I don’t recall a thread from anyone on the forum retro fitting the reverse to their bike but I’m sure it must be possible, like everything though it’s all about cost. As far as I know the starter motor does the reversing, there is only one motor.
In simple terms, when you reach down to physically move the reversing lever it physically disables the starter motor gear from the flywheel and engages with an additional mechanism to move the bike backwards. You actually use the starter motor button to do this and an ‘R’ pops up on the instrument cluster. It is idiot proof.
The recall you’ve read about was nothing to do with it, that was to do with possible water ingress/corrosion to the electronics and so a ‘fix’ has been developed by BMW and that is being rolled out now all over the world. My bike has been done about a fortnight ago. Threads exist on this topic.
Now, it must be said many owners never use reverse (even though they have it on their bikes) and others (like me) do because of a specific need, in my case a gravel drive in & out of the garage. I’ve never once used it out & about. If you don’t need it don’t worry about it and use the bike like you would any other, thinking about where you do turns, park up, off cambers etc.
In the absence of anyone chiming in to advise you I would go to your dealer and speak with the workshop tech, see what they say. There will have to be software/firmware updates for sure for the bike to recognise the changes so even if you were to take it on yourself I reckon you’d have to go to the dealer anyway.
Hope that lot makes sense. Good luck with it.
