Heated Grips might not work when its cold!

[Sam555]

Not sure if this has been raised before but you will like this one. I took my 08 GSA out today very early for its BMW main dealer service (low mileage and pristine condition, never had a fault of any sort before). Roads dry but air temp around freezing and my always reliable heated grips stayed cold when I needed them most.

I raised it as a fault with the dealer and a very helpful technician said the same thing had happened to him a few days before on his own 08 GSA. After clarifying that the frost symbol had been showing on my digital readout he told me that it was a software 'glitch' easily fixable.

So if you do take your GS/GSA out and its so cold that the frost symbol shows on the digital readout by the speedo and your heated grips stay cold its probably a canbus, software issue that a quick software update will fix.

I think later production bikes are fine but if it happened to me it will happen to someone else!

 

[peterh]

I'm not sure about the R1200 series (my handbook went with the bike) but I seem to recall that the computer will switch off accessories including heated grips if the voltage drops.

 

[Magwych]

I recall finding a post somewhere about this.

IIRC there is genius eice of software coding that swiches the heated grips off if the frost warning is on, and teh temperature is flashing in the RID. Press the "Info" button and the RID will return to whatever it was showing and the heated grips come back on.

Probably written by the same guru that wriote the software to turn the servo off when the brake light blew on the earlier models...

 

[Q plate]

Heated grips

Had the same problem last week with my F800GS, forgotten about it til i saw this post. Had the minus silly light flashing on the display and although my grips worked they only slightly warmed up like on the 1st setting or less and were no feckin use whatsoever, Toasty in the summer mind

 

[Bendy toy]

Mine's an 08 GSA, the heated grips work the same frost symbol or not. The only snag is compared to FT Hot Grips the Beemer grips are not very hot. * is next to useless and ** better than nothing but nowt special.

 

[Beemerman59]

Mine's an 08 GSA, the heated grips work the same frost symbol or not. The only snag is compared to FT Hot Grips the Beemer grips are not very hot. * is next to useless and ** better than nothing but nowt special.

Same with mine, plus I have grip puppies fitted which makes it worse. I'm not too fussed though as have heated gear including gloves for when its that cold.

 

[Bendy toy]

This winter, Ive been riding in -5 for 2 hours and just about ok but would have had warmer hands with the FT grips. I could not be bothered with the faff of heated gloves though maybe a sleeved heated under-jacket would be nice to have

TBH I dont know why BMW bother with the one star setting. It works the grips are warm but add some decent gloves and a bit of slip-stream they might was well have put candle holder on the bar ends. Setting 2 is what I would call basic warmth. I presume German winters are not as cold as they like us to believe.