Guzzi CARC shaft drive vs. others' shaft systems

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So the CARC shaft drive on the Guzzi's reportedly eliminates the jacking and other handling problems associated with traditional shaft drives, but how is it on reliability and maintenance frequency vs., say, BMW and Triumph's shaft drive setups?

Yes, I am looking at bikes again. Having come off of (literally...) tech-rich Ducati's, I'm looking for a low tech bike. Dial gauges, manually adjustible preload/rebound, no driveline electronics except ABS. Minimal widgets to fail out, years down the line. Just a good solid old school bike with low maintenance that I can do valve adjusts on without too much complexity. Able to get out of it's own way but doesn't have to snap my neck or pull my wrists off. No chain maintenance, and not a metric cruiser or Harley Davidson. HD's are great and legendary bikes but not my cup of tea, nor are the copy cat types. Plus, I like things that are different and Guzzi's certainly are.

Guzzi Norge 8V of interest at the moment.
 
I've ridden both Guzzi and BMW. I suggest you do the same.
Both are unique, both are really stout, both are very sweet in their own way.
With the BMW, jacking is pretty tame. Considering the number of BMW dealers cross country, vs. Guzzi dealers, in the event something went boink, I went BMW. The Beemer has better thought out controls.
Both bikes will just go about their business quietly of getting you from place to place.
 
BMW has their own paralever shaft drive system to reduce jacking. In fact, I think the CARC system is based on it. I have only experienced the Guzzi version on the Griso I had. It seemed to work well.
 
I was looking hard at the Norge a few years back. I never rode one, as I rode an R1200RT first and was no longer interested in the Guzzi.
Recommend you have a go on the R nineT.
 
So the CARC is a pretty bullet proof system and no worries about failure as long as you follow scheduled maintenance?
 
Originally Posted By: LoneRanger
So the CARC is a pretty bullet proof system and no worries about failure as long as you follow scheduled maintenance?

Different years are different. I think some had final drive problems--things not lined up correctly from the factory. You could read about it ad naseum on other forums (e.g. advrider).

I have an R1200 hexhead and had had no problems. I'm changing the final drive oil on a 24k mile basis (I did it once, and apparently the dealer who serviced it had done it previously). When my bike was new, I think final drive oil change wasn't on the maintenance schedule. But that was amended. A number of people have had them fail before they got to a final drive maintenance interval. I expect those are from the poorly assembled years.

I certainly have heard of far fewer (if any) Moto Guzzi shaft failures, but then I see very few Moto Guzzis on the road. Sometimes BMWs are the most common bikes out there at commute time (because they make great freeway commute bikes), and they can be pretty common when touring too. Honda and other manufacturers have had shaft failures as well, though I think less frequent.
 
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