Bloody thing won’t start. Again.

[SBD]

Bike was just a bit sluggish starting this morning to go to work, but started and ran fine. And I forgot about it. It’s about ten minutes to work, and more or less the same coming home. It started fine when I left work. Stopped to pick up some milk on the way and then it would not start.

Given the choice between waiting for them to send someone or getting on with my life, I rang herself, she came and got me, I got the spanners and jump leads and we sorted it.

I’m fed up with this. I had major issues last year, culminating in them changing the alternator (yes, really) and buggering up the clutch, so it went back for that too. I think I was without it for most of January 22.

There’s the usual Bollocks about “it’s the datatag” and “oh, you have to charge it if you’re not using it” I commute on it most days unless it’s actually icy or proper pissing down, and go out at the weekends, so it’s probably used 4 or 5 days a week, so that’s nonsense.

The bike was purchased in September 20, and has done 6500 miles. For a great bike, it’s shite. The battery is likely not adequate. My car doesn’t fail to start, my car doesn’t need “putting on charge”. None of my other bikes or cars have ever needed “putting on charge”.

Suggestions?

 

[stever1]

Bike was just a bit sluggish starting this morning to go to work, but started and ran fine. And I forgot about it. It’s about ten minutes to work, and more or less the same coming home. It started fine when I left work. Stopped to pick up some milk on the way and then it would not start.

Given the choice between waiting for them to send someone or getting on with my life, I rang herself, she came and got me, I got the spanners and jump leads and we sorted it.

I’m fed up with this. I had major issues last year, culminating in them changing the alternator (yes, really) and buggering up the clutch, so it went back for that too. I think I was without it for most of January 22.

There’s the usual Bollocks about “it’s the datatag” and “oh, you have to charge it if you’re not using it” I commute on it most days unless it’s actually icy or proper pissing down, and go out at the weekends, so it’s probably used 4 or 5 days a week, so that’s nonsense.

The bike was purchased in September 20, and has done 6500 miles. For a great bike, it’s shite. The battery is likely not adequate. My car doesn’t fail to start, my car doesn’t need “putting on charge”. None of my other bikes or cars have ever needed “putting on charge”.

Suggestions?

Don’t ride a BMW.

 

[DJ123]

Sounds like a dead/failing battery & potentially a parasitic drain. Who installed the tracker?

My bike stood in the garage for a month, not on charge, unused in the freezing conditions of November last year (it has a Bike Trak tracker fitted). Started up fine with no issues at all.

 

[Engineer]

Bike was just a bit sluggish starting this morning to go to work, but started and ran fine. And I forgot about it. It’s about ten minutes to work, and more or less the same coming home. It started fine when I left work. Stopped to pick up some milk on the way and then it would not start.

Given the choice between waiting for them to send someone or getting on with my life, I rang herself, she came and got me, I got the spanners and jump leads and we sorted it.

I’m fed up with this. I had major issues last year, culminating in them changing the alternator (yes, really) and buggering up the clutch, so it went back for that too. I think I was without it for most of January 22.

There’s the usual Bollocks about “it’s the datatag” and “oh, you have to charge it if you’re not using it” I commute on it most days unless it’s actually icy or proper pissing down, and go out at the weekends, so it’s probably used 4 or 5 days a week, so that’s nonsense.

The bike was purchased in September 20, and has done 6500 miles. For a great bike, it’s shite. The battery is likely not adequate. My car doesn’t fail to start, my car doesn’t need “putting on charge”. None of my other bikes or cars have ever needed “putting on charge”.

Suggestions?

My bike had developed a 'parasitic drain' of 350mA!!!!!!! - dealer fully disconnected the battery then shorted the battery wires together to totally discharge any capacitors, drop the voltage right down to ensure a proper reset when the battery was re-connected. The parasitic drain on reset was then only 150mA - still too high but we think that this may be caused by a faulty tracker. This is still under investigation but at least the battery stays up for at least twice as long now. When in the garage I leave it on the BMW charger and this does the job, for now.

P.S. the battery checked out just fine.

P.P.S 10 minutes riding isn't enough to put back much charge if the battery is already partially charged due to a high parasitic drain.

 

[MotoRevive]

Agreed. A short commute every day dischages your battery more than it charges it. Once you factor into the massive amp draw from starting up a 120cc bike.

Even without a tracker, a modern BMW discharges quicker than it should. So many bloody control units and modules ticking away in the backgroud. A trickle charger is a MUST.

 

[Pukmeister]

Get a Noco GB40 booster pack, that'll jump start most cars up to a V6 and fits easily in a topbox or pannier.

 

[SBD]

Thanks guys, car today (meeting clients, bike boots / jeans not ideal) and will put it on charge this afternoon.

Not keen on buying a backup charger/battery thing, would rather pay the money for a proper battery, and have it start when I press the tit, better than effing about.

Ten minutes ride isn’t much, and I don’t use it much at the weekends in the winter, still, the car works with this kind of treatment.

I’m going to call bmw again and ask them to give me a new battery. Probably wasting my time but if you don’t ask…

 

[Mr Bean]

Was going to buy the Noco GB40, until read a few reviews and saw this video.

Mine has a 16ah Yuasa fitted and wouldn't start after my 20 minute commute on Monday - bike parked up for 10 minutes.

<iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/JN8A2nIMUWA" title="YouTube video player" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share" allowfullscreen></iframe>

 

[Pukmeister]

One of the first things I did when I got my 2019 GSA was swap out the OE battery for a fairly new Motobatt of bigger capacity that I had in my garage from my previous Hexhead. I don't ride the GSA much through winter as I have a hack/coomuter and the tracker probably drains the battery a fair bit. I do the odd recharge on my Ctek now and then to keep it ready for use just in case. I never leave a 'trickle' charger permanently connected.

 

[stever1]

The battery on my wing is a 20ah, and I’m finding that an optimate solar powered charger works well. Just plug it in and leave it. It may be the answer for the folk with trackers on their bike who needs a permanent trickle charge.

 

[Pukmeister]

Was going to buy the Noco GB40, until read a few reviews and saw this video.

The GB40 is slightly more expensive at RRP plus you need to buy a hard case for it for another £15. I got mine in a discount sale after having seen a couple of YouTube videos of a Canadian guy repeatedly starting up Subarus in winter with dead batteries. You can also get money off at Halfords if you have a trade card. Its a great piece of it.

<iframe width="784" height="441" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/YKVH0CcWeMo" title="NOCO GB40 Jump Box. This Thing Surprised Us." frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share" allowfullscreen></iframe>

 

[jags]

Bike was just a bit sluggish starting this morning to go to work, but started and ran fine. And I forgot about it. It’s about ten minutes to work, and more or less the same coming home. It started fine when I left work. Stopped to pick up some milk on the way and then it would not start.

Given the choice between waiting for them to send someone or getting on with my life, I rang herself, she came and got me, I got the spanners and jump leads and we sorted it.

I’m fed up with this. I had major issues last year, culminating in them changing the alternator (yes, really) and buggering up the clutch, so it went back for that too. I think I was without it for most of January 22.

There’s the usual Bollocks about “it’s the datatag” and “oh, you have to charge it if you’re not using it” I commute on it most days unless it’s actually icy or proper pissing down, and go out at the weekends, so it’s probably used 4 or 5 days a week, so that’s nonsense.

The bike was purchased in September 20, and has done 6500 miles. For a great bike, it’s shite. The battery is likely not adequate. My car doesn’t fail to start, my car doesn’t need “putting on charge”. None of my other bikes or cars have ever needed “putting on charge”.

Suggestions?

my son's triumph is the same.

 

[Engineer]

Thanks guys, car today (meeting clients, bike boots / jeans not ideal) and will put it on charge this afternoon.

Not keen on buying a backup charger/battery thing, would rather pay the money for a proper battery, and have it start when I press the tit, better than effing about.

Ten minutes ride isn’t much, and I don’t use it much at the weekends in the winter, still, the car works with this kind of treatment.

I’m going to call bmw again and ask them to give me a new battery. Probably wasting my time but if you don’t ask…

Do you have a tracker fitted? this is the first GS since 2005 that I have had battery discharge problems with and it is the first with a tracker.

 

[SBD]

Yes, it has a tracker. When I went through this palaver last year, everybody blamed the tracker so I rang Datatool and asked them if it ran the battery down. They don’t think so, but as the girl said, “well, they would say that, wouldn’t they?”.

The tracker goes to sleep (at least “should”) when the bike isn’t moving, wakes up if disturbed, draws a very few mA when asleep. I recall doing the sums last year, IIRC it should still be able to start the bike after more than a month, assuming the numbers quoted were accurate, and it’s not faulty.

I have a charger which I use for ‘er ladyship’s 911, and my old Guzzi. It’s a boat one, so has three outputs. I’d fitted sockets to my lad’s F650, and the other two vehicles, so it wasn’t a total hardship to say “fuck it” and fit a socket to the GS. Cut a bit of plastic to fit between the chassis rails above the rear brake m/cyl, and fitted the socket to that, soldered decent 2-core to it, shrink-wrapped connections, fuse on the live side and wired it into the jump lead connection behind the side panel, and then connected it to the battery ground, which was barely more than finger tight.

Bike started immediately once that was fixed.

Yes, it had been in for service two weeks ago. Coincidence? Mmmm.

 

[(RIP) Mark H]

Going just on this "Bike was just a bit sluggish starting this morning to go to work, but started and ran fine. And I forgot about it. It’s about ten minutes to work, and more or less the same coming home. It started fine when I left work. Stopped to pick up some milk on the way and then it would not start."

It mirrors my problem on a 1250RT, 06/2019, there's a bad bunch of batteries out there which throw up the same symptoms, mine exactly same till persuded the dealer to swap battery under warranty, no more problems,

 

[GSMarky]

Bike was just a bit sluggish starting this morning to go to work, but started and ran fine. And I forgot about it. It’s about ten minutes to work, and more or less the same coming home. It started fine when I left work. Stopped to pick up some milk on the way and then it would not start.

Given the choice between waiting for them to send someone or getting on with my life, I rang herself, she came and got me, I got the spanners and jump leads and we sorted it.

I’m fed up with this. I had major issues last year, culminating in them changing the alternator (yes, really) and buggering up the clutch, so it went back for that too. I think I was without it for most of January 22.

There’s the usual Bollocks about “it’s the datatag” and “oh, you have to charge it if you’re not using it” I commute on it most days unless it’s actually icy or proper pissing down, and go out at the weekends, so it’s probably used 4 or 5 days a week, so that’s nonsense.

The bike was purchased in September 20, and has done 6500 miles. For a great bike, it’s shite. The battery is likely not adequate. My car doesn’t fail to start, my car doesn’t need “putting on charge”. None of my other bikes or cars have ever needed “putting on charge”.

Suggestions?

My bike is also September 20 with much the same mileage and I have to date not had an issue whatsoever - it's been perfect once I removed that POS Datatool thing that drained the battery that is when I left it unattended for a couple of weeks.

Ditch the stupid tracker!

 

[SBD]

I don’t think it’s the tracker!

I’m pretty convinced that the battery is the weakest link. It’s probably marginal in capacity to start with, and doesn’t need much to pull it down, so the short winter rides to and from the office, with the hot grips on, and no weekend blasts to top things up, and you have a recipe for failure - one that is entirely predictable, but might have cost an extra four pence to avoid.

Couple that with a slightly careless mechanic, maybe, and the bloody thing won’t start.

Despite it starting fine when I tightened the battery negative, I did charge it all afternoon and night on Sunday, rode it to the office and back yesterday, but with forecast snow etc, left it at home today. Sleet forecast tonight & tomorrow and veritably pissing down Thursday, so let’s see if it goes Friday or maybe a day or two later depending on the weather.

And the tracker is pretty startlingly good. I moved the bike down on its suspension in the garage by leaning over it to photograph my FIT meter, and got a ping from Datatool. I think I’d get scrote warnings in good time, though what you do when there’s four of them loading it into a Tranny van, I don’t know. Lock the door, call the plod, let them take it, hope (vainly, probably) the plod care enough and have free manpower to sort it.

 

[Mr Bean]

I don’t think it’s the tracker!

I’m pretty convinced that the battery is the weakest link. It’s probably marginal in capacity to start with.

With your opinion 100%

My tracker has a minimal draw and pretty sure does not affect starting performance.

 

[knutk]

If the bike is used mainly for commuting, and the ride only takes 10 minutes, I will suggest that OP gets a battery charger.

Even a car may struggle with such a drive in the long run, even though the car has the advantage of a much larger battery.

The thing is, modern bikes are equipped with small capacity batteries, for space and weight savings. And as long as the battery is kept in good condition, this will work just fine.

But we have to realize that there is a catch with small batteries. A small battery will absorb less power/min than a larger battery.
This is due to the fact that the vehicle charging system is based on a constant voltage from the alternator.

Spending money on a different battery may perhaps help for a while. But I think it's better to invest in a quality charger that will charge through the AUX outlet. Topping the bike once a week will probably be enough. Thus, positioning the charger close to where the bike is parked, plugging it in once a week is not a big deal...

 

[Mr Bean]

My commute is around 20 minutes, and has been that or less for the past 15 years or so, but since COVID I've done less bigger miles at the weekend.

After last week's episode I now put it on the charger if not used for a few days - and have bought a Audew booster.