BMW R1200RT/R1250RT Forum

Last Saturday I was unfortunate enough to suffer a breakdown, or to be more precise my bike did! (2016 RT.) I have the extended warranty and after a couple of phone calls and texts my bike was swiftly recovered and I was put in a taxi to take me home. Excellent service from BMW warranty and breakdown. I was unsure of the exact cause of the breakdown but it sounded like gearbox/driveshaft going off the noises and vibration just before I quickly stopped and switched off. I today received a call from my local friendly dealer(Williams of Manchester) and was informed that the splines on the driveshaft where it enters the bevel box had worn off. Hopefully the warranty will cover this as I was informed that this is not an uncommon problem and spares are kept in stock just for this purpose. Fingers crossed.

Glad you managed to stop before it failed catastrophically!

How many miles has your 2016 bike done?

Bike had just over 35600 miles on clock. Dealer serviced from new. The splines had worn off the driveshaft and also damaged the final drive so that was replaced too. Thank goodness for the BMW warranty!

The PO of my bike had the same happen to him and as you say Warranty covered the repair. I had the UJ snap on my K75. Luckily i had an extended warranty. Oxford BMW collected the bike in Staines Middx, Paid for a cab to take me home, and delivered the bike back to me the next day. Happened on Friday late afternoon and back before 3 pm on Saturday.

We just had a similar incident here in Texas on an RT. The fellow was riding and all of a sudden the rear wheel locked up. It broke up just about everything in the swing arm. When that swing arm breaks, only one smallish bolt holds the rear wheel on. The drive shaft was destroyed. It is a pretty sobering event. No one was hurt, but it was definitely a Code Brown moment

A friend who owns a R1200C took his bike to our local dealer for work. Sometime later his final drive self destructed and the 3rd party repairer we have in town (whom even rides a BMW) found a clip had been left off the shaft during the previous work at the dealer.

I posted recently about my driveshaft failure…..my post is MIA??

detroitboy wrote: ↑Wed Apr 26, 2023 3:06 am I posted recently about my driveshaft failure…..my post is MIA??

its on this thread

viewtopic.php?p=68052#p68052

Yet still BMW refuse to check the RT shafts as a service measure and only cover other models with the same parts.Looking at the NT1100 for my next bike.BMW customer care is a misnomer, they're not interested.

Some maintenance this morning , decided to grease the front splines this time and replace the rubber boot. Sprayed up the shaft whilst at it

What has changed between older and new bike shafts? Why is it always newer bikes to suffer this failure?. I know my 07 RT had a new driveshaft 2 years ago but apart from this, I haven't heard of other older bikes having this problem. My old R80RT(ex-Kent Police) & R100RT both had over 120 thou miles on them and to be honest i can't remember ever servicing the rear end.

Just looks to me like bmw don’t grease the spline shafts from the factory then moisture can get in through the rubber boot and start the rust.

Could it not be the quality of the materials used to cut the costs?

The materials look fine, just an oversight on lube from the factory imo.

Stripped the rear on mine today!

The shaft still looked good and the UJ felt fine too

Small amount of water in the swingarm though

I think the rubber boot has had its day so I will replace that in good time