in the short term, but 6 years down the line will the gadgets still be 100% reliable and performing as the day the machine was new? And if not, who ya gonna take it too for correction since that task is likely to be well beyond the talents of the average bike rider? 


On the other hand, I know that in industry we often look to aerospace for inspiration in matters of safety.  I mean one of the leaders in safety across the board has been Boeing.  So who would have ever thought they could have got it so wrong with the 737 800 max.  In fact so wrong almost a year later they haven’t got it fixed.  That’s the real worry. :eek


I would hazard a guess that one of the root causes is cost cutting. Aerospace is competitive just like all other industries in the global capitalist market place. They all look to cutting costs, any costs, as a means of increasing market share/competitiveness/maintaining profit return on capital invested