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K1200GT Fuel 'guage' quit...

R

Ralph

New member
Got on my 2006 K1200GT bike yesterday to come home from the rally after it sat on its side stand all day (86??), and the yellow warning triangle was on, and although when I stopped the bike in the morning, the tank showed better than 3/4ths full on the black bar guage on the left side of the onboard computer readout, that bar was now blank! Also, as I rode, the 'miles left in tank' readout that started at about 206 kept dropping several miles every 500 feet or so until it read "---". No gas smell though when I got on the bike, nor when I stopped after 20 miles or so to fill the tank and check by eyeing what gas was in there. The fill took just a little over 2 gallons, which was about right for the miles ridden since the last fill up.
Anybody got any idea how a gremlin could shut off any read out with the bike just sitting there all day? Or, what the problem might be? Or, how to fix it? (I suspect a trip to the Service Dept. is going to be in order as I had to run to the store today, and the same bloody out-of-gas warnings and blank guage indicators were up in full force.):banghead
BTW, anyone else have this problem with a Wedge K1200GT?
 
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Ralph said:
Got on my 2006 K1200GT bike yesterday to come home from the rally after it sat on its side stand all day (86??), and the yellow warning triangle was on, and although when I stopped the bike in the morning, the tank showed better than 3/4ths full on the black bar guage on the left side of the onboard computer readout, that bar was now blank! Also, as I rode, the 'miles left in tank' readout that started at about 206 kept dropping several miles every 500 feet or so until it read "---". No gas smell though when I got on the bike, nor when I stopped after 20 miles or so to fill the tank and check by eyeing what gas was in there. The fill took just a little over 2 gallons, which was about right for the miles ridden since the last fill up.
Anybody got any idea how a gremlin could shut off any read out with the bike just sitting there all day? Or, what the problem might be? Or, how to fix it? (I suspect a trip to the Service Dept. is going to be in order as I had to run to the store today, and the same bloody out-of-gas warnings and blank guage indicators were up in full force.):banghead
BTW, anyone else have this problem with a Wedge K1200GT?
Click to expand...

Most likely a bad fuel level strip inside the tank. Verrrry common unfortunately. BMW, some say, are blaming it on the gas, but I think it's bad quality control or at least bad design of the strip. They don't have to sit in the gas to be bad...my wife's K12S had a bad one after the first ten miles on the bike. And if it sat in gas, it was German gas.
 
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Thanks Chuck! Apparently these things must go bad just sitting there... or maybe they don't like the new gas being foisted on us apparently with 10% alcohol in it. Interesting. Verry interesting. I hope the strip can be replaced with one that works. Unfortunately these black-box machines are long past the old down, dirty, and workable technology of an 'auf' 'zu' and 'reserve' petcock like my Royal Enfield has. It never tells me I'm about to be dead in the water when it's still got 3/4ths of a tank of gas in it.
 
OK, that's 2 votes for sure on the fuel strip. Hope my BMW dealer keeps 'em in stock. Had 2 RTs covering better than 40K miles, and the '06 GT's the first one to have this problem. Wonder if BMW changed suppliers. Hmmmm.
 
Ralph,
you may just need to resort to the tricks of the old Enfield days: Write down the mileage at each fuel stop and figure out when to look for a gas station next.
Or check in your tank using a non-sparking light...:wave.
 
Fine Wisdom, J??rgen, meiner Freund! Until I get the wedge over to Lee's for a new strip, that's the way I'm going. I figure if I get 270 on the trip mileage after a fill up, and refill then, I'll be OK... providing the trip mileage meter keeps working! Trouble is, I've gotta remember to reset the trip meter at each fill up. Ah well, if I don't use it (the old memory) I'll lose it, so maybe having to do that's a good thing!:D
 
I resort to using the Zumo. It has a fuel gauge which you can set a number of miles into. When it gets to those miles, a notice comes up on the screen telling you to poke the image of a gas pump and the GPS will tell you where all the nearest gas stations are. I have had to use that as much time riding this bike as when the gas strip works.
 
That sounds like great idea, unfortunately, at the present time I'm using a GPS Map 276C that's a bit grizzled in age (can't remember when I got it but noticed that Garmin doesn't make that model any more) and hasn't that feature. Until I get the gas guage fixed, it's going to be the 'reset the trip meter at fill up' and 'fill up after 270 miles' method. However, since I have a Nolan N102 helmet that can be fitted with Bluetooth, once I get a bit more flush in the exchequer dept., I think I may spring for a newer GPS with all the bells and whistles. :groovy
 
The fuel strip went bad on my K1200S at 3100 miles, but I was the second owner and it was just out of warranty so I figured it would be cheaper to buy a used tank. Bad idea, as that one was bad as well. I finally coughed up the $300 and got it fixed, but if/when it goes out again I'll just stick with the tripometer, as I was doing prior to the fix. Seems there is a serious fault in the design, how do you get something like this covered under some sort of consumer protection law?
 
Ouch! 300 bucks. That's a chunk to pay for poor design or materials! I hope I can squeeze this 'fix' into a warranted item or I'm with you on the odometer watch approach (in hopes that it doesn't go up the tubes!!!). Duhhhhhhh:stick
 
fuel level sensor

I just replaced the fuel level sensor for the second time on my 06. $257.00 w/labor. I hope BMW will fix the part because replacing the sensor every 20,000 miles is getting old.
Hal
 
My '06 only just turned 4000 miles (bought a 'used' '06 with 620 miles on it this past April) and the gas guage lunched out--didn't even make 20K! And at $257 a throw that sure "ain't an attaboy!" I wonder where that old time BMW dependability and reliability went anyway...:scratch
 
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