Urgent help needed please - brake warning

[TrickyWoo]

Hi folks,

I'm off on a solo to Normandy after work and on the way into town this morning the red warning triangle came on along with the brake warning which flashed twice a second. This lasted for 10 minutes as I didn't want to turn the bike off until parked at work (brakes felt same as usual).

On parking up and restarting, the lights are all normal (i.e. out after the usual test). It's an 05 GS12 with 10,000 miles. ABS / Servo job. It's new to me via a dealership so is under warranty but as it is now all looks OK. One thing - probably nowt - just before it happened I clipped a van driver's mirror with mine. As I say, can't see that affecting it.

Thanks,

Richard
In the Gherkin

 

[oblertone]

Make sure ...

... the mirror incident hasn't moved the handguard which in turn is fouling the brake lever. I know nothing about 1200's but understand that this can cause problems if the brake lever cannot 'reset'

 

[Wapping]

A very likely cause is:

(1) That the front brake lever is getting slightly caught behind the hand guard. Check that the lever can 'flick forward'. If it can't simply tilt the hand guard so that the lever can.

(2) That the rear brake switch is engaged. Adjust the rear brake pedal if it is.

You can check both the above quite quickly by looking at the rear light, to see if the brake light is on.

(3) Last possibilty is that the speed sensor for the ABS (behind the rear wheel) is playing up, or possibly (less common) the sensor in the front wheel. If your speedo is behaving normaly, this is probably unlikely.

Simple things first, as always. Check the brake lever and switch.


PS How's life in the gherkin? Do you work for Allianz or Swiss Re, by chance?

 

[TrickyWoo]

Thank you for you replies.

A very likely cause is:

(1) Check that the lever can 'flick forward'.

Yep, I check that every morning after the posts on here re servo problems.

(2) That the rear brake switch is engaged. Adjust the rear brake pedal if it is.

You can check both the above quite quickly by looking at the rear light, to see if the brake light is on.

Nice one. I'll check that shortly. As it is, I never use the back brake on the GS, with the linked braking I've not found it necessary and I've not needed it on corners in an hurry. Well, not yet!

(3) Last possibilty is that the speed sensor for the ABS (behind the rear wheel) is playing up, or possibly (less common) the sensor in the front wheel. If your speedo is behaving normaly, this is probably unlikely.

Hmmm. The speedo is (comparing with the Zumo ) super accurate.

What I'm concerned about is that it'll dump me by the side of the road in France either through not starting or on residual braking.

I'm actually right next to the Gherkin in Holland House, although last year I was indeed with Allianz.

 

[Wapping]

Thank you for you replies.

A very likely cause is:

(1) Check that the lever can 'flick forward'.

Yep, I check that every morning after the posts on here re servo problems.

(2) That the rear brake switch is engaged. Adjust the rear brake pedal if it is.

You can check both the above quite quickly by looking at the rear light, to see if the brake light is on.

Nice one. I'll check that shortly. As it is, I never use the back brake on the GS, with the linked braking I've not found it necessary and I've not needed it on corners in an hurry. Well, not yet!

(3) Last possibilty is that the speed sensor for the ABS (behind the rear wheel) is playing up, or possibly (less common) the sensor in the front wheel. If your speedo is behaving normaly, this is probably unlikely.

Hmmm. The speedo is (comparing with the Zumo ) super accurate.

What I'm concerned about is that it'll dump me by the side of the road in France either through not starting or on residual braking.

I'm actually right next to the Gherkin in Holland House, although last year I was indeed with Allianz.

You can tell when the speedo truly is out of whack. It takes on demonic possession, usually meaning that the final drive is about to be consigned to the dustbin......it brings up the red triangle of death (and rapidly flashing brake warning) but, of course, the brakes work fine.

The ABS speed sensor can fail, without the speedo going Tonto...A quick run on BuMW diagnostics may well tell you, as there is a good chance the fault is logged in the system memory.

Rear brake use (or none) does not stop the rear light switch slipping out of adjustment, enough to confuse the ABS at least.

You can tell (trust me) when you are just left with residual braking....just stick your feet out to supply extra braking force and PRAY!

 

[flash of the gap]

wappings right, most likely no 3 same thing happened to me

 

[Jonny_L]

Damn, this happened to me today. The red triangle and flashing brake failure, though it's slow flashing, like when you start the bike up. Only came on after riding for a minute, happened twice, both times the brakes were working fine.

Oh and the speedo's out of sync, It seems to be about 10 mph faster than I'm actually going.

Have you sorted it yet TrickyWoo? I've got a BMW mechanic coming round tomorrow morning to take a looksy, damn I'm glad I paid for this year's warranty now!

 

[camel_landy]

I've had some electrical gremlins with the ABS lately... Most of the problems came down to chafing of the wire that leads to the front ABS sensor, shorting the connection and causing an error.

However... There was another slightly more subtle problem and that was caused by the brake lever bolt not being quite tight enough. This caused the brake lever switch to not fully close and so when starting up, you get the warning but no servo either... Until you press the foot brake, at which point the servo kicks in but doesn't turn off.

Thing is, the first time it happened was while riding. It went something like this:

Brake warning comes on...
Pull the brake lever - Oh! No servo - Pull harder...
Still not slowing as much as I want so try the foot brake.
Ah ha - Servo is working now. Must remember to let go of the brake lever before I go over the handle bars!!!

Tighten the bolt, everything happy.

M

 

[craig77]

Damn, this happened to me today. The red triangle and flashing brake failure, though it's slow flashing, like when you start the bike up. Only came on after riding for a minute, happened twice, both times the brakes were working fine.

Oh and the speedo's out of sync, It seems to be about 10 mph faster than I'm actually going.

Have you sorted it yet TrickyWoo? I've got a BMW mechanic coming round tomorrow morning to take a looksy, damn I'm glad I paid for this year's warranty now!

Happened to me too the day before yesterday. Lights blinking as above and also noticed that the rear brake didn't see as powerful as it normally is when slow speed manoevering. Stopped, switched off and then on again and all seems to be back to normal again now. No idea what the problem was. Hopefully just another one-off glitch.

 

[Jonny_L]

Happened to me too the day before yesterday. Lights blinking as above and also noticed that the rear brake didn't see as powerful as it normally is when slow speed manoevering. Stopped, switched off and then on again and all seems to be back to normal again now. No idea what the problem was. Hopefully just another one-off glitch.

Interesting, I kept thinking my brakes aren't quite as good as they used to be for a while, but I figured I was just imagining things or that it was just a matter of wear and tear on the pads/discs. Rear brake really feels a bit less powerful.

Mine's at the dealers now, I got a BMW recovery mechanic out to have a look, he was really helpful to be fair, knew where to look, but in the end he couldn't find anything and I just rode it carefully to vines. No warning lights or anything though! Hopefully it'll of registered a fault code.

 

[TrickyWoo]

Hi,

Was a one off. I did 1200 miles over the weekend in Normandy on and off road (properly bumpy stuff too) and the bike was A1 superb the whole way including the servo brakes. Mine came on as I was riding and didn't come on again after a restart.

Richard