Digital gear indicator

[goanna_38]

Hi, this is more of a curiosity question than anything else. The digital gear indicator on my R1150GS doesn’t display the 6 correctly. It fails to display the lower right hand vertical component and displays the 6 as an E. It’s not an issue with the LCD screen because in all other digits that require it (1, 0, 3, 4 and 5) that component is displayed correctly. I’m assuming this is either an issue with whatever piece of electrickery is responsible for displaying the correct digit, or it’s supposed to be an E and the E is actually a German initial which means something like “Highest gear” or something similar. Is this common? Or is it a one off?

The bike runs fine and I’m certainly not going to attempt to fix it, but curiosity grabbed hold of me while it was on its way to kill a cat.

Any info greatly appreciated.

[Michaelr11]

It's supposed to display E.

 

[goanna_38]

I suspected as much. Any idea what it's supposed to signify? 

[dirtrider]

15 hours ago, goanna_38 said:

Hi, this is more of a curiosity question than anything else. The digital gear indicator on my R1150GS doesn’t display the 6 correctly. It fails to display the lower right hand vertical component and displays the 6 as an E. It’s not an issue with the LCD screen because in all other digits that require it (1, 0, 3, 4 and 5) that component is displayed correctly. I’m assuming this is either an issue with whatever piece of electrickery is responsible for displaying the correct digit, or it’s supposed to be an E and the E is actually a German initial which means something like “Highest gear” or something similar. Is this common? Or is it a one off?

The bike runs fine and I’m certainly not going to attempt to fix it, but curiosity grabbed hold of me while it was on its way to kill a cat.

Any info greatly appreciated.

Morning   goanna_38

 

The earlier 1150 GS bikes, read (E) & most later 1150GS bikes read (6).

 

Back when that was a noted issue there were 2 schools of thought, first thought was the RID (gear indicator LCD) was a carryover from the (5) speed era so there was no (6) programmed into the early RID. The (E) meant Error.     (to me this actually makes some sense) 

 

The second thought was, that (E) stood for (Effiziénz) German for Economy. (possible, but personally I'm in the (Error) camp. Or at least in the 1100 5 speed carryover camp. 

 

If you look up the 1100GS 5 speed dash RID it shows  62132350607 Drivers Information Display - 5+E. This kind of fits the situation. 

 

Doesn't really matter as they read (E) so that is 6th gear. 

[9Mary7]

When I was issued my R1150RT-P, the BMW rep told us the e was indeed for "Effiziénz"; and with the correspondingly huge rpm drop I could see why.......YMMV