To add to this, last weekend I took my new (to me) 2019 1250 GSA out for it's initial run.
After 30 or so miles the shaft went and locked the rear wheel, thankfully it kept partially rotating and I managed to bring to bike to an upright stop.
I had the bike recovered to my house (it was a Sunday), where I then disassembled the back end to comfirm the worst - not only had the driveshaft failed, but it was the universal joint at the transmission end. In the few seconds it took me to stop from 60mph the shaft had been banging around in the swingarm to the point where I could no longer rotate the rear wheel for manouvering purposes, hence the removal.
By the looks of it, the top UJ had deceded to rip itself apart, and together with it (and bike in rented van) visited my local dealership for investigation work, pictures were taken and a report sent to Germany.
A couple of days later I had another call from the dealership to say that BMW had decided to not only replace the shaft, but also the whole swingarm assembly - I guess in part due to the superficial damage caused to it when decelerating to a stop.
This is my first BMW, the bike had done approximately 32K miles prior to my ownership in November 2023. I was aware of the shaft recall at 37K miles. The dealership told me they'd not seen one go like this before. According to the service history another BMW dealership had removed the shaft and load tested it in February 2023 and found it to be ok.
When the bike is returned I'm going to be super vigilent on the condition of the driveshaft, I certainly don't ever want to experience anything quite like that again. I'm just lucky I managed to get away unscathed..
For my 2 pence worth, I'd advise anyone with a relatively high miler to ignore the dealership shaft service tick box in the history, and actually check/service it themselves..
View attachment 310406View attachment 310407
