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Got the Dreaded ABS Red Brake Failure Light 2007 R1200RT

Here's a possibility - It's my belief that the brake light triggers the ABS system (certainly true on my '05). Prolonged brake light triggering will initiate a fault indication.

Check the brake light switch adjustment to make sure there is at least a minimum of lever / pedal travel before the light activates. My pedal has a "hair trigger", so if I rest my toe on the pedal it is easy to active the switch and get a fault. This could be a simple fix. Cross your fingers, and good luck

Paul
'05 R1200RT
 
Here's a possibility - It's my belief that the brake light triggers the ABS system (certainly true on my '05). Prolonged brake light triggering will initiate a fault indication.

Check the brake light switch adjustment to make sure there is at least a minimum of lever / pedal travel before the light activates. My pedal has a "hair trigger", so if I rest my toe on the pedal it is easy to active the switch and get a fault. This could be a simple fix. Cross your fingers, and good luck

Paul
'05 R1200RT

Paul,

'07 and later RTs don't have brake light switches. The ABS module signals the ZFE over the CANbus that the brakes are applied, and the ZFE illuminates the brake lights.
 
07 R1200RT 21k Miles--Recieved ABS Diagnosis Today

Received the diagnosis today from Sportland on the ABS issue associated with my 07 R12100RT with only 21K miles.

It was a bad news day.

ABS has bad pump.
But I also asked them to look at the oil pan because it looked like it was leaking a little oil and I was smelling oil burning when I would stop at traffic lights.
They also informed me I have a bad rear motor seal leaking oil and is soaking my clutch.
Total Estimated repair cost $3383.00 :banghead:banghead:banghead

Nothing you havenÔÇÖt read in these post before, but!!!!!!
This is very frustrating, and I know from reading this forum many of you have experienced the same. It looks like I will be riding without ABS for a while.

I asked why such a short life span on the ABS Modulator Warren said BMW blames it on stale brake fluid, in my case Twin City performed the 600mi, 6k, 12k complete services and Indy performed brake recall and brake service in March 2011. So that BMW BS is hard to buy.
The rear oil seal is equally frustrating.

I guess my next question, is this seal thing something I can expect every 20K miles?????
 
I got the same news today.

Bad pump.

I supose I should consider myself lucky considering your news. That sucks about the seal. I'm at about 25000 mi
 
I asked why such a short life span on the ABS Modulator Warren said BMW blames it on stale brake fluid, in my case Twin City performed the 600mi, 6k, 12k complete services and Indy performed brake recall and brake service in March 2011. So that BMW BS is hard to buy.

Brake system bleeds are measured in years, not miles; every two years for current bikes, I believe. It is not a standard service item in that it is always billed separately when done by a dealer. Because of that it's easy to point the finger back at you if bleeds weren't done on schedule. The finger may be pointed even when the issue is electrical as mentioned earlier in this thread.

Good luck getting your ride back on the road.
 
Brake bleeding/fluid replacement on the hexheads is once a year per the chart I have. On a 6k and 12k interval service you just check fluid. If those are in conjunction with the annual service then the brakes should have been done. Just depends on what service was done at those intervals. The mileage only or mileage plus annual.

So if they did the brakes at those two times and the brake service from 2011, you are still short two brake fluid replacements for a 5 year old bike. Brake fluid pulls moisture out of the air and that's what causes problems. In a very dry climate you might be able to go longer, but the moisture builds up is time dependent, not miles.

Thanks for pointing out that old fluid can cause these ABS problems.
 
While old brake fluid certainly can cause problems - the bike in question probably experienced two brake line recalls.. which include flushing/bleeding the brake system as part of the recall service.

Thing is - it sounds as if this is an electrical problem, and brake fluid - even ancient brake fluid - isn't going to cause an electrical problem.

BMW likes to find ways to blame the owner, it's sort of tradition with them. If you have a good dealership relationship, where the dealer believes there is a chance you'll be buying a new bike someplace down the road, and you've had the dealer do the servicing, the dealer can go to bat for you with BMW, and frequently will at least get free parts out of BMW, you usually eat the labor. Good-will thing.

As far as the rear seal failure.. there were also some problems with the engine intermediate shaft seal on the back of the engine on some 2006-2007 bikes (mostly 2006 models, but not unknown on later bikes.) The mechanic can't say with certainty what seal is leaking until the bike is disassembled. If it is the intermediate shaft seal, I'd appeal to the dealer to persue a case with BMW that the job be covered based on the failures that were seen with that seal.

Point being - I'd be talking nicely to your dealer at this point. Demanding things won't work, asking some informed questions might. Sometimes a 6-pack of German beer helps (it does for my Porsche..)
 
Don I approached it just like you would, I asked Warren if he would mind contacting BMW to see if they would help out on these issues. He did say it would probably take about ten days for a response.

Back to the ABS failure:
The service manager said they pulled the plastic off to properly assess the issues. I was informed that only 3.4 Volts of the 12+ volts was making it through the electrical system of the ABS modulator. I took this to mean the problem was electrical and associated with the Pump motor. Which indicates to me the pump motors brushes or the commutator is either burned up or damaged, resulting in a higher electrical resistance.
It is just so hard to comprehend that the brake fluid absorbed enough water in 14 months since the last flush with only 3k miles outside on the road and was stored in a conditioned garage the remaining time.
I know moisture lowers the boiling temperature of the brake fluid, but is the moisture enough in the Glycol based fluid of high enough concentration to corrode the internal components of the pump, which appears to be an alloy? I would think that this is the only plausible explanation, when trying to associate the ABS failure with the brake fluid.
Sounds to me with the number of failures to be motors of insufficient capacity for the application.
We have a couple of pickups and vans with ABS that are from 1999 -2002 model years and the ABS's still work. With one pickup having 223K miles and we sure haven't changed the fluid every year.
Again I am just having a hard time understanding that the brake fluid is the culprit resulting in the apparent overloading the motor and burning up the brushes or melting the windings in the pump.

Now the rear seal leak: Just no reason for it period.

Thanks again, for your ears and thoughts, If it wasn't such an enjoyable ride I probably wouldn't be so disgusted.
 
Plen,

Don't know if I mentioned it earlier, there have been some threads somewhere (ADVRider? Or?) where people repaired the ABS units by diassembling the motor, and doing something with the brushes (cleaning them? replacing them? don't remember.) Perhaps some Googling might turn up the answer. I'll try and remember where I saw this, the thread was complete with photos of the units being disassembled.
 
If it wasn't such an enjoyable ride I probably wouldn't be so disgusted.

:thumb

You're not alone, Plen. That is exactly why a) we all still ride these things, and b) we get exercised about failures that shouldn't occur, and the mothership's inability to admit responsibility and rectify obvious errors.
 
I visited the site; they do show a rebuild option for various BMW Motorcycle models pre-2007 for $350.00.
I sent them an email asking if they are rebuilding the newer ABS modules yet, specifically my bike model and year. I will update after their response.

Thanks again for your help.

The posting I was referring to on this site (which is another BMW bike forum) is in reference to someone who got BMW to pay for his ABS module, despite it being out of warranty. Just a heads up that it can be done..
 
Just an update on the ABS modulator "fix".. this was discussed in a Google Group for the GS-911, and I take no credit (aside from finding the photos again) for the following. Since I haven't had a failure, I haven't looked at what is suggested here, but based on Modulemaster's very reasonable price to do the job, this is what I suspect is being done (I could be ALL wrong on that..)

Apparently the problem is the brushes on the modulator motor sticking in the brush holders. This causes the electronics to see an open circuit, and it then knows this is wrong so it throws a code and disables the ABS.

The photos I'm going to post were from Yut from Dynamic Motors, and the drawing was from "Jebo"

First - the problem:
 

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As you may be able to see in the photo above, the brushes aren't actually contacting the commutator of the motor armature (part that spins).. without that contact, the motor just isn't going to work.

Here is the brush assembly with the armature removed:
 

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I would expect the brushes to move toward the center hole in the backing plate as soon as the commutator/armature was removed. Since they didn't it's rather obvious they are binding.

What to do? Jebo posted this drawing that suggests bending the brush holder and adding some reinforcement so it won't close up again. I have a slightly different suggestion.. that I'll suggest in the next post (since we can only do one attachment per post.)
 

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I'll preface this - I have NOT seen the brush holder in question (if someone wants to send me a kaput modulator, I'd be real interested in disassembling it..) so I may be talking out of my butt... but here goes:

I can see two ways the brushes might bind.

1. The brushes themselves are slightly oversize for the brush holder, and as they move down the brush holder (which may well taper a tiny bit due to the open vs closed end) they start to stick due to an interference problem.

OR:

2. The braided wire going to the brushes might bind on the slot in the brush holder if it's too large.

The fix of bending the holder open will probably end up with an even worse taper on the brush holder since one end of the slot isn't open and can't be spread. So - fixes I would try to perform:

- If #1 appears to be the problem, I might try removing the brush from the brush holder (normally there is a spring on the end opposite the contact to the commutator - that has to be moved out of the way), and lightly sanding it on a flat surface to very slightly reduce it's cross-section, allowing it to slide freely in the brush holder.

- If #2 appears to be the problem, I'd again try removing the brush, and then use a fine jeweler's file to very slightly open the slot all along it's length. Doing this will require making certain none of the filing dust gets into anywhere electrical.

It may well be that the brushes can't be removed from the holders (if the end opposite the contact end) has a folded over piece of metal that retains a simple coil spring pushing on the end of the brush.. in that case, bending and soldering that end as is suggested is probably a good solution (and may be the only solution.)

As I said - if anyone cares to send me a broken modulator, I'll try to do a detailed set of photos on disassembly/fix/reassembly that we can put in the DIY subforum.

Best,
 
ABS module rebuild

Thought others might be interested in my experience. I ride a 2007 R12GSA with abs, about 18,000 miles. About three weeks ago I got the dreaded brake failure light. Brakes were acting normal, except when I tried them on wet grass it was obvious the ABS was not working. I bit the bullet and ordered a GS 911 code reader. I then used my Samsung Android phone's bluetooth to read codes 24048 and 24049. Both say power supply to pump motor faulty. I then contacted Tyler at Module Masters, Moscow Idaho. He seem confident he could rebuild the motor for $150.00 and take care of the problem. I removed the entire ABS control unit (ugh!) and shipped it. Eight days later, yesterday afternoon, it arrived back. Tyler had warned me there would be a few new screws in it when I got it back. Cosmetically that may be an issue, but since the entire module is hidden, I was not too worried. I reinstalled it last night, bled the brakes, and checked for error codes. NONE! By the time it was finished it was past midnight so I waited until this morning to test ride the bike. I rode about 60 miles this morning with everything operating as it is supposed to. Tested the ABS a couple of times, once on wet grass and once on loose gravel. Worked perfectly. My total cost of having the unit rebuilt was as follows: Shipping from Arkansas to Idaho, $17.00, rebuid $150.00, return shipping $30.00. And the 5 year warranty beats anything BMWNA has ever offered.
 
I removed the entire ABS control unit (ugh!) and shipped it.

I have the same problem so I really appreciate this thread. I spoke to Tyler a he said he would rebuild the motor for $150. I'm a newbie to the '07 R12R and no luck with a search. Is there a thread on how to remove the ABS control unit. He said he just needs the motor.

Thanks in advance, Jim
 
I don't know about you guys but my reaction to this is when that sort of extremely simple repair is all that is needed to address a large part of the ABS failures that have plagued this brand worse than anything else with wheels that I can recall, its pretty clear proof that yet another German engineering bunch is either stuoid or sleeping.

There is a reason the worlds most reliable vehicles come from Japan and now Korea- they understand continuous reliability improvement by fixing known issues. A "permanent" fix for these issues is both obvious and trivial to execute so the obvious question is why hasn't BMW done it? Of course, poor quality electrics is and always has been the bane of German makers- maybe its the outsourcing that causes it??
 
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