Low charging rate - LC GS.

[MrMcNamara]

Sorry - have to disagree. The design is faulty. Not the design of the alternator itself but the location. Maintainability is a key aspect in any competent engineering design.
To hide the alternator in the bowels of the engine, stinks.

My last non BMW was a Buell 1125R from new, in under 4000 miles / 16 months it had
Stator
Front wiring harness
Modified stator wiring harness
Clutch slave cylinder
Water pump
Second stator & rectifier

When accessing the rear spark plug or cylinder / valves (inline V) the engine had to be 'rotated' out under the frame. This was with the Rotax engine manufacturer wholly owned by Harley Davidson at the time. in reality, the BMW's main issue is the huge number of bikes sold - rare but 'large failures' will be highlighted in the forums not reflecting the number of solid bikes out there. BMW have always been good at smoothing over warranty issues / faults out of warranty, all you have to do is be polite & insistent, you should get a result

 

[fredaroony]

Sorry - have to disagree. The design is faulty. Not the design of the alternator itself but the location. Maintainability is a key aspect in any competent engineering design.
To hide the alternator in the bowels of the engine, stinks.

Perhaps you should write to BMW and tell them the error of their way.... I am sure they would be greatful to know you think it's faulty so they can change it ASAP!

 

[MrMcNamara]

Perhaps you should write to BMW and tell them the error of their way.... I am sure they would be greatful to know you think it's faulty so they can change it ASAP!

Its only a 4 hour job in a workshop on a very infrequent fault for God's sake. Has everyone forgotten having to strip half the bike, swing up the rear end, remove the gearbox to change the clutch on the majority of Boxers?? due to the design change, its now a walk in the park to access the clutch which is more likely to be an issue to most of us over time?

 

[fredaroony]

Its only a 4 hour job in a workshop on a very infrequent fault for God's sake. Has everyone forgotten having to strip half the bike, swing up the rear end, remove the gearbox to change the clutch on the majority of Boxers?? due to the design change, its now a walk in the park to access the clutch which is more likely to be an issue to most of us over time?

Exactly, my last bike required the radiator removal to change the spark plugs. You can't expect everything to last forever and if every component to was super easy to get to the engine would be huge.

 

[AberdeenAngus]

Perhaps you should write to BMW and tell them the error of their way.... I am sure they would be greatful to know you think it's faulty so they can change it ASAP!

Sarcasm is the lowest form of...........oh, just realised you're Australian. Never mind.

 

[fredaroony]

Sarcasm is the lowest form of...........oh, just realised you're Australian. Never mind.

Whinging is worse

 

[ahutcheon]

Whinging is worse

Let him be, he's a pom...

 

[Nick V]

Latest update:

• After I completed the diagnostics, the job of pulling out the stator, having it re-wound and the bike re-assembled went to a long-time contact (an ex-BMW maccy who now runs his own shop).
• The stator was indeed fried.
• The actual rewinding was carried out by a sub-contractor who's done a lot of work for my contact over the years. It took a lot longer than expected. I was told that a) the LC stator apparently uses a non-standard gauge of copper wire, which had to be imported, and b) the sub-contractor then made a small mistake in connecting up the windings.
• The above mistake meant that when re-assembled, the bike still wasn't charging properly.
• Unfortunately, another '13 LC with stator failure was also in for repair at the same time, and ended up with the same fault.
• The mistake is covered under the warranties my contact and the sub-contractor give, so the second tear-down, re-wind and re-assembly will be free of charge.
• The total bill for the job came to R4 800 and odd. If I'd done the job through BMW, I'd have been nailed R12 500 for a new stator, plus around R7 000 for labour.
• My contact tells me word among the dealers is that more older (pre-April 2014) bikes are now starting to pop up with stator failure. The unofficial agreement among BMW Motorrad SA is that as long as your bike has FSH, they will 'help out' by refunding approximately 10% of the above cost!

I suppose this was always going to be a process with some teething trouble.
I'm sure that most out-of-warranty customers who've had stator failures so far have just taken the bike to BMW, put the job on the credit card, and forgotten about it. To the best of my knowledge, I was the first SA customer who did research and committed to having it done independently.
As a result, there is now an independent maccy in Greater Gauteng who knows how to do the tear-down and re-assembly quickly, and an armature rewinder who knows the tricky way in which an LC stator is wound.

And perhaps most importantly for some, there IS an alternative that qualifies as 'inexpensive' (as opposed to 'Ruinous').

 

[AberdeenAngus]

He didn't test the alternator before refitting it......

 

[Nick V]

He didn't test the alternator before refitting it......

I'm not sure you could test it for AC output without re-assembling the engine.
Once they're disassembled from the engine, the stator and rotor are effectively stand-alone components. In particular, I'm not sure there'd be a way to mount the rotor in such a way that it maintained consistent clearance from the stator.
Bear in mind, this isn't like the car-type alternators on '04 to '12 R-series and '05-onward K-series - you can't just bolt them to a test bench and spin them using a belt.

More than likely, the rebuilt stator passed testing in that a) there was continuity between the three phases, and b) none of the phases were shorting to earth.

 

[Stevie4scoops]

Any ideas on what fried your stator? Can it be re-built with different components or in a different way to prevent it happening again? Was/are stators used on pre April 14 bikes sub-standard? Can anything be done to prevent them frying?

 

[Nick V]

Good questions, all.

Any ideas on what fried your stator?

Ideas only at this stage - I'm guessing the epoxy insulation on the copper wiring of the windings was sub-standard.
Alternators generate a fair amount of heat, and internally mounted alternators are usually subject to frightening amounts of heat anyway. (They don't have the benefit of air cooling like external-mount alternators do.) Combine this with an engine environment (including oil which slowly loads up with acids and petroleum residues as time goes on) and you have a very hostile set of living conditions.

Can it be re-built with different components or in a different way to prevent it happening again?

Sure! BMW could have taken a hard look at the '04 to '12 R-series engine, nodded sagely, and said to themselves: 'It ain't broke, so let's not fix it'.
That aside, I made sure to specify that the stator was rebuilt with the highest-quality wire available. (The armature rewinders here in SA usually do this anyway - it makes no sense to have a customer coming back with an alternator that keeps failing when you guarantee your work.) I was assured that the rebuilder used 220C wire. (I wanted 250C, but it's hard to get and very expensive.)

Was/are stators used on pre April 14 bikes sub-standard?

Yup. There is a small, but steadily-increasing history of failures on them, which BMW are probably trying to keep as quiet as possible - because this is exactly the kind of thing that mangles customer confidence and makes people say: 'F*ck this. I'm flogging this piece of s#!t and buying a Triumph Explorer instead.'
And it is not going to get better, because the '13 to April '14 bikes are accumulating miles, and if any of those alternators are faulty, their owners will know about it sooner rather than later.
April 2014 was the point at which BMW started installing the 'new and improved' alternator. It's probably been re-engineered quite substantially: on the Max BMW fiche, the old alternator was listed as weighing 7.5 pounds. The new one is 7.03.
As for its long-term reliability, I have no idea.

Can anything be done to prevent them frying?

• Don't exceed the oil and oil filter replacement intervals.
• Use the best-quality full-synthetic oil you can find.
• Don't run the bike in situations where it's likely to overheat. (I was running at very high road speeds in 38 degrees C - this would sometimes translate to engine temp of 92 to 94 degrees C.)
• Don't do silly things like idling the engine for 20 minutes with the bike on the side stand.
• My contact also basically said that the standard alternator's listed power capacity (510W nominal) is a fairy tale. He says if you have extras like aftermarket spotlights mounted, the alternator can't handle the extra load. Another armature rewinder I talked with about this said he could wind the stator to give extra capacity - but that the regulator/rectifier would not be able to handle the extra current.

 

[zoltan]

Latest update:


[*]The total bill for the job came to R4 800 and odd. If I'd done the job through BMW, I'd have been nailed R12 500 for a new stator, plus around R7 000 for labour.

[*]My contact tells me word among the dealers is that more older (pre-April 2014) bikes are now starting to pop up with stator failure.
And perhaps most importantly for some, there IS an alternative that qualifies as 'inexpensive' (as opposed to 'Ruinous').

That is £859.28 probably a bit higher in the UK Makes the extended warranty look good value
Just out of curiosity, why would they locate the starter in such inaccessible location?

 

[Nick V]

Why would they locate the starter in such inaccessible location?

It was more than likely the end result of a chain of faulty assumptions:

• "The most important thing is to make the engine compact."
• "We know that alternators take a lot of punishment in an enclosed assembly. But it's worth the risk because few, if any, will ever fail."
• "Why bother making it accessible? (See above.)"
• "It's a first-world product made for a first-world market that understands and accepts Engineered Obsolescence. No one's going to keep it for longer than three years."
• "PR fallout? Not a problem. People will buy a dead cat if it has a BMW badge on it."

 

[Nick V]

Sorted.

As per subject line. Bike is back together again, running sweetly, and charging at a constant 14.3V.

A few notes:

- If you experience alternator failure, DO NOT be tempted to ride the bike further. You may be able to make it home, but your engine oil is now contaminated with burned epoxy resin residue from the windings. Rather get a tow.
- If the bike is within warranty, this is a straight warranty claim. Bite your local BMW rep on the arm, and don't let go until he assumes all costs.
If out of warranty, you have two further choices:
- Have the bike repaired by BMW (the high-cost option).
- You could take the route I did, and have the existing stator re-wound with decent 220C wire.
FOR FELLOW SOUTH AFRICANS: I had the job done by an old contact, Andrew Hamer. Andrew is ex-Bavarian Motorrad, and runs GS Steelworks, an independent BMW workshop in Pomona, Kempton Park.
The whole job cost R4 850. Contact Andrew and Candice on 083 237 7680 or 084 529 7282.

I've mailed Paul (the site admin) a new tech article, detailing the nuts and bolts of this problem and how to fix it. It should be up shortly.