RE: oilheads-digest V1 #49

[Don MacQueen <dmac@xxxxxxxxxx>]

Stan Rife wrote:

>	What is it that you are looking for BMW to change about the
>bikes...what is it that keeps you from buying a new model.

Current styling is stale.

100 honest RWHP

At least 75 fewer pounds.

The ability to have ABS exclusive of linked brakes or servo assist.

>Ever think that you are just being toooooo picky?

Heavens no, ever think you're too easy to please?

>Like I said in my previous post, BMW is
>not going to make a tailor made bike to anyone's specifications.  They make
>them to their specifications and you just have to live with it.

No, I don't.  I'm living with their 1975 and 1995 specifications just 
fine.  I want their 2005 specification to be technologically and 
aesthetically in the same half decade as the rest of the industry.

>I think
>sometimes they add or change things that wind up being bad choices. Given
>enough customer feedback or bad sales figures these things eventually get
>changed. I don't think they are any different than any other manufacturer.
>One or two, or even a half dozen, people complaining on a mailing list isn't
>going to have much of an effect.

Oh, gosh, help, NO, don't...start...talking 
about...transmissions...surging...AHAAAAAAHAAH

>	What do you find in other bikes that you have bought that BMWs do
>not have.

Sadly, what I have found is most of what BMW offers (excluding the 
"mystique") at lower purchase and operating costs, with equal or 
greater reliabilty.

>I don't think you will find all of the qualities you are looking
>for in any one bike. And there are as many different opinions about those
>qualities as there are people riding motorcycles. BMW is like any other
>manufacturer...they are trying to please everybody with 4 or 5 motorcycles.
>It's just not possible.

I've said it many times.  I probably couldn't be closer to BMW 
Motorrad's core demographic, particularly since I'm a multi previous 
owner.  I should be an *easy* sale for BMW.  Smart companies please 
the core first.  BMW seems to be ignoring that group, *and* seems to 
be standing still technologically and stylistically.  If they do 
that, my RS (and apparently for him, Robert's two RSs) will be just 
fine.

- -- 
____________________________________
Don MacQueen, Shelby NC
Suppose we can get a national recall?
'95 R1100RS
'75 R90/6
'00.5 RSV Mille
'03 CRF230F--for sale :(
'99 A4 Jetta TDI
'01 Great Googoolee Moogoolee
'02 E2
WolfPack #004 emeritus
BMWRA, BMWMOA, TDIclub.com, HRCA
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