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2005 BMW R1200 GS — Complaint #646298

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NHTSA Complaint about POWER TRAIN:DRIVELINE:UNIVERSAL JOINT filed November 15, 2007

NHTSA complaint #646298 (ODI reference 10209020) concerns a 2005 BMW R1200 GS and was filed on November 15, 2007. The owner reports the failure occurred on October 4, 2007. The vehicle had 39,400 miles on the odometer at the time of the incident. The report was geocoded to Georgia based on the filer's self-reported location. The affected component is categorized as power train:driveline:universal joint, one of NHTSA's standardized taxonomy codes used to group defect patterns across make, model, and year.

The filer flagged the following severity indicators: crash: no, fire: no, injuries: 0, fatalities: 0. No crash, fire, or fatality was associated with this report, which places it in the early-warning stream rather than the priority-review stream. Because a VIN was supplied, this complaint is tied to a specific vehicle and not just a model-year cohort.

Individual complaints are consumer-submitted and unverified by NHTSA engineers — the agency's role at this stage is to collect, index, and make them searchable. What matters for federal action is the pattern: when many owners of the same BMW R1200 GS cohort independently describe similar power train:driveline:universal joint failures, defect investigators have grounds to open a PE and request manufacturer data. Related filings for the same vehicle and component appear below, and the detail page for the full 2005 BMW R1200 GS shows the complete component-level complaint distribution alongside any active investigations or recalls.

Vehicle
2005 BMW R1200 GS
Component
POWER TRAIN:DRIVELINE:UNIVERSAL JOINT
State
Georgia
Mileage
39,400 mi

Complaint Description

ON MY BMW R1200GS, I NOTICED OIL LEAKING FROM THE FINAL DRIVE. IT TURNS OUT THAT THE SEAL WAS ONLY AN INDICATION THAT THE DRIVE WAS FAILING. THE DEALER CONFIRMED THIS AND HAS REPLACED THE FINAL DRIVE UNDER WARRANTY. THERE AR RUMORS OF THIS BEING A COMMON PROBLEM FOR R1200 SERIES BMWS. THE OLD FINAL DRIVE IS NOT AVAILABLE. *TR

Complaint Details

NHTSA Complaint ID 646298
ODI Number 10209020
Date Filed November 15, 2007
Failure Date October 4, 2007
VIN WB10317A85Z

Source: NHTSA Vehicle Complaints Database. Component taxonomy and severity codes are standardized by NHTSA Office of Defects Investigation.