Southbank Motorcycles
Non-Standard Engineering requests

I am a bit of a loss to explain the lack of engineering skills at Southbank motorcycles.

I've only had two experiences of their skills, and both leave me wondering.

The first item is how number plates are installed.

I have formed the distinct opinion of how different the R12200 CI is from the rest of the BMW world. It's right at the extreme edge. It seems to be different in lots of ways. Lets focus on just one issue: The number plate.

For some reason, the mounting holes for number plates do not match the respective mounting holes on the bike. So a bit of engineering comes into play. The BMW holes are about 20 mm or so closer in height and width to the holes in the number plate. So the solution is to drill new holes in the number plate. However the person that did the drilling clearly did not have a lot of experience drilling holes. The holes were bigger than required and had been 'deburred' by a larger drill. That's fine in principle, but, the 'deburred' areas were quite plainly visible with the screws in place. Not a pretty sight.

Yes, yes, yes, a very tiny, small, even insignificant blemish. Somehow to me I formed the opinion that anything non-BMW was to be an engineering challenge for the workshop workers.

In a previous article, I described how I had to replace the number plate. I measured everything carefully and you can't even see the holes behind the screw heads. Now I'm not wiz kid with tools, but if even I could do a passable job, what was the level of the Southbank worker?

The second item is the leaky seal on the front of the engine

This is covered in a previous article. I just don't see how that passed the Quality Check at the end of the road test.

The third item is how an extender to the front mudguard was fitted.

While I was down for a service at Southbank Motorcycles I looked through a book on third party options for my bike. Lo and behold, there was a mud guard extender for the front mudguard. It's always been a pain the way the front of the engine is covered with mud or whatever whenever the wet sets in. Really ugly. Why is the mudguard so short at the back? Anyway, this item seemed to be just the answer. I ordered the part and had it fitted during the last service.

I thought I'd better give the bike a wash before setting off for the MRAA toy run. As I was cleaning the mudguard extension I could have sworn it moved. Nah, should be as solid as a rock. A second inspection revealed that I could quite easily remove the extension with very little effort. How it never fell off I'll never know.

So what was the problem? Since I haven't seen the original installation documents I can't be sure. What I found was two horizontal band of double sided tape. That's it! To my way of thinking I'd think that was not quite up to the task. To make matters worse, the engineeringly challenged people at Southbank Motorcycles had not cleaned the inside of the mudguard. Yup, you got it, the double sided tape was stuck onto the dirt and grime underneath the mudguard and not the mudguard itself. This is not a really a hard job readers, a minute spent cleaning the inside of the mudguard is not a big job.

I did buy some more double sided tape and some hard as nails clear glue. I completely dispensed with the double sided tape and just used the glue. So far so good.

Do I have a reason to be concerned? Possibly. The only way to be 100% sure is to do the work yourself. I don't have a lot of the tools ,but, I can see a good reason to become proficient in the art of motorcycle maintenance. I think I should invest some time in the 'Service Days' put on by the BMW Motorcycle Club.

As for the rest of the work they do, I can only hope/assume that they've done the right thing. For example, they found a wiring fault in the fog lights which they fixed and was surprised that they found. I'm just note sure.