[dhgeyer]

Thanks mrlmd1! I can only hope. Thing is, about the worst thing that is at all likely to happen is a final drive failure after the bike is out of warranty. Large numbers of the final drives are failing. If that happens I'm out anywhere from $600.00 to $1500.00 bucks, and probably considerable downtime. There are other components failing on BMW's, but that's the nightmare scenario. The really aggravating thing is that all these problems have been known for years, well documented by user groups, and BMW is still building the same components into the bikes, no changes, and answering any complaints with denial and/or stony silence. I just can't respect that company anymore.

Still, I can't justify getting rid of the bike for that reason. Even if the worst were to happen, it wouldn't cost as much as trading to another bike, given that I bought mine new and would take a huge hit.

As an aside to WW, a large number of formerly totally loyal BMW customers are (reluctantly) going to other bikes now, and the most popular ones seem to be the Suzuki DL650 or DL1000 Vstroms. Reason? In a word - bulletproof, like BMWs used to be.