R1200GSA erratic idle, misfire, pre-ignition, detonation, ping, knock and stall

CandyMan_ZA

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Hi readers, I have a 2011 R1200GSA, it now has 14 000km’s on the clock, this is my 3rd R1200GS, I had a 2004 and a 2007 standard R1200GS before that, all have been bought new. I have a most peculiar issue with this bike that I am not yet able to resolve, let me explain,

As my riding style is to ‘blip’ the throttle when gearing down or when pulling away, for example from a traffic light, meaning, I give the throttle a quick twist to bring up the revs of the engine. I have been riding bikes for 30 years. Occasionally when blipping the throttle the engine 'misfires', it is as if one cylinder doesn’t fire or fires at the wrong time, it is very noticeable, and worse, albeit less occasionally the misfire which is probably more like a backfire (without the noise) stalls the engine, this has happened to me a few times while waiting for a traffic light to change, it changes green, I blip the throttle (before I pull in the clutch or engage gear) and it just gives a ‘kick’ and stalls. This also happens while lane splitting in traffic as I blip the throttle to make motorists aware I am there, or when I am doing technical riding and feathering the clutch and throttle, all of a sudden it misfires (or pre-ignites) and the bike shudders, most times it continues to run but it has also stalled on me on occasions, not nice when on a slope or crossing a river.

The other symptom I am able to replicate is I can get my bike (as well as the 2010 and 2012 R1200GS's I loaned while mine was in to investigate this issue) to stall on demand. I don't know if this is related to the issue when it stalls as I pull away or when blipping the throttle but I know this cannot be right.

I have discussed this with my BMW dealership and they are not aware of any reason for this behaviour, I have also escalated this to BMW SA and BMW Germany, who merely refer me back to BMW SA. Neither my 2004 or 2007 did this, and I rode more than 160 000km's on these bikes, it is very annoying, and dangerous, as I already almost got ridden over by a truck behind me at the traffic lights. BMW say "they find nothing wrong, it performs within spec".

A number of video clips I made demonstrating this pre-ignition/detonation/knocking/pinging whatevever you want to call it can be seen here:

Erratic idle on my 2011 R1200GSA
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v-8ELUYGie4&feature=youtu.be
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TJvvrKzHwcI&feature=plcp
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=huE_HCJJLjA&feature=plcp

Throttle blip on the loan Hamman Motorrad 2010 R1200GS
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ty4fGRF86gc

Erratic idle on the 2012 Donford R1200GSA
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_XXvWUcJH5w&feature=youtu.be
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ph6ea-npTXw&feature=youtu.be
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tY8Vkaj3X3Y&feature=youtu.be

Throttle blip on the 2012 Donford R1200GSA
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vccgCn68ZOM

I would really like to hear your opinion on this matter. I do also have this discussion going on a few other forums with some very interesting comments.

Thank you
Kevin
/\/¯¯¯¯¯\/\
R1200GS-WP
 
I would really like someone at BMW Germany to watch and listen to these clips and give their opinion as to what is happening. I keep running into a wall from down here in South Africa :banghead:

If you have a means to contact someone in BMW Germany please refer them to this thread and/or have them contact me directly.

kevin@pixelsandbits.co.za

Thank you
Kevin
/\/¯¯¯¯¯\/\
R1200GS-WP
 
watched a few of the clips and IMO your gas hand is very nervous.....just get a bit smother and it'll be alright............... with emission regulations getting tighter you can almost "" kill "" any engine when you blip as hard as you do ...:type
 
well I don't quite know what your expecting, but I think all your problems are in your right hand. I've never seen anything quite like it.
I dont know of any machine with a throttle response like your expecting.

And I would suspect the erratic Idleing is probably down to something youv'e done trying to make that engine pick up as quick as your expecting it to do, which I think is impossible.
 
They don't like being "Blipped" too much inertia methinks. Smooth throttle and dont compare to other bikes :comfort
 
My bike (2011 GSA) is currently in my dealer's workshop while they investigate similar uneven/irregular idling. Mine also misfires and hesitates around 2/3k rpm on very small throttle openings then chimes in as you open the throttle - just the sort of thing you don't want on wet, greasy roundabouts etc.
 
Well to me there seems to be a problem with the balance between the throttle bodies.
It also doesn't seem to be picking up cleanly. Maybe too lean?
The last twin cam I rode had instant pick up.
T'was a demo though.
 
beatmeier said:
watched a few of the clips and IMO your gas hand is very nervous.....just get a bit smother and it'll be alright............... with emission regulations getting tighter you can almost "" kill "" any engine when you blip as hard as you do ...:type
Click to expand...

Hi beatmeier, just to clarify what I am demonstrating in the video clips. The problem I have on my motorcycle is that it stalls intermittently when I ride, when I blip the throttle as I downshift or pull away from a traffic light, or make a noise in traffic while lane splitting or riding technical stuff. It is very difficult to capture this on video as it is intermittent as I said, the stall maybe only happens once a week or more, but often enough to be an irritation or danger. All I can demonstrate is the unusual engine response (pinging, knocking) when blipping the throttle while in neutral and the erratic idle when the throttle is very slightly opened. As I said I don't know if this is even related to the reason the engine intermittently stalls on me, but in my opinion it doesn't seem right :nenau All I can capture on video are these symptoms, if the experts tell me it is unrelated then I ask, why is my motorcycle stalling on me when I blip the throttle? I can hear when I blip the throttle that the engine sometimes does not respond, it is sluggish, it often pings and misses the first few beats then only comes alive and responds. This is my 3rd R1200GS, my other two did not do this, I have been ridding a R1200GS since 2004, and have done more than 160 000km's on them.
 
drinkingparrothead said:
well I don't quite know what your expecting, but I think all your problems are in your right hand. I've never seen anything quite like it.
I dont know of any machine with a throttle response like your expecting.

And I would suspect the erratic Idleing is probably down to something youv'e done trying to make that engine pick up as quick as your expecting it to do, which I think is impossible.
Click to expand...

Hi drinkingparrothead, as I mentioned in the post above this is only a demonstration I am doing of some weird behaviour. I don't obviously go around blipping the throttle like seen in the video :blast I have ridden just about every motorcycle out there, German and Japanese, sport, touring, dual purpose and mx, I have never experienced another motorcycle that behaves quite like this. This is my 3rd R1200GS, my previous two did not behave like this, and I eventually fitted a full Remus pipe on the second one, it revved sweet, quick throttle response and no knocking. I lie, the 2-stroke plastic mx bikes sometimes did some weird stuff, but with some patience and a good ear you could sort it out with a few turns of a screw on the carb.

Not sure what you mean by "something I've done"? I have a brand new motorcycle, stock standard, no mods whatsoever. I experience this same behaviour on the dealers loan 2010 and 2012 R1200GS as well.
 
wust588 said:
Well to me there seems to be a problem with the balance between the throttle bodies.
Click to expand...
This has been checked and double checked, by two seperate dealerships.

wust588 said:
It also doesn't seem to be picking up cleanly. Maybe too lean?
Click to expand...

You got it, this is exactly the problem. However, the guys in the big building with the blue and white propeller will not admit it, they refuse to do anything about it.
 
Its irrelevance whether CandyMan should be blipping the throttle or not. The fact is it shouldn't be doing what it is doing. The idle is all over the place at times and you can hear it misfire quite clearly just while idling. Just out of curiosity I tried it tonight when I got home on my bike and it doesn't matter how hard I twist the throttle it doesn't exhibit the problems in the vid.

Sorry CandyMan I cant help with what is actually wrong with it. It could be something messed up with the timing or it could be one of the lower coils giving you grief.

Do you know anyone with a GS911? It probably wont show any faults but it will trace what the idle syncros are doing and you can look at the lambda (fuel air ratio) as well. If you get a big spike on the lambda as it misses and you can see the idle syncros trying to compensate then I would say its an ignition fault. If on the other hand you get a drop in lambda then it would more point to a fuelling issue. Sticky injector or something like that. You can also look at the duty cycle of the injectors and that will tell you if they are doing what they are told. If the cycle drops at the miss time then the ECU is giving that instruction for some reason. It sounds complicated but honestly once you saw the graphs in front of you live odd things would be pretty visible. I cant remember if you can see an output from the cam and crank sensors on the GS911 but that would be a good thing to look at as well. You might see an obvious hole or spike in the signal meaning its broken.

There are a lot of good mechanics out there but there are also a lot of them that just cant think out the box and fault find. If the computer doesn't tell them what's wrong or indeed if anything is wrong they are lost. If you cant beg or borrow the kit then find a good mechanic with a 911, multimeter, oscilloscope and knows how to use them and the fault will be found quick enough.
 
R1200GSA pinging, knocking, pre-ignition, detonation, stall

Marki_GSA said:
The fact is it shouldn't be doing what it is doing.
Click to expand...

My point exactly :thumb

Marki_GSA said:
Just out of curiosity I tried it tonight when I got home on my bike and it doesn't matter how hard I twist the throttle it doesn't exhibit the problems in the vid.
Click to expand...

Marki, it is so slight pressure on the twist throttle that it is not even visible with the eye or even the bikes Throttle Position Sensor (TPS). More on this later :thumb2

Marki_GSA said:
Sorry CandyMan I cant help with what is actually wrong with it. It could be something messed up with the timing or it could be one of the lower coils giving you grief.
Click to expand...

No need to apologise, I just want folks to talk about these issues :thumb

Marki_GSA said:
Do you know anyone with a GS911?
Click to expand...

:thumb See the end of this post

Marki_GSA said:
It probably wont show any faults but it will trace what the idle syncros are doing and you can look at the lambda (fuel air ratio) as well. If you get a big spike on the lambda as it misses and you can see the idle syncros trying to compensate then I would say its an ignition fault. If on the other hand you get a drop in lambda then it would more point to a fuelling issue. Sticky injector or something like that. You can also look at the duty cycle of the injectors and that will tell you if they are doing what they are told. If the cycle drops at the miss time then the ECU is giving that instruction for some reason. It sounds complicated but honestly once you saw the graphs in front of you live odd things would be pretty visible. I cant remember if you can see an output from the cam and crank sensors on the GS911 but that would be a good thing to look at as well. You might see an obvious hole or spike in the signal meaning its broken.

There are a lot of good mechanics out there but there are also a lot of them that just cant think out the box and fault find. If the computer doesn't tell them what's wrong or indeed if anything is wrong they are lost. If you cant beg or borrow the kit then find a good mechanic with a 911, multimeter, oscilloscope and knows how to use them and the fault will be found quick enough.
Click to expand...

I received a reply from f00gami on this same discussion on ADVRider. Below is his response to the erratic off idle symptoms I am experiencing. Note this is only this condition and does not explain the stall I occasionally experience when blipping the throttle. It may be unrelated to the stall I am experiencing when I blip the throttle but it be very well be, it is rather peculiar behaviour nonetheless and definitely worth some discussion on whether this is acceptable :nenau

Kevin - I think you might be on to several issues at once with your bike. Some might or might not be related to the local fuel quality or possibly a bad component on your bike. What really caught my attention was the fact that your managed to reproduce the “erratic idle” behavior on multiple bikes, including the yellow 2012 loaner.

I myself own a 2010 R1200GSA which runs great and shows no signs of misfires/pinging, stalling or bad behavior when blipping the throttle. However, today I decided to subject my bike to the same procedure as you do in your youtube clips i.e. opening the throttle grip just very slightly past the point of resistance... :duno

The outcome was very much the same as yours; very soon the idle got erratic and the engine was close to stalling on several occasions. Once I released the throttle grip, the idle stabilized.

Using the GS-911 I recorded some engine parameters during two cases; 1) Normal undisturbed idling and 2) Idling with throttle grip very slightly open. Please see this PDF-file for the measurement graphs.

Page 1 shows the undisturbed idle – note that all parameters are stable (except lambda voltage, which exhibits normal closed-loop behavior).

Page 2 shows what happens as the throttle grip is opened very slightly. Note that…
Lambda voltage quickly bottoms out -> indication of a leaner mixture
The idle stepper motors (which control the amount of air allowed to bypass the throttle plate) soon bottom out at 0.
The throttle position sensor (TPS) constantly indicates fully closed throttle, even though applying pressure to the throttle grip surely will cause the throttle plate to open slightly.
At t=110s, the idle steppers have bottomed out and engine speed starts fluctuating heavily – engine is close to stalling.
My conclusion is that the erratic idle issue which occurs with prolonged small throttle grip openings is caused by the idle speed control logic of BMS-K (engine control) becoming unstable. While applying pressure to the throttle grip, you are letting a bit more air into the engine. As our bikes have no Air Mass Meter, BMS-K must estimate the amount of air entering the engine from engine speed and throttle plate position (the TPS signal). However, as the TPS does not seem to register this very minute movement of the throttle plate, the system has no idea of what you are doing and cannot adjust fueling and ignition timing accordingly. Hence you have effectively created an intake air leak.

As more air enters the engine, the average idle speed starts rising ever so slowly (and the mixture goes lean). The idle steppers will react to the increase in engine speed and start compensating to bring the idle back to 1150 rpm. Once the steppers bottom out, the BMS-K regulator goes unstable.

In this respect I assume you could argue that BMW is right in saying that this is “in line with the character” of our bikes, as every DOHC R1200 will exhibit this behavior (if I’m right). However, this should not be the reason for the other issues you mention such as pinging and engine stalling during throttle blips.
 
R1200GSA pinging, knocking, pre-ignition, detonation, stall

To- Candyman and Marki GSA, I totally agree with you both.
I have a 2008 R12000GS with 28k fully serviced by dealer (latest only 2 weeks ago) and it still exhibits the same traites as you describe Candyman.
I have a GS 911 (purchased in a desparate attempt to solve the pinging/popping on decceleration) and although I have used it to observe stuff it's so far never got me tinkering with things except idle actuator calibration but after reading the post with the GS911 graphs included and Marki GSA's post that may change.
I also am suffering from the stall issue.
I commute on my bike and when dealing with urban start/stop stuff I need to blip when dropping clutch in 2nd making ready for 1st or it will likely stall and as Candyman says- it's bloody dangerous not mentioning embarassing, frustrating, annoying etc. You have to get it into neutral and start it on the button and if the lights have just turned green....well, all bikers can imagine.
I've been through the all too common situation with the BMW dealer- they couldn't see any fault on the computer, they replaced coils, said they all pop/bang to some extent etc etc and with the dealer being 40miles away I can't keep returning to insist on further action but I think they either don't care or don't know.
So here I am on my 2nd GS that I dearly love but these issues are becoming too much to take (so much so, I test drove the Triumph Tiger Explorer but it did't quite float my boat)
I just want my GS fixed!
As Marki GSA says- "it shouldn't do this"
Any advice appreciated.
 
colinshotts said:
To- Candyman and Marki GSA, I totally agree with you both.
I have a 2008 R12000GS with 28k fully serviced by dealer (latest only 2 weeks ago) and it still exhibits the same traites as you describe Candyman.
I have a GS 911 (purchased in a desparate attempt to solve the pinging/popping on decceleration) and although I have used it to observe stuff it's so far never got me tinkering with things except idle actuator calibration but after reading the post with the GS911 graphs included and Marki GSA's post that may change.
I also am suffering from the stall issue.
I commute on my bike and when dealing with urban start/stop stuff I need to blip when dropping clutch in 2nd making ready for 1st or it will likely stall and as Candyman says- it's bloody dangerous not mentioning embarassing, frustrating, annoying etc. You have to get it into neutral and start it on the button and if the lights have just turned green....well, all bikers can imagine.
I've been through the all too common situation with the BMW dealer- they couldn't see any fault on the computer, they replaced coils, said they all pop/bang to some extent etc etc and with the dealer being 40miles away I can't keep returning to insist on further action but I think they either don't care or don't know.
So here I am on my 2nd GS that I dearly love but these issues are becoming too much to take (so much so, I test drove the Triumph Tiger Explorer but it did't quite float my boat)
I just want my GS fixed!
As Marki GSA says- "it shouldn't do this"
Any advice appreciated.
Click to expand...

Hi Colin, unfortunately BMW AG will not respond to this issue, they merely refer me back to BMW South Africa who deny there is a problem, they say I have to "change my riding style", and there is "no reason to blip the throttle", there is "nothing in the owners manual that says I must blip the throttle" :blast Fortunately however the case is with the Motor Industry Ombudsman of South Africa, but their wheels turn very slowly. I suggest you (and anyone else that is also experiencing these symptoms) contact your Motor Ombudsman and let them open the case with BMW. I am very disappointed with BMW Motorrad and their lack of response and denial on this issue :censor:

Kevin
AKA CandyMan_ZA
/\/¯¯¯¯¯\/\
 
very well said

i too have a late 2008 gsa . Purchased in Australia nsw.april 2009.
I have also been subjected to the same querkyness on the 1200 but put it down to being a virgin. Have had cold start difficulties at 0-3 degrees as if too lean and cold start / pulse width not being altered for lower temp. uneven idle and lumpiness ,stalling at lights and general lack of confidence or consistency in slow speed manouvers. I have done a little off road but nothing seriouse,foot peg standing etc river crossings i dread to think what it must be like with the slow speed irregularities. I have been to bmw in aus 5 times and once in uk with no remedy found. Not to mention the fuel gauge issues ,tps warning, slow speed cranking when warm. Good luck in your quest. fyi have purchased a power commander v to primerily richen low end to see if this resolves issues.
i might note it has been suggested to me to try tps resets. But no improvement my end who knows. I presume you have tried the cheap route alternative shell optimax or 98 ron equivelant to see if any improvement and also replacing plugs. These are both diy remedys which might pay their way. Have found most faults on bikes and small plant to be plug related and found all my bikes to run a lot better on 98 ron and use nothing else now . For the little i use my bike and the 50 +mpg i get it pays for itself. But be warned dont leave in tank over winter or if stood long periods seems to varnish more than 91 would advise this or non ethanol product .
 
Roymondo said:
My bike (2011 GSA) is currently in my dealer's workshop while they investigate similar uneven/irregular idling. Mine also misfires and hesitates around 2/3k rpm on very small throttle openings then chimes in as you open the throttle - just the sort of thing you don't want on wet, greasy roundabouts etc.
Click to expand...

Get them to check for air leaks on the right inlet manifold - this is becoming common
 
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