Another FPC Disaster? Can anyone help please?

[Chewy]

So, I'm heading off to London on the M4 from W. Berks this morning and get probably about 1 mile eastbound from J10... cruising at around 70 ish and then it happens... bike loses all power... nothing... I manage to filter to middle lane and the bike picks up again and I've got power... then 3 seconds later... dead!

I've now managed to pull over onto the hard shoulder with hazards on, luckily for me the traffic is light and so I can do so safely.

I try to start the bike again and it turns over OK but can't get it to start at all. Plenty of fuel in the tank and all electrics seemed fine but no matter how much I tried I still couldn't get it to turn over. Battery is now near exhausted and all electrics start to act all weird... probably down to the fact that I've nearly run it down completely trying to start it.

Since I am now nearly 1 year out of warranty (which I didn't renew nor did I renew the BMW Assist thingy ). Anyway, managed to get a recovery and bike is now at home although I'm £100 lighter in the wallet... but at least I've got my health .

Luckily I have a very close friend who works at Vines and have spoken to him and it seems as though it may well be the same issue that a lot of people are having. I am getting a new regulator sent to me as I suspect that this is the problem - with no fuel flowing to the engine, this seems to be the most likely outcome.

Question: Does this sound like the FPC? Has anyone had a similar experience? From the top two stickies it looks as though plenty of people have but as I am not technical, I wondered if this is an FPC problem or if it is something else?

Not really sure that I have the skills to do a by-pass and I don't really want to as I'd like to trade the bike in and keep it all above board as it were. But to keep the costs down, I'm going to replace it myself.

Any advice, comments, abuse??

 

[Shep]

Sounds just like the FPC has failed

 

[Yonkyo]

Yep, sounds like the FPC. Same thing happened to me on my old 06 GS.

FWIW, BMW are doing a recall on all pre 09 GS's. shame your went kaput before you got your recall letter.

 

[Chewy]

Dang and Blast!

Damn... my bike is a Nov 2006 on a 56 plate... I guess I'm not going to be in for a freebie then

 

[Shep]

Damn... my bike is a Nov 2006 on a 56 plate... I guess I'm not going to be in for a freebie then

I would have a word with your favourite dealer and ask for a goodwill gesture considering its a known problem

 

[cookie]

Damn... my bike is a Nov 2006 on a 56 plate... I guess I'm not going to be in for a freebie then

just got the letter for my 56 bike, so i don't think you'll be paying.

 

[shugie]

Not got any hint about my 55 reg 1200, do BMW think the earlier batch of FPCs were pukka?

 

[harry]

I would have a word with your favourite dealer and ask for a goodwill gesture considering its a known problem

+1

 

[Owen Snell]

Not got any hint about my 55 reg 1200, do BMW think the earlier batch of FPCs were pukka?

Look through Tim's FPC failure thread, you will see plenty of 04 and 05 bikes in there too (including mine). Maybe the recalls are being issued in reverse date order?

 

[Chewy]

Electrical Spasmodism

Thanks for all the feedback...

So, this is really weird...

The bike's been on trickle charge since this afternoon and I just thought I'd go and check on the status of the bike and battery. Went into the garage and the battery isn't charging - showing a voltage of around 7.8 volts on the charger thingamajig. And the hazards are going nuts.

I then turned the ignition on... after disabling the BMW alarm and the bike's electrics have gone completely spasmoidal (sorry for being un-pc). the display comes on and off and the warning lights are doing the Christmas tree thing.

I thought that the (faulty) FPC might be acting as a current sink and draining the battery so have now disconnected the top of it and see if that does allow the battery to charge.

EDIT: - Battery charger is connected directly to the battery terminals and not going through the CanBus.

Should I be even more concerned that it's a complete electrical failure of some sort?? ... Help!!!

BTW - checked with Vines using the frame number and my bike wasn't one of the ones as part of the FPC programme... the frame no. ends with ZS81288.


Thanks,

Really concerned of W. Berks.

 

[shugie]

Thanks for all the feedback...

So, this is really weird...

The bike's been on trickle charge since this afternoon and I just thought I'd go and check on the status of the bike and battery. Went into the garage and the battery isn't charging - showing a voltage of around 7.8 volts on the charger thingamajig. And the hazards are going nuts.

I then turned the ignition on... after disabling the BMW alarm and the bike's electrics have gone completely spasmoidal (sorry for being un-pc). the display comes on and off and the warning lights are doing the Christmas tree thing.

I thought that the (faulty) FPC might be acting as a current sink and draining the battery so have now disconnected the top of it and see if that does allow the battery to charge.

EDIT: - Battery charger is connected directly to the battery terminals and not going through the CanBus.

Should I be even more concerned that it's a complete electrical failure of some sort?? ... Help!!!

BTW - checked with Vines using the frame number and my bike wasn't one of the ones as part of the FPC programme... the frame no. ends with ZS81288.


Thanks,

Really concerned of W. Berks.

That does sound rather more like a dead battery than a dead fpc, but what sort of battery is it, and what sort of charger do you have?

 

[RickG]

The initial failure is a FPC classic, the fact that the battery turned the bike over (you imply you did this a fair bit - until it was near flat? ) shows the battery was fine at that point and therefore extremely unlikely to be the cause of the engine dying.

If it's not charging now ( I assume this was done with both cables disconnected from the battery so the bike isn't electrically connected to it??) then either the strain of all that cranking (so to speak) has finally killed off the battery, which is a fair bit of a coincidence, but possible, or your battery charger itself is in fact knackered and doing nothing useful at all. Has it got a fuse that's blown? Some chargers will light up the display as if they are doing something but they are really just pulling juice from the battery and not the mains.

If you have an voltmeter, check that when you measure the battery voltage with the charger connected you see a difference with the mains turned on and off. If not, then the charger is indeed suspect

 

[bustupbiker]

And did you say the hazards where flashing like mad too? did you leave the
hazards on when getting a lift home and after the bike went on charge...

As has been said, remove the cables from the battery and try again..

PS: first dibs on your old FPC if you are not going to mod it your self...

Lyn.

 

[Chewy]

I've just checked the battery now and it seems to be charging OK now. It did drain to flat when I was trying to get it started. I've now managed to crank the engine over so it's gained enough charge over the past few hours. I guess I'll just leave it overnight now to get back up to full charge.

The bike was loaded into the recovery van with the ignition and hazards on (to stop the alarm going off and partly because I was just desperate to get off the motorway!).

Disconnecting the FPC at the top side of the unit has seemed to allow the battery to charge... QED... it is 99.5% likely to be a faulty FPC draining current to earth and, in technical terms, buggered.

I might even allow myself a small 'phew' as it was beginning to all sound really expensive.

Will update again tomorrow.

 

[shugie]

I've just checked the battery now and it seems to be charging OK now. It did drain to flat when I was trying to get it started. I've now managed to crank the engine over so it's gained enough charge over the past few hours. I guess I'll just leave it overnight now to get back up to full charge.

The bike was loaded into the recovery van with the ignition and hazards on (to stop the alarm going off and partly because I was just desperate to get off the motorway!).

Disconnecting the FPC at the top side of the unit has seemed to allow the battery to charge... QED... it is 99.5% likely to be a faulty FPC draining current to earth and, in technical terms, buggered.

I might even allow myself a small 'phew' as it was beginning to all sound really expensive.

Will update again tomorrow.

As a fellow West Berk, I can offer a loan of a FPC bypass widget, if that is of any use to you for testing purposes

 

[Chewy]

@Shugie... Thanks for the offer... that's really kind of you. I'm only 8 miles from Reading so I might just take you up on that offer.

I'm hoping that a new FPC is on it's way to me now so that I can fit it tomorrow.

 

[OldCroc]

Damn... my bike is a Nov 2006 on a 56 plate... I guess I'm not going to be in for a freebie then

FWIW - recalls are recalls - no matter where the bike is regarding warantees.

OldCroc

 

[Chewy]

All Done and Working Now!

So the FPC dooberry arrived this morning and I've now fitted it all good and well... including some silicon grease around the edge of the washer to keep it nice and some ACF 50 around the top!

Fired the bike up (now with a fully charged battery showing 14.4 volts) and it kicked first time... incredible!!

The jobs a good un.

Thanks to Iain at Vines... top man and a true mate indeed.

 

[AberdeenAngus]

You might want to keep an eye on your battery.
Even flat it should still have shown 11 something volts.
7.8 is bad news.
It might seem to have recovered but you might have lost some capacity permanently.
This could be another problem storing itself up for the future.
I would suggest you get the battery capacity tested asap.

 

[Chewy]

Cheers AA... I will keep an eye on it. I've been using an intelligent (non-CanBus) charger on the battery and have never had any problems with it. But I'll monitor the situation.