Fuel gauge out

[Tazz56]

I have less than 1000 miles on my '07 RT. I went out for a ride (Saturday night) and the BC read 226 miles to go,but the warning light for the fuel was on. I only put 60 miles on since last fill up and I could see gas in the tank. I went to get something to eat and when I left the restaurant the gas warnings were still on but the BC indicated only 6 miles left, then none. I filled up again just to be safe and the BC still reads nothing and the low fuel warnings are still on. I'm relying on the trip meter for now until I can get it to the dealer. I'm just wondering what happened. Everything was fine after the first check up.

 

Thanks,

[John Bentall]

There is no float valve to get stuck in the RT fuel tank - it uses a sensing strip. You certainly need to have the sensor recalibrated and possibly even a new sensor strip.

My fuel gauge went AWOL after the tank was removed to do a brake line bleed at the 2-year service.

Sensor strip replaced as a precautionary measure and everything works fine now.

[motoguy128]

Seems to be another weak point of the bike. My fuel gauge it stuck on full. I'll probably wait until I take the bike in for it's 6000 miles service next spring or at the end of this season. It's not worth a seperate trip. The MPG seems to be fairly accurate. I'm accuming it uses some kind of formula based on RPM, throttle postion and speed or actual injector pulses. I use that combined with the trip meter for now.

 

It might just be a calibration problem. When I ran down ot about 1.5 gallons left, it finally dropped 1 bar. What's strange is that it worked fine for the first 1800 miles.

[RedMac]

Mine died as well at about 8500 miles. They had to replace the fuel strip in the tank. Seems like an almost common problem if you look through the board.

[Tazz56]

Thanks everyone. It will depend on the weather and someone to follow me/bring me back there and back. Might just wait for the 6000 mile service.

[Survived-til-now]

I am not sure if this will add to your knowledge or not:

 

My R1200RT has now got 31,000 miles on it. generally speaking the fuel guage has proved very accurate. Time and again on my regular commute the light has come on with 46 miles to go on the readout. By the time I get to the garage it is down to 23 miles but I never get more than about 22 litres into the tank.

 

Sometimes it takes the bike a while to recognise that I have filled up but always within a minute or so it corrects and shows a full tank. I put it down to the Canbus not sampling the fuel sensor as often as other functions - so it could be a software glitch.

 

Last night was unusual in that the miles to go was showing 86 miles - too high for where I was in my fuel cycle then it suddenly dropped to 45 miles to go and the light came on. I knew I had about 20 miles to my fuel stop but then the reading started counting down in a most alarming way, 3 miles coming off the range for every mile travelled I began to wonder if I had sprung a fuel leak but then as suddenly it stabilised and sure enough I got to the fuel stop with 23 miles range and filled up normally

 

Thanks BMW for giving me panic on the motorway, I was having to juggle with all sorts of mental calculations to try and work out where I might run out of fuel - just what you do not need when riding in the rain on a busy road!

[TomfromMD]

I've noticed the "miles 'til empty" readout on my '06 RT becomes non-linear when the fuel level drops to about 2 gallons (about 9 litres). When filled, this mte reading is usually between 340 and 350 miles, but after the "reserve" warning has been on for 40 miles or so, adding miles traveled to mte only yields about 290~300 miles! This seems to confirm the mysterious "extra gallon" of reserve capacity reported by so many folks. The computers on my BMW cars behave in a similar, albeit less extreme, manner.

Tom

[motoguy128]

Since my fuel gauge is stuck at maximum, I can confirm that the "miles to empty" relies on the fuel strip reading and the MPG reading to calculate the value. So mine is staying at around 280-300 all the time.

 

I do find that my MPG calculation is pretty accurate, so I take the mpg and tripmeter since my last fill and use that to figure how far I can go. Either way I start looking for fuel around 250, and don't push it past 280. The most I've put in is 6.2 gallons so far.

[sjn7708]

BMW fuel guages are notorious for being weird. I just piccked up a leftover 2006 RT, and it is the only BMW Ive ever owned where the gas guage actually worked like it was supposed to. On all my other bikes, the guage would go suddenly from full to 1/2 and then drop quickly from there, but when I filled up there was usually a gallon or so left. Thats why I just use the tripmeter anymore. The gas guage on this 2006 RT that I just got works so well I thought Id picked up the wrong bike....