faulty fuel guage

i had a few problems with my computer whilst in europe. first of all, i noticed that it was flashing between 5th/6th gear constantly when I was in 6th gear.

I then ran out of fuel in Ljubliana (where the police were kind enough to go and source me fuel from a distance 24 hours fuel station and not take any payment for it!!!!) and after that (or maybe it was something to do with the BMW dealership who gave it the 6000 mile service there - 100 euros) my distance to refuel was no longer accurate at all. in fact, on one day, it died twice on the motorways still showing 39 miles left and the reserve light having just barely come on. before this it used to show the --- after '0' and clearly there were still miles left in it to take me to the petrol station.

has anyone else had these problems or any suggestions as to how to reset the distance to empty gauge? these and a replaced heated grip are the only faults i've had with the 800 after 8000 miles. chain adjusted x2 and in good condition still.

haydenvn said:

I have had a problem with the fuel guage on my new 800gs.On the computer screen the average fuel used and current fuel are both correct.The miles of fuel left stays at about 180 and the fuel guage continues to show full.(ran out of fuel before I know there was a problem).I took it to southport superbikes for its first service and told them of the problem and was informed they know of no problem.It was not fixed as they ran out off time and told me that I can use the trip counter to know when to refill tank.
Has anybody had a similar problem? Is it caused by the fuel level sender?

Click to expand...

this is talked about in many of the threads if you search. practically everyone is experiencing it and if you keep your eyes peeled you'll see scores of irritated punters pushing their 800's up roads across the country.

they'll try and use a software update to sort it, but it won't remedy it, so don't try running it down. i've resorted to using the trip computer but am not happy as i paid 'x' amount more for the computer to tell me more or less how much juice i have left. in any case, there's some part for the fuel pump that my local dealer has ordered that he thinks is the last thing it could be. trouble is, the part is in germany and on backorder??

i really think bmw need to get some recalls going on here with this and the radiator/coolant pipes.

naughty BMW naughty

Ok, my parents owned a 1990ish nissan skyline sedan (not the hot type) It had an on board computer that was accurate to 7-15miles with distance to go. I cant believe that with 17ish year of development; BMW 'quality'; smaller fuel tank, etc etc, etc that they cant get it right.

Noted that I am in Australia and standard equipment includes; heated grips; centre stand; ON BOARD COMPUTER. i have still paid for it all and expect it to work to a decent standard (5mile tolerance)

First, I question, does BMW bike quality match BMW car quality????????????

Second, riders are much more passionate and less logical in their purchases opposed to car drivers, another way of saying it, we (assuming male) think with out little brain, not our big one. Therefore do motorcycle produces take advantage of this?????

I also believe that we (riders) are much more engaged with out vehicles as we feel everything (chain/sprocket ware, little noises, vibrations) as we are much more attached/connected to out vehicle. Thus we will know more about our vehicle, and pick up the faults faster/sooner/more often.

Third, are we more paranoid as we feel more venerable???? (no metal cage, smaller fuel tank)?

Please answer me these three question in you own opinion. (state in you post that it is YOUr OPINION or you may get berated for generalising)


snowlife
about 1 mth to go for Australia

Mine ran out with 22 miles to go. I had the 6000 mile service the other day and had the software upgrade.

I left for the Touratech event with a full tank. I set my garmin to 175 mile tank range and off I went. I left Manchester and by the time I got to Monmouth it was still registering a full tank. The Garmin had other ideas. bear in mind I had travelled 148 miles.

I stopped and filled up and it took £11. bear in mind it usually takes £17 ish to fill it.

mmmm so I still don't trust it

Fuel pressure Sensor

May have been covered, if not, this is interesting.

http://www.vosa.gov.uk/vosa/apps/re...BBDD4E60FDC9568025740B00300396&freeText=Blank

yeah it was identified very early on and most bikes after the launch date of 8/3/08 already had the new FPS at PDI.

Mine certainly was when I picked it up on 12/8/08!

And it only affected 162 bikes...nothing to be alarmed about

Fuel pump controller/fuel guage

Firstly I should point out that this is not in the wrong section,and has absolutely nothing to do with fuel pump controller problems on 1200 GS.
I suspect they might even be the same component but shared between bikes.
Mine is an F800GS, and I am told by Bahnstormers in Alton that my bike requires a new fuel pump controller. I originally went there to get some decals put back on the bike after I noticed they were missing even from brand new. I asked why my fuel guage should read full, and stay there for 170 miles and then suddenly drop like a stone and read empy, or worse, have the fuel warning light illuminate.

My bike is reasonably well looked after, even though to be honest its been ridden even when we had the minus 7 temperatures here. Its got just about 2000 miles on it, so you can imagine my shock and horror when given this gem of information. So to sum up a 2000 mile old bike with a fuel pump controller problem and decals missing. add in front brake that squeals when subjected to anything like mild rain, or in fact any sign of moisture and I'm sort of wondering what SORT of quality product I would appear to have just bought???

Surely it would be considered reasonable for everything to work properly, bearing in mind how much we are being asked to pay for our (BMW ADVERTISING SLOGAN SPEAK "UNSTOPPABLE")alleged Premium product, and yes I still am talking about the bike here.......

Bahnstormers have been bloody brilliant, and been told when the relevant part eventually comes in they will lend me a courtesy bike(HOPE ITS A 1200GS) until its sorted .It's still something like a 20 odd mile ride each way there to get it sorted though, lets hope it aint pissing down on the day the bit comes in, and hope i dont have to take a day off work,lol.

I was curious as to whether any other F800 GS owners were having the same problem, so i typed in fuel pump controller in search and all the entries that came back related ONLY to 1200GS. Still love riding the bike, but more daily miles now involved and wondering about a GS1200, but hey theres a completely different thread of mine out there somewhere on exactly that subject...

Well so far our new 800GS's are 2 weeks old and have done 400miles. The current list stands at...

• Both bikes returned under warranty due to excessive play in Headstock bearings.
• Today Sas's Clutch assembly came lose and was swivelling around the handlebars...
• Sas's mirrors are on upside down !!! Again just realised today when we swaped bikes for her to try out mine with MM screen.
• Both final drive chains look like theyve done 10k miles! Rusty and not running 100% smoothly. Also nipples on wheel spokes showing signs of exessive corisson..
• Signs of Coolant on the right hand engine casing.

Both bikes have been ridden in the january crappy weather but ive washed both bikes numerous times and chain been lubed often. We both love the bikes but i will defn be having some sharp words with the dealer when they go in for first service. Unfortunately the dealer will be a new shop that we didnt buy from but its under warranty and should be treated the same in my opinion.

My biggest concern on the list is the Chains... Even if they do replace them it will still be with the same crap.

So yes mark, im also a little concerned with the build quality...

Dodgy fuel reading

Just to give my experience of the fuel guage;

Mine's just started playing up. When I fill up the indicator goes no higher than 3 bars, fuel light comes on after 120 miles then down to 2 bars and shows 40 miles of fuel left. When filling up at this point I can get a good 9 - 10 litres in.

I'd read about the fuel level on the 1200 section so I just make sure to reset the trip everytime I fill up and also make use of the visual guage on the zumo 550 which i have set to 150mile range as once this start flashing I have it direct me to the nearest fuel station en-route.

It's not a probelm to me, I've always used trip computers to guage fuel and would not let this blight my opinion of a superb machine.

fuel guage fixed

My fuel guage has not worked since I bought the bike and southport superbikes have not been much help.I was going to book it in again but had a trip to morroco to do first.While away I was having problems with the fuel tank sucking in after a long run and the tank getting a vacume.
I Deceided to check what the problem was so in the middle of nowhere and a handfull of tools started stripping it down.I took the side panel off and saw a breather valve on the top of the tank.I removed the breather pipe to check it and found the pipe was blocked.Turned out it was the small inline check breather had corroded inside and once cleaned all was well.Now the tank it not crushing and low and behold the fuel guage and count down fuel meter now work.

Glass half full..

Hey there all!
Just a quick question regarding a (possible) problem I'm having. Recently after filling up my F800GS to the top the computer only shows half a tank and the estimated mileage is 80 miles remaining. Now I'm sure I've completely (possibly slightly over) topped up and the remaining fuel gauge and remaining miles stays constant until the tank really hits about halfway!
Is there an easy way to check/fix this or do I need to ask BMW to have a look?
I'm not quite strong enough to pick the Beemer up and give it a shake unfortunately but anything else to try would be most helpful!

Thanks in advance all!

Womble_Jim said:

Hey there all!
Just a quick question regarding a (possible) problem I'm having. Recently after filling up my F800GS to the top the computer only shows half a tank and the estimated mileage is 80 miles remaining. Now I'm sure I've completely (possibly slightly over) topped up and the remaining fuel gauge and remaining miles stays constant until the tank really hits about halfway!
Is there an easy way to check/fix this or do I need to ask BMW to have a look?
I'm not quite strong enough to pick the Beemer up and give it a shake unfortunately but anything else to try would be most helpful!

Thanks in advance all!

Click to expand...

Thats about right - mine normally sticks at about 115 after a fill up. The gauge is binary - registers full and empty and nothing in between

I've a 2 week old 650 twin, i believe the gauge takes a couple of fill ups to 'stabilise' itself. The miles to next fill up on mine stays around the 112 number but there is a >112 which i've been told there is in excess of 112 miles, this does fluctuate until you get to this number, then the > disappears and you get a countdown. I've filled the tank and set the trip to see how much i'm getting out of the tank

My impression is that the > xxx miles is trying to indicate what miles you'll get when you loose the first block of the fuel gauge. Otherwise, why does the > disappear when the first block does?

Up till the first block disappears the > xxx miles does give an idea of fuel consumption compared to what it was previously.

BTW on my comute I quite often see >160 miles

Mine usually shows >147 and untill yesterday was very accurate. Once it was showing >2 miles and was still running. Then yesterday it ran out while still showing >20. I think some other tossers have had probs with the fuel gague not being right S J Johnston for one.

My guage never goes above 3 bars when I fill up from empty, then drops down to 1 bar and fuel light comes on. If I fill up at this point I get about 8 - 9 litres in (half a tank). If I dare ride through it then the bars go back up again and drop down at what rate would be expected

I do the same as other seasoned 800'rs - reset the trip and fill up at around the 140 - 150 mark. I also use the fuel guage on my zumo if I'm on a long ride as another aid.

My guage started playing up at about 800 miles old about 6 months ago and I'll just see how it goes unitl the next service.

I've run out several times with >20 range showing. BMW paid for one of the recoveries. The fuel gauge has now been 'recalibrated' three times with no apparent improvement.

I read somewhere that because of the shape of the tank, the fuel gauge cannot read the whole range of the tank, so only reads fuel levels at the lowest half of the tank. So.. after you fill beyond the fuel gauge can read, it estimates fuel with the "> xxx miles" reading. I guess the estimate will be based upon recent consumptions.

I had the 'new' S/W update a while ago - you might have seen some of my gripes about it ...

However, it did change a couple of things.
1) Re-set the fuel gauge sender - now I get >115 miles as the max range.
2) It improved the fuel consumption by a mile!!! Previously my average was 49mpg, now using the bike in exactly the same way I'm bobbing between 58 and 59!

By the way - I had no confidence in the OBC reading for the remaining range, so I strapped the obligatory 5L can on the back and went riding... The gauge went down fairly linearly until I got " ---" on the reading .... hmmmm but I managed another 10 miles before if coughed to a halt. I'm using the trip meter as a reference, but on these figures I'm getting 220 miles per tank!

Greg

Greggers said:

I had the 'new' S/W update a while ago - you might have seen some of my gripes about it ...

However, it did change a couple of things.
1) Re-set the fuel gauge sender - now I get >115 miles as the max range.
2) It improved the fuel consumption by a mile!!! Previously my average was 49mpg, now using the bike in exactly the same way I'm bobbing between 58 and 59!

By the way - I had no confidence in the OBC reading for the remaining range, so I strapped the obligatory 5L can on the back and went riding... The gauge went down fairly linearly until I got " ---" on the reading .... hmmmm but I managed another 10 miles before if coughed to a halt. I'm using the trip meter as a reference, but on these figures I'm getting 220 miles per tank!

Greg

Click to expand...

Greg, I assume this is the 800? Does anyone now what the 'average miles per tank' would be for 650 twin?

No such thing as an average, it depend totally on how you ride. Hills have the most impact on economy especially if you can't take advantage of the down slope due to curves. Second is high speed, especially motorways.

Have a look at this thread, especially posts #32 and #55.