Stranded Twice 08RT

It happened last night going home. I was cruising along about 60mph and the engine just quit. I have 114 miles to empty and 1/4 tank showing on the display, acted like I ran out of fuel. 2 and a half hours on the side of the road, a state trooper arranged for a tow. I had no cell service naturally. 100 degrees and no water. I never once was stranded on any other bike I have owned. $315 tow bill which I hope BMW will pay, that's going to be my next experience. I got to tell you I am losing confidence and I never expected this from a BMW.
Thanks for listening, I needed to tell someone.

Jeff - did you run out of fuel?

Just as an aside - I do believe in belt/suspenders.. whenever I fill up I reset one of my odometers to zero. If I get to 200 miles on it - I know I'll need gas soon, no matter what the miles to empty says. That said - my miles to empty has been pretty accurate based on the amount of fuel I put in the tank. I guess mine might be the exception.

I believe I did however I have trusted the electronic display. When I looked into the tank it is difficult to see fuel due to the tank configuration. I will let the dealer decide which way this is going. I have an expense that I would not have incurred if the display was correct. Good idea on the trip minder.

My '07 R1200ST seems to have perhaps 20-30 miles left when the countdown reaches zero. However, the display on a friend's GS is about 20 miles optimistic, and he's had to push his bike.

Frankly, I've got enough old bikes that I always reset a trip meter when I fill up and follow that, regardless of what the countdown says.

(Except on my oldest bikes, which don't have trip meters. For them, I look in the gas tank every time I take them out to ride them, and then keep track from there with the main odometer readings.)

I see you're in Paradise, I was just up in your neck of the woods for the Central Cal Beemer Bash a couple weeks ago. Had a great time! For some reason, I've never been on the LaPorte road before, I sure enjoyed that!

No Fuel

I had the same problem last week: without a warning, and with a display reading about 50 miles to go, Artie quit on me while we were passing a truck. After coasting off the highway, I called AAA and had two gallons brought to me by a tow truck, driven by a fellow rider. I recommend AAA gold RV plan: I didn't get charged for the fuel.

I called Jason at Mischler's (Beaver Dam WI), who told me that he hadn't heard about other fuel or gauge problems, but would check Artie when I came in for 24K service next month. He explained that the sender is a moisture-sensitive strip that sends a signal based on where it's wet. I am beginning to suspect that it may be faulty. In the meantime, more than ever, I do what Don suggests: verify with the odometer, don't trust the display. When I get to 100 miles, I fill up.

Maybe the battery

Same thing happened to me 1 yr ago this month at 40 MPH everything shutdown, no warning, nothing---just like I switched off the ignition key----5 hrs later and a tow truck. It was a faulty battery and no amount of jump starting would work because it wouldn't hold a charge---only 16K miles old. And there are others who had the same thing happen. Your dealer will be able to check the fault history on their analyzer to narrow down the problem. I opted for a non BMW battery and it's worked great since. Good luck

antaeas said:

I called Jason at Mischler's (Beaver Dam WI), who told me that he hadn't heard about other fuel or gauge problems

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Having grown up with motorcycles using manual petcocks with often unreliable reserve valves, I have always used a resettable trip meter to guage when I need to fill up. Now I use a belt and suspender methodology, I reset the primay tripmeter on the RT dash and also have the fuel guage reminder turned on in the Zumo 550, that assures that I get a very noticeable reminder at 210 miles to start looking for a gas station.

Best part of the Zumo reminder is I can just tap the screen and it will give a list of the closest gas stations and route me there if I want, electronic techology can be a good thing!

My '07 GSA did the same thing twice. I turned out to be a faulty fuel pump.

Yep. BMW just spent $1700 replacing my pump, injectors, and rubber due to "too much ethanol" in the gas. At least they paid the tow bill and for all of the repairs. Oh, and the fuel strip was replaced. Bike is an '09 with 10,500 miles on it.

RoboRider said:

I have an 05 RT. The dealer did some work on the bike and recalibrated the fuel sensor. I have 20-30 miles left after a zero reading. If your guage is not accurate, rest assured that the system works, and the right mechanic can make it work.

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Yes and no. On my GS, for example, I do not have the on-board computer. That means I've an old fashioned float-on-a-lever. It's pretty reliable and can be adjusted. The bikes with the on-board computer have a fuel level sensor, instead. I don't believe there's anything a mechanic can do with a sensor other than replace it. There are reports from folks that are now on their second or third (or 4th) sensor and still not getting reliable fuel readings.

RoboRider said:

and the right mechanic can make it work.

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The answer to most problems.
It took me 4 trips back to the dealer to get the gas guage right after my first service.

deilenberger said:

Jeff - did you run out of fuel?

Just as an aside - whenever I fill up I reset one of my odometers to zero. If I get to 200 miles on it - I know I'll need gas soon, no matter what the miles to empty says. That said - my miles to empty has been pretty accurate based on the amount of fuel I put in the tank. I guess mine might be the exception.

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+1

last week my bike just died.. not like ran out of gas 'died', but the engine just stopped, shut itself off as I was riding down the road at 40mph.. Had plenty of gas. but it wouldn't start.
Had it towed to Lone Star in Austin..Turns out it was the Fuel pump controller and Fuel pump. I was told by the service folks that they've seen a few of these failures this year.. I was just happy I didn't have to pay for the towing (200.00), parts and labor (491.00)

deilenberger said:

Jeff - did you run out of fuel?

Just as an aside - I do believe in belt/suspenders.. whenever I fill up I reset one of my odometers to zero. If I get to 200 miles on it - I know I'll need gas soon, no matter what the miles to empty says. That said - my miles to empty has been pretty accurate based on the amount of fuel I put in the tank. I guess mine might be the exception.

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+2, I too was once naive enough believing that a fuel gauge on a 18K dollar machine would provide some functional level of accuracy - sorry to say no.

The same is true with my GT, when I get to 50 miles left showing on range, it does not drop. The cruise can accuractely control the speed to 1mph but don't trust the fuel gauge.

I usually just fill up at 1/4 tank.

Sorry to hear about your troubles - you should see about getting the tow re-imbursed, I would

deilenberger said:

Jeff - did you run out of fuel?

Just as an aside - I do believe in belt/suspenders.. whenever I fill up I reset one of my odometers to zero. If I get to 200 miles on it - I know I'll need gas soon, no matter what the miles to empty says. That said - my miles to empty has been pretty accurate based on the amount of fuel I put in the tank. I guess mine might be the exception.

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Good advice from Deilenberger. This is the same advice given to all riders on a Beach's Tour. Reset the odometer and when it reads 200 - get gas as soon as possible. Rob uses brand new BMW's but never trusts the gas gauges.

And after 200 miles or kilometers it is time to stretch the legs, relax and avoid DVT.

I have a late model 06 GS that is badged as an 07. After first getting the bike, I notice the gauge was way off, I dont have the computer on my bike. During the 600 miles service, the dealer dried the strip and reset the computer. Gauge seemed better after this, but still not real accurate. Next service I told them of the issue again and they again dried the strip and reset things along with a firmware update they thought would help. The tech also told me to not fill up until the low fuel light came on. Said something like after the reset, the computer will learn how to better read the strip after the first fill up and it does this better after the fuel light goes on blah blah.

I road the bike for about 30 miles after the light came on, filled up and crossed my fingers. Gauge seems pretty accurate now. It actually counts down for the most part and I have had the thing down to distance til walking reading of 2 miles, of course at this fill up the tank took more than the book says it can hold...?? but oh well. I look at the gauge as just, that a gauge, so I can gauge my ride and fuel stops. I always run one of the trip odometers with the tank and fill up aroun 170 miles any way.

I see I'm not alone here. I would agree that a $20k machine should have an accurate guage. I have learned a very valuable lesson here, I will watch my odo for miles rather than depend on that silly guage.
On the bright side the dealer said one way or the other I will be reimbursed for my $315 tow bill. That's great!
Thank you'all for the thoughts, I really do appreciate this club.
Jeff
PS the only people that pulled over to help were two women and a guy on a flying brick.

Fuel, ctd.

Marcopolo can laugh all he wants, but my question to my dealer was about bad gas OR gauge problems. I should have explained that he did tell me about the fuel strip needing to be reset, but only after we talked about ethanol. Last winter, I had a snowblower freeze up when the fuel had entrained water that froze. Two weeks ago, I was suspecting that I had again pumped some bad gas. Around here, even the pumps for 93 octane premium have stickers showing 10% ethanol content. According to everything I've heard, ethanol doesn't eat fuel systems at current specs, but always attracts water.