K1300GT Dead battery condition?

Five weeks ago I went two states over to a local BMW dealer to pick up my new to me 2010 K1300GT. It has 28K miles on the clock. Its about a 200 mile ride back home. About 130 miles into the trip the bike stalls while going about 75mph. Now, I'm not sure if the bike actually stalled or if my hand hit the starter button and I shut it off ...New bike and I was unfamiliar with the position of the controls. Outside temp was 47F. I was using the heated grips and seat and running cruise control.

So the engine is now off and I'm coasting down from 75ish now. I pull in the clutch lever and press the starter button. The starter engaged but the engine didn't turn over. I made a few more attempts while rolling as I was pulling on to the shoulder. At say the third or fourth attempt I heard the click click click... Ok, now I've got a problem!! So the bike stops and on the center stand it goes. I hit the starter another time or two and the clicking and then no more clicking

I call home and dispatch the rescue truck and trailer. After I get home I plugged it into the battery tender. The next morning (7 hours later) I see the battery tender light red light is flashing. I'm curious to see if the battery is toast so I turn the key and press the button and it starts. I'm not ready to ride so I shut it off. I unplug the tender and then plug it back in. Four hour later the light is solid green.

A few days later after several 20 mile + rides I'm out riding. I shut it off so I could take a picture and five minutes later I hit the starter button and I get the click click click again... Call home again and dispatch the rescue squad. Being curious I try to start it again and it starts perfect. Ok, change of plans... The bike is running so I'm going straight to the battery store. At the next stop light I dumped the clutch and stalled Hit the starter and luckily it started but it turned over slow and just enough. 15 miles later I arrive at the battery store. The checks the battery and say nope its still good. Uhhhh ok, now what? Went home without trouble. The next day I take the battery to Autozone and they said they can load test it. He says 12.7 so it should be good.

Like all of you I want to know my bike is going to be reliable so I'm not sure what to do? I was going to just replace the PC680 with a new one but my buddy is saying not to because I probably have a bad ground somewhere. I'm a pretty good wrench and all but electrical stuff is not easy for me.


So please advise:

New Battery?

Search for a bad ground?

Other ideas?


-Rob

Rob -

Welcome to the forum! Stay tuned for good advice on how to troubleshoot your situation...not fun I'm sure.

It sounds like the battery charger will charge the battery but the bike's charging system won't for some reason.

Connect a decent volt meter to the battery. Read the voltage. Start the engine. Read the voltage with the engine at about 2,000 rpm.

Report back.

Welcome to the forum


I would clean the cable termination rings as any corrosion will affect current flow. See a lot of corroded rings and bolts.
The hit or miss condition sure sounds like a bad connection. Simple to locate the battery end, a little work to check starter and frame grounds...which on that bike seems not as common.

As Paul mentions, see what the bikes output voltage is while running.

It will come up, but the charging systems on BMW's will not fully charge an Odyssey.
We have a couple of them, but use a charger designed to top them up on occasion.

Ok, I'll clean the rings and then check voltage and report back. I agree that a bad frame ground is probably less likely and hopefully not what I have to chase down. Ghost hunting isn't my strong suit either.


Thanks guys.

The terminals were clean. The first voltage check with engine off was 12.7v. When running it was 14.2-14.3v.

RSPENNACHIO said:

The terminals were clean. The first voltage check with engine off was 12.7v. When running it was 14.2-14.3v.

Click to expand...

Good news and bad news. The charging system seems to be working and you didn't find any connector problem. That is the good news.

Why it is failing is still a mystery. That is the bad news.

There is also a hot start electrical problem on these bikes that can be resolved via a retrofit kit from BMW. Replaces the cable from the battery to starter and a relay IIRC. If your charging system checks good and you only have the issue on hot starts, I'd suspect the cable/relay kit and/or a battery going south.
Good luck,
DG

Like all electronically controlled vehicles, it's needs a minimum voltage to run. So, i would rig up voltmeter that can be seen while riding, and not go too far from the rescue vehicle. If the voltage continually drops while riding, that would indicate a charging system problem. That could be a ground, or something more costly.

If the bike quits while riding, it isn't the starter. AFAIK you could attempt to restart and got click, click, click. A) the kill switch isn't set to disable (no click, no hint of starter action with it set to disable), and B) there isn't enough voltage to spin the starter.

When did you read 12.7 - after charging?

Have you had a load test done? You can do a quick and dirty test by reading the voltage while cranking. A min/max function on a digital meter is almost a must for this test. Anyway, if you drop into the low 11 range, that's OK. Get into the 10's, not so good. Or take the battery to a box store (Auto Zone, etc.) for a test. Or let the battery sit, disconnected, and check the voltage after 12, 24, 36 hours. If it stays very close to 12.7. it's holding a charge.

Ride with a meter on the battery and see what happens. I'm betting on a wiring/ground issue.

To continue on my and RBE's posts, knowing the voltage when bike shuts off is critical to diagnosing this problem. It if doesn't drop, could be the ignition switch, kill switch, kickstand switch, ECM or associated wiring and electronic controls. If it does drop, it's in the charging circuit. I seem to recall reading that an Odyssey battery trait is that voltage can drop (enough to shut off the bike in your case) then come back up after sitting a bit.

Well, yes and no. It's useful to know the voltage when the motor quits - that decides between battery or other failure modes. But all batteries, when all loads come off, will seem low and then climb. That's why I recommend taking voltage readings with the battery disconnected. You might start low (probably will) but if the rest voltage is 12.5-12.7 the battery is probably OK and reasonably well charged. If the voltage stays in the weeds, I'd think long and hard about getting a load test done. If the battery passes, time to investigate the charging circuit.

Two general troubleshooting principles: 1) if there are two possible explanations, one simple, one long and complicated, go with simple (many people don't and wish they had DAHIK). 2) When chasing electrical issues, start at one end and step through the wiring to the other end - don't jump from here to there to somewhere else to wherever. There's a big temptation to do "well, is it this? what about that?".

Hello everyone.

When I checked the voltage the bike was cold (sat for 2-3 days without a tender), key off and 12.7 from the battery. Then I started the bike and re-checked while at idol, this reading fluctuated between 14.2-14.3v. Then I held the motor at about 2000 RPM and got the same 14.2-14.3v.

Yesterday evening I did the same test with identical results. I also turned on all of the heaters and high beams and showed 14.2v. I turned the motor off and checked the voltage while starting the bike. Intial was 12.7 and while cranking dropped to 12.5.

I spoke to my local BMW shop, the service man said that the hot start condition that I was suggesting was unlikely for two reasons. First the hot start issue refers to a hot engine while in ambient temps at 85f and above (more like mid-90's he said). My issues occurred at 48f and 65f. Secondly this issue was more common on the K1200GT's. The factory fix was to add additional wiring and your bike being a K1300 included this design change. His bottom line over the phone was its likely the battery.

So i believe my next course of action is going to be replace the battery and if the problem remains then I'll make an appointment to take the bike to the dealer.

RBEmerson said:

Ride with a meter on the battery and see what happens. I'm betting on a wiring/ground issue.

Click to expand...

I think I can manage this. I'll give it a shot and see what happens.

Do a load test first, but, yeah, I think your battery is shot. The voltages you give are exactly right. The problem is the battery is what really supplies power to the bike. The alternator output is there to keep the battery charged while running. For that reason you can see the right voltages but the battery still gives up and... end of ride.

Once you get the current (sorry for the pun) solved, add a dedicated pigtail if you don't already have one. It does not seem to be addressed in the prior advice, but for the K1300 series, the accessory plug shuts off after a few minutes after turning off the bike. For my K13, the dealer already had a pigtail installed (they did it on all at the time), and, it was advised to keep the bike on a smart charger whenever it was shut off and stored for more than a day or so.....I followed that advice and never had an issue. There are many discussions both here and on the I-BMW site regarding the need for adding this pigtail direct to the battery and the need to keep a maintenance charge going.
Good Luck!

Use the Battery Tender Plus High Efficiency charger and your battery will thank you by giving a long service life. BTDT, can't remember when I changed the battery last.

The kit includes an external connector, making the charger-battery connection permanent. No seat pulling, no clip leads, just plug the charger in.

DISCLAIMER: I have no connection Battery Tender, etc., etc. except as a customer.

I do not, not, not recommend any sort of "shutoff while stored" setup. Dropping power to the bike means at least resetting the clock every time (<- accidental humor?). More importantly... charged batteries survive cold temperatures that will damage a partially charged battery. If you live where it gets so cold you have go indoors to thaw out a conversation to hear it, OK, bring the battery indoors. But still keep it trickle charged!

RBEmerson said:

I do not, not, not recommend any sort of "shutoff while stored" setup. Dropping power to the bike means at least resetting the clock every time (<- accidental humor?). More importantly... charged batteries survive cold temperatures that will damage a partially charged battery. If you live where it gets so cold you have go indoors to thaw out a conversation to hear it, OK, bring the battery indoors. But still keep it trickle charged!

Click to expand...

When we lived in Iowa and Kansas which had what resembled winter we had several bikes and did not have several battery chargers. So the first of each month I would charge one battery (in a bike) for 24 hours, then the next, then the next, until they all had been charged. Wait until the first of the next month and start over. This 24 hours every month worked just fine.

What kind of battery is in there now? How old is it? Get an Odyssey PC680 and all should be good. I just went through a weird round with battery, a failing cell in one battery gave all the results of a good battery and it took a few days before I actually caught it dropping to like 7 volts when cranking


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PGlaves said:

When we lived in Iowa and Kansas which had what resembled winter we had several bikes and did not have several battery chargers. So the first of each month I would charge one battery (in a bike) for 24 hours, then the next, then the next, until they all had been charged. Wait until the first of the next month and start over. This 24 hours every month worked just fine.

Click to expand...

From my experience with marine lead-acid batteries, I'd call this "less than optimal" but still OK. Lead-acid batteries, particularly "wet" batteries, self-discharge at a relatively high rate (voltage across the battery's internal resistance). Being idle for a month isn't the end of the world by any means. By the time the next round of charging started, my guess is the batteries were probably down to 90-ish%. It's the last few percent that are the hardest to get into a battery (or... lead-acid batteries will accept lots of current when heavily discharged, significantly less when close to full charge). But I doubt the last bit of charging took a day. The question is how much current was being presented to the battery - the greater the state of charge, the more current dissipated as heat. Heat cooks off electrolyte and warps the plates. The point here being, the regular schedule kept the batteries from going flat, but they probably weren't getting ideal care, either. Of course, as you infer, a lot of batteries means a lot of chargers. Ya pays yer money, ya takes yer choice...

For someone with only one or two bikes, I still strongly recommend some sort of trickle charger for each. In trickle charging, the battery receives approximately what's lost through self-discharge. The current supplied is low enough to avoid any significant heating.

For the record: "lead-acid" refers to "wet", maintenance-free, AGM, and gel batteries. Each handles its electrolyte differently, has different construction and electrical characteristics but, in the end, they're closely related. As opposed to, for example, Li-ion batteries.