BMW seem to be doubling down on their position of ‘this is by design’.
I’m pretty annoyed by it all and the longer in goes on the less inclined I am to let it drop.
I have one further complaint process to pursue before I lodge the small claims court application.
hogtrumpet have a look at this fb thread, maybe some light https://www.facebook.com/james.rix1/posts/10158229882870327?comment_id=10158230730885327&reply_comment_id=10158231064630327¬if_t=feed_comment_reply¬if_id=1485887242125295
Does that include phoning your credit card company and stating item was not fit for purpose and you want to chargeback immediately. Shouldn’t have been brushed off that easily.
Triumph? Bwahahahaaa, I’ll never make that mistake again.
[quote] I've tried all avenues to pursue a refund that are available and I've basically been told do put up with it. BMW refuse to acknowledge it is a problem- they claim they are better like this. Some people have had theirs replaced by their dealer but Bahnstormer refuse to do it so I am screwed. I have no recourse other than being noisy about it and making people aware, which I'm doing. Pretty fucked, eh? --- hogtrumpet [/quote]Does that include phoning your credit card company and stating item was not fit for purpose and you want to chargeback immediately. Shouldn’t have been brushed off that easily.
brains_t
Not possible unfortunately, I didn’t use a credit card to pay for the bike and the panniers/box came as part of the deal.
I’m taking up a lot of their time at the moment, through their complaint process (twice one for the panniers, one for the poor customer service issue, as well as through citizen’s advice. I’m going to keep complaining until we get to a point where they listen to what I am saying.
Ultimately I’m just going to vote with my feet and not buy another one.
There is no immediate need to change, I want to get some more value out of my existing vehicles, but when I come to replace them I’ll go with KTM or Kwak or something else. I realise other companies have their own problem but you pay a premium for BMW because of their supposed ‘legendary customer support’. This is clearly bullshit and they are no different to the other brands, just more expensive.
This isn’t the first time I’ve had problems with BMW- I had significant problems with the RT’s bluetooth module and other issues and they also played the very pathetic ‘this is feature not a bug’ defence there and I’m entirely sick of them.
They are losing a pretty loyal customer- I’ve had 3 new BMW bikes in the last 3 years and 4 new cars in the last 6 (two car family and I choose both of them) so it is not an inconsiderable amount of money they are losing out on.
I’ve told them in email several times that if they don’t fix this problem they lose me as a customer- they chose not to refund or replace it so this is the natural consequence.
It won’t make much of a difference to BMW as a whole, of course, but I’ll feel better for not putting money in their pocket.
hogtrumpet have a look at this fb thread, maybe some light https://www.facebook.com/james.rix1/posts/10158229882870327?comment_id=10158230730885327&reply_comment_id=10158231064630327¬if_t=feed_comment_reply¬if_id=1485887242125295 Rusty99
It says ‘Sorry, this content isn’t available at the moment’, Rusty.
I don’t know rixxy (before my time) so I guess it is marked private to non-friends. What does it say?
This was Alistair’s response to the thread on FB.
It’s a tricky one this as the panniers are aluminium and are designed for adventure travel - so not painted, polished or anything like that. Knock them, drop the bike on them, put stickers of where you’ve been and they look great. Salt, as we know, does attack aluminium really quickly. The problem for us is can we claim the panniers as faulty under warranty? Well, they’re not defective and they haven’t failed as such. You could argue that they should be able to cope with salt corrosion but then we are talking about changing the product away from what BMW sells (and Touratech manufactures). In terms of do they mark more than they used to - I couldn’t say but it would seem odd as they’ve always been aluminium (different grade I really don’t know but they look the same). You would have to say that it is salt damage regardless of whether we think there is salt on the roads or not. I would reckon that the only thing to do is we swap them and the owner is more aware of what can happen (but will happen again) or as the owner says, wrap them and then the problem is solved longer term. Not great for first few days of ownership I agree but I’d be surprised if small claims could deal with it in any other way?
I had mine wrapped from the start so can’t really comment. Don’t let this put you off the bike as it’s an awesome piece of kit.
Hope you get things sorted soon.
Thanks PJ.
I’d be interested to see what the rest of that discussion contains. 
Regarding the content of his post- it essentially proves my point. They know it is a problem and they try to explain it away. It is obvious that the only reason for this is if they (meaning BMW) allow one warranty claim then they will have to allow them all.
They don’t want to do this so the standard company response gets applied which is ‘this is a feature not a bug’.
Here is my old Givi topbox after about 8k miles:
The bike is dirty but no corrosion.
Compare that with how a pannier is looking after a 40 mile ride.
The response I got from BMW via bahnstormer was this:
‘The panniers are untreated aluminium and always have been, this is by intent. The panniers are designed for overland touring and the untreated finish means they are easier to maintain in the long term whereas other finishes chip or scratch allowing corrosion etc to get under the surface finish where it cannot be cleaned off.’
My position on this has always been that if BMW are doing something so drastically different to every other pannier manufacturer on the market then it is their responsibility to advise customers of this. I wasn’t. At the absolute bare minimum they could have said ‘oh by the way, you need to treat these before you ride the bike or they will corrode’.
I’d have happily brought down my can of ACF50 and a rag to do them in the carpark, or even paid for it to be done.
But they have my money, they don’t care about fixing the problem and are now obviously just waiting for me to shut up and fuck off.
I had a good experience with Bahnstormer on my first RR. Service and customer service was great, although I had no major problems. They did however drive me hard into upgrading my 2013, got me convinced to trade in, then offered silly money due to high milage. I upgraded elsewhere. I had a really awful experience with Pidcock Motorad who were awful but BMW Motorrad were next to useless in resolving that too. They seem to push the Brand but have no power over the franchises that use the name over the door.
I also had a good experience with them when I bought my '15 S1000R, which I still have.
I had a good experience with Bahnstormer on my first RR. Service and customer service was great, although I had no major problems. They did however drive me hard into upgrading my 2013, got me convinced to trade in, then offered silly money due to high milage. I upgraded elsewhere. I had a really awful experience with Pidcock Motorad who were awful but BMW Motorrad were next to useless in resolving that too. They seem to push the Brand but have no power over the franchises that use the name over the door.
DangerousB
Here is an update.
I was called by Dean at Bahnstormer in order to discuss the problem.
I’m not going to relate the specifics of the conversation but in essence Dean offered to replace the panniers and top box at his cost.
I appreciate the offer, although it is a pity I had to escalate to such a degree in order to get this response- but as far as I am concerned that relationship is pretty much mended.
This has actually become a point of principle for me and not really about the money- I’m entirely sick of BMW’s attitude towards their customers for the reasons outlined above.
So I’ve refused to accept a dealer replacement. I would accept a replacement from BMW themselves and in fact nothing else will suffice.
I’m hoping this happens, although based on their attitude thus far I don’t necessarily expect that it will.
I just got a new BMW, something in me made me not get the boxes, looks like my gut was right. Sorry you’re having these problems, the customer services I recieved in the guilford dealership was wonderful.
Some of the thread contained me mentioning the fact that BMW’s don’t like salt, and problems I had with a corroded sump plug three times !
It was when BMW seemed surprised that I rode my RR all year round, (and it felt like don’t ride it in winter) and hosed it down after every journey
when salt was on the roads. Now it maybe that other makes today also suffer with corrosion, so can’t comment on them but and it is a BIG but
I had a succession of Honda Fireblades and rode them all year round. My last 2001 929 which had 50k+ showed some signs of starting to corrode
when I traded it in 2012.
BMW Park Lane were of little help initially and after playing email ping pong with BMW customer service they relented and changed over the
corroded sump as a ‘good will gesture’ twice after it went again 6k later. On an 18k service at Bahnstormer they noticed that it was staring to corrode again
and one of the service team decided to change it for a 2014 sump and the problem went away. So I have no issues with Bahnstormer and will be taking my XR
there for service.
Dean at Bahnstormer took control of the situation and I can report that the situation has now been resolved to my satisfaction.
Thanks to everyone for the support and input- especially PJ and Rusty.
Very glad to hear that
Glad it’s sorted. Now get the new ones and have Dean get them wrapped before you get them back 
+1 ^^^
Yes they are going to be wrapped.
Good news. Glad you got it sesolved.
Glad you have got it resolved to you satisfaction hogtrumpet. From your experience, though, that would cause me some reluctance to entertain BMW for a bike. If there’s a problem, they should have owned their responsibility immediately. Even my terrible Triumph, that had a multitude of faults, 17 within 24 months, and 16 of those were dealt with by the dealership.
