Yes, I know what you mean about doing your own service. The ST looks to be pretty straight forward and simple to do general maintenance and/or repairs on - except for any electrical/cpu issues.MotorcopBBQ said:JHK, The thing that I've read about BMW is mostly the final drive failures (2006-2009 R1200RT, R1200GS models) No problems from what a local BMW dealership-owner told me a week ago. And some BMW owners I have spoken with is the price of service seems to being steadily on the rise for owners not doing oil, brake pads changes themselves. Owning a Harley, cost for service is why I'm thinking about going to this bike. I want a bike I can work on myself. NO MORE SHOP TRIPS. The closest dealership is 8 miles away. The next is 14 miles, etc. My advise is to go to one of the test rides that Yamaha is doing this summer. Personally, I want to test ride the bike to know 100% that this is the bike for me before I put my money down.
I have ridden the ST and loved it. Rode it back-to-back with the big BMW and they were similar in ride but the BMW cockpit/controls IMHO were just wrong, to the point I'm not sure I would ever fully acclimate to them. The ST was just about perfect, everything in exactly the place you would expect, power & handling were spot on, very comfy, it even looks pretty good! After I rode those 2 bikes getting back on my VFR felt really weird, my VFR really is a bloated sport bike, but compared to the 2 Adventure bikes it felt like the MotoGP bike is was modeled after - much lighter handling and the wonderful Honda V4.