Clean calipers

One of the many things I said I would do on the track bike project is clean the brake calipers. As the bike hadn't moved for a while and given the look of the lower end of the forks, this was definitely to be done. Unfortunatly for my purse, I do not own the proper tools to push the pistons back inside the calipers. Once out and clean, there was no way for me to push them back straight with my bare hands. It prooved the sealing rubbers were fried.

So I had to head on to the BMW local dealer to ask them to do the job for me. It could have been a simple story, but as always with a BMW dealer in France, it turned to a nearly dramatic story ouching my wealth.

The calipers were brought to them on a Saturday. The new sealing kit was ordered the next Tuesday. They called on Thursday to say the kit that arrived did not fit the bike that is registered as mine in their computer. I had to explain that this bike had been sold a while ago and that the calipers were off a newer model, hence the difference. The guy at BMW sounded pissed already, because he could apparently not exchange the kit ordered for another one, so he'd probably stick with it unused.

Now with the correct VIN, I was pretty confident this story would end up very soon with them ordering the proper kit and finally fix the calipers. But I had another call last Tuesday. The new sealing kit had arrived, but again it would not fit the calipers. This time, an undoublty pissed BMW guy was asking me if the calipers were really off an R1100S, if the bike was bought second hand (with the possibility that the previous owner had swapped the calipers from another model) like I was playing with them on purpose. He finally said he would deal with it and let me know.

Finally last friday I missed a call from BMW. The message said the calipers were ready. I picked them up today and fortunately they are nicely cleaned and ready to be fitted back to the bike (with a little luck they won't leak and hold their fluid). Take a look by yourself.


Why can't a simple service request stay a simple service request ? It took 2 weeks and 3 unpleasant phone calls to just change brake calipers sealing rubbers ...