"E" ?

[NORMBATES]

OK - I give up - why does the gear indicator have an "E" instead of a "6" ? Or, is mine the only one ? Thanks again, Norm

[E30TECH]

Economy

[russell_bynum]

Error. The gear indicator only goes to 5. It doesn't know what 6th is so it shows E for error.

[ozbmw]

Theyre pulling your leg - the earlier 1150's etc displayed an "E" as the 6 gear/overdrive. This was changed to 6 in later models - its only a letter instead of a number - the only real difference - its commonly accepted as being for 'economy' but knowing the Germans its anyones guess.

[elkroeger]

Excessive. You might want to slow it down a bit.

 

Egregious, perhaps?

 

Esoteric. Express. Expletive.

 

Get out your websters - there's lots of humorous entries...

[EffBee]

It's German. It stands for einuselessgearen.

[NonComp]

It's German. It stands for einuselessgearen.

I just knew that it had to be a word with 5 or more sylables ending in 'en'.

[lvnvbiker]

Einspeedenticketengetter?

[tallman]

You have one of the rare RID's where the diode bar was put in the wrong place.

Simply envision the top one moved to the lower right of the E and you have a six (6).

I'd keep it.

[Paul Mihalka]

The real reason (I think): The first series of the 6 speed R1150 bikes got installed the gear indicator switch from the R1100 5 speed - they must have had a few left over. When gear changed to sixth, it didn't know what to do so it showed E for error.

[smiller]

The real reason (I think): The first series of the 6 speed R1150 bikes got installed the gear indicator switch from the R1100 5 speed - they must have had a few left over. When gear changed to sixth, it didn't know what to do so it showed E for error.

OK, don't hate me for being such a weenie but... the output of the R1100 gear selector switch is in BCD format (binary coded decimal, which represents the numerals 0-9 by which of four lines are on or off.) The switch only has three lines so it can only indicate up to eight positions, but that's still plenty. I guess it's possible that the switch didn't have enough internal contacts so that if it rotated too far it provided a 000 output, but in that case BMW could have just interpreted that as 6th gear. I wonder if perhaps it wasn't the switch that was the problem, but rather they were using some leftover RIDs. If the RID wasn't programmed to know what to do with the unexpected digit, that might cause the 'E' output.

[tallman]

OK, then it is probably a result of hard braking that slid the binary code display from bottom to top.

Yeah, that's the ticket.

[Paul Mihalka]

The real reason (I think): The first series of the 6 speed R1150 bikes got installed the gear indicator switch from the R1100 5 speed - they must have had a few left over. When gear changed to sixth, it didn't know what to do so it showed E for error.

OK, don't hate me for being such a weenie but... the output of the R1100 gear selector switch is in BCD format (binary coded decimal, which represents the numerals 0-9 by which of four lines are on or off.) The switch only has three lines so it can only indicate up to eight positions, but that's still plenty. I guess it's possible that the switch didn't have enough internal contacts so that if it rotated too far it provided a 000 output, but in that case BMW could have just interpreted that as 6th gear. I wonder if perhaps it wasn't the switch that was the problem, but rather they were using some leftover RIDs. If the RID wasn't programmed to know what to do with the unexpected digit, that might cause the 'E' output.

Sounds good. Still something of a carry-over from the 5 speed.

[NonComp]

No sixth and no RID. And no temp guage either. And no O2 sensor. Heck, no plastic (well almost no plastic). Sometimes, simpler IS better.

[Ken H.]

The real reason (I think): The first series of the 6 speed R1150 bikes got installed the gear indicator switch from the R1100 5 speed - they must have had a few left over. When gear changed to sixth, it didn't know what to do so it showed E for error.

I don’t think so, the curcuit board of RID in the 1100 series is entirely different that in the R1150 series, even the one in the ‘02s that showed “E” when in 6th. The chip set is different. Which is why the board could be modified on the 1100 series to do 12-hour clock but on the R1150 series it could not.

 

The "E"conony explanation is more plausible.

[Al Navecky Jr]

Will one of the RID's that display "6" work in a 2001 GS?

[Ken H.]

Will one of the RID's that display "6" work in a 2001 GS?

No, they are not backward compatible.

[Rocer]

E=MCsquared (don't know how to type the squared). Whatever you do, hold on - you've got a hottie!

[SAAB93driver]

The chip set is different. Which is why the board could be modified on the 1100 series to do 12-hour clock but on the R1150 series it could not.

 

Where is that procedure at for an R1100? I read back when I had an R1100RS that the RID could not be modified to get 12 hr clock but that only the K bike LCD's could. Something to do with the chipset used.

[Ken H.]

R1100RS is unique in the that it used the electronics later used in the R1150 series.

 

The R1100RT could be modified though.

[SAAB93driver]

The R1100RS and R1100RT show the same part number for the RID on the online microfiche.

[russell_bynum]

The R1100RS and R1100RT show the same part number for the RID on the online microfiche.

 

I can confirm that the RID from a 2001 R1100RS is completely interchangeable with the RID from a 2000 R1100RT. (I swapped ours once while I was troubleshooting problems with Lisa's RS.)