Hi all, One of these is on my radar at the moment. I have 2 Ducatis and am thinking of selling one to make room. Do any other users here have one or have ridden one? From what I’ve read the current model is ace but lacking the ‘soul’ of say a Ducati. Another option is to sell both current bikes and get a V4. Would very much welcome any thought or opinions, based on experience of either or both! TIA BJB
The gen 4 is a nice bike to ride and has all the toys. However.. most of the people I know who own them have had variations of severe reliability and quality issues. If it’s under warranty then I guess no dramas
Thanks bud. I'd heard rumours about reliability etc. And it does look a bit plastic compare to a Ducati. Let's see fi anyone here has first hand experience. I'll carry on digging.
Yeah I haven’t owned one only ridden a fair few. You’re not wrong about the finish, no idea what happened from the gen 3 to 4 but the quality of the fixings nose dived ! I know there’s some guys on here that have owned them though and I’m sure they’ll be along.
Not quite the same, but I had a single 'R', 2015 MY and had a fair few issues with it, on a low mileage bike too. Most of the probs were fairly minor apart from the water pump pissing coolant all over the back tyre but still not what you expect from the brand. It was enough to put me off buying another BMW though, at least for a while.
The water pump thing is quite common across the S1000 range. I've known R's and XR's do it too. I had a '14 HP4 and a '19 XR with no problems personally and the build quality was pretty decent. I was riding on road though, not subjecting it to track use. That said, my '15 GSA went in for a service last week, and came back with a non-functioning quickshifter. BMW are taking a look at it next week as the bike is under warranty but mentioning £90 for diagnosis... erm no.
Tbf it was only one bmw, an element for rider input may have been involved and bmw sorted me (took a while) brilliantly. I’d rather have a busted beemer than any other brand IME
The pumps 'weep' quite often and BMW said it was normal under some circumstances, until it stopped weeping and started gushing out, which it did to me in the middle of Italy. To be fair my mate has an XR and his has been faultless, the QS was one of the issues I had on mine, from what I remember they reset and recalibrated it.
I think that was down to how it was ridden tbh ( or just unlucky lol ).. I have had S1r, two R1200gs and now an R1250gs. All have been perfect, not a single reliability issue.
Hello. I had a 2016 Gen 3 S1000RR sport after a number of Ducatis. The bike went well, but needed to be revved to get higher performance, not unlike other across the frame four cylinder models, but different from a Ducati V twin. I did have some minor problems with fasteners coming loose, but this was eventually resolved. Some people reported vibration through the bars at certain revs, but I didn't find it a problem I fitted an Akrapovic silencer that wasn't standard, which I don't think improved the performance much but did make it sound better. Also, there were a number of "option packs" which added extras to the standard bike. The 2017> bikes had a number of changes including a revised larger exhaust system for improved emissions, I suggest comparing the engine characteristic curves for the BMW RR and the Ducati V4 versions you are interested in to get an idea about how the engines should respond in use. In the end I missed the engine characteristics of a big Ducati L twin, and now have a Panigale R in place of the BMW RR. Hope this helps. Tom.
I bought a brand new gen2 for £11.5k in 2013, kept it 6 years and did 11k miles on it. Annual service was around £150 at BMW, and the only thing that went wrong on it was the ABS unit at around 5 years. BMW replaced the £1200 part FOC. The gen 2 was definitely better than the gen 1 I tested, mine pulled from around 3k, and piled on revs like crazy over 10k rpm. Part of the package was a free track day, I didn't fancy that and after some haggling BMW gave me an Akra can instead. It wasn't a bike I'd have indoors to look at though.
I had the latest MY22 S1000RR for about a week when my GS was in for an extended service. The last S1000RR I rode was back in 2015 and I thought it was anodyne, boring, and completely soulless. Wow, what a difference the 7 years has made. The latest one is absolutely fantastic. I was reluctant to return it, and found myself thinking of various man math equations to justify one in the garage. Make no mistake - it is absolutely brilliant. The suspension was absolutely sublime. The engine has soul - not Ducati levels, but it definitely has enough character to keep things interesting. The ergos are nigh on perfect - you know some bikes have been evolved enough that small details matter and you can tell they have been thought through on the latest version. The Pani may be more raw and exciting, but as a superbike that you can blitz a trackday and also do a major European tour without concern or discomfort, I’d take the S1000RR all day.
These links might help with the engine characteristics, but may be a little out of date? https://www.panigalev4club.com/threads/dyno-panigale-v4-vs-1299-vs-s1000rr-vs-rsv4.901/ . https://www.visordown.com/features/general/2018-litre-superbike-test-all-dyno-numbers . https://ducatiforum.com/threads/panigale-v4-vs-1299-dyno-results.30140/ . Good luck. Tom.
Wow. Loads of great feedback, thank you one and all. I’d be looking at going for a new one or maybe a year old. I’ve noticed about a 20% drop in value after a year, I guess that’s the VAT element being wiped out. One thing that really appeals is the level of support at dealer level and the warranty etc. Am test riding on Saturday so will let you know what I think. I will also follow up on the links provided. Thank you RTD for those.
Mine blew up in Europe. On Easter weekend. They couldn’t get a bike, but said I may be able to have a car but not for a day or so. Or they could fly me home. They got me on a flight day after recovery, bought me a suitcase (£185 at the airport!), gave me a hire car on landing which I kept for 6 weeks while they shipped back and tried to work out a fix. I decided to change bikes, gave it the lost confidence argument (bike was 6 weeks old and 1100 miles of which 500 were done getting to Luxembourg). They did a cost-difference on a fully loaded GS, ie what the dealer pays, although it did take 3m to sort out. Again tho, dealer said any time I fancied a ride let the, know and they’d lend me a bike - just return with fuel in. I can’t imagine Ducati or any brand offering that level of after service. If buying new again, it would be tough to look past bmw for me on that basis only.
mate has had one of every variant, a few hp4's and now the latest. Hes never had any issues with any of them that wasnt his own fault.
