my year old f800gs has recently had a strange issue with the heated grips. On either the high or low setting the grips will sometimes warm up but sometimes they dont heat up at all. I have noticed if I lightly rev the bike out in town, the grips dont want to heat up even after 30 minutes of stop and go traffic. But if I rev the motor into the higher rpms, then the grips work fine. Any ideas of what might be causing this?
From what I read, in one of the forums here, this may be a dry solder joint at the grip. My left hand grip does the same. It also leaves an error code in the on board diagnostics. There is a thread here somewhere showing how to fix it. I have not tried it yet.
+1 on what Kaw4Life said ... Also you may have the notorious "weak stator" issue .... So when you rev up the engine ... what's left of the stator puts out enough juice to satisfy the CAN-bus "cop" that running the grips is OK ...
still here, just been away for awhile. Checked battery it's fine, will check the connections next. thanks for the help (they worked great this morning)
Wish mine did, 22 deg on the way in to work this morning. Left grip has a confirmed open in the grip itself, not fixing for $100 per grip. Going to need that to replace the $500 headlamp that is now about useless at night due to the burned reflector. :huh
Maybe you should be wrapping your hands on the headlight? If your glass is good can't you find a broken headlight and make one good one? That's why I kept my smashed one. Higher watt bulb? More power, more heat. Now back to grip failure...........
It happens ............... I was on a ride last weekend and the "man-up" indicator* was on the entire duration of the trip. *I think BMW calls it the "freeze warning' indicator
There is another thread here on repairing the heated grip ... it seems the solder joints are a weak link. If you can't find it PM me, I think I have the issue "cataloged" DAMN Reflector is a piece of crap.... I've got 30K miles on my bike, rarely use the hi-beam, and it still has the OEM bulb in it and the top of the reflector is starting to "char"... once started it's a downward spiral since it will just start absorbing more and more heat.... One of the few things that pisses me off about this bike ... and it would not piss me off if I could just buy a replacement reflector but...........mmmmmmmmmmmmmmm nope that's not available............
Have you tried to disassemble the busted one? I'm wondering how tough that might be....................
It's not just though, it's impossible. There is a shitload of sealant in there to hold the glass lens in, no way to ever get it out in one piece. I've tried heating it up a bit but the plastic housing was getting soft before the sealant was.
Right. Now I see. I have a 12GS and an 8GS smashed light in the garage. It's easy to get the trim piece off and the broken glass out to get the reflector out. BUT, would be real hard to get the good glass out in one piece. Might be worth a shot if you can get a broken one. I'm cheap enough to try! I'd dremmel out the outside part of the U channel the glass sits in to make an L and gently pry the glass or? The plan is to use the broken glass but good reflector assembly for rebuild with your good glass, not to replace your reflector in the existing housing so cut away till the good glass is free then silicone it back into the other one. BTW, never seen this happen except in a replacement higher watt bulb stuation. Then again, the reflector is prob made in China by the cheapest bidder.... BACK TO GRIPS: At nearly $100/hr (or whatever) the Dealer is not interested in troubleshooting. It's cheaper just to swap parts till it's fixed. Having been there as a tech, there just isn't enough time to go Sherlock on things. Time is money. So is selling you new parts. If it's not under warranty then you best learn to fix it or go without. Since yours is, get it looked at. Claim all your warranty items while you can.
Good info all, thanks for the input. Bike has 48K on it so the bill is on me. I run aux lights as well so during the day I am visible. Problem is at night the aux lights are too much for on coming drivers. I do plan on writing to the regional rep for BMW and see where that gets me. I'll take a crack at home repair first with the backup plan of new parts. Oh and sorry for the highjack on the thread.
Ok ... let's see if I can combine the continuation of the hi-jack at the same time I try to be helpful: On the headlight ... yeah I've only used 55W OEM/equal bulbs and my reflector is hosed. At the 3-year mark on the warranty I got a shrug and a "it's not bad enough that I can get anything done" ... I'll be looking for a wrecked unit with good reflector, but wonder it it's worth the effort ... but ... Like Reaver I'm cheap enough to try and it's not an urgent matter for me yet. K4L: If you get any satisfaction with the rep. please let us know! Ok ... now getting back to grips.............. I would either temporarily or permanently mount a voltage indicator to the bike.... and see if voltage drops under use... sometimes stators will short intermittently due to heat or whatever......... your could either rig up a $3 Harbor Freight voltmeter for a while and watch it, or put in a permanent monitor. Here's the one I used: http://f800riders.org/forum/showthr...g-Battery-Voltage-Monitor-amp-amp-GPS-adapter If it is really BOTH grips I find it hard to beleive that both of the heating elements actually have shorts but for reference here is the repair article: http://www.advrider.com/forums/showthread.php?t=770662 Sometimes when very cold it seems like the left grip on my bike is not working, but then I realize that's the hand I take off the grip to dink with my helmet or visor, use the clutch, or whatever and that lets the grip cool down ... as it gets a cold air blast........
Yeahhhhh............No. The left grip is snug to the handlebar (heatsink) and gets to warm up the whole thing. The right grip is somewhat isolated (insulated) on a plastic carrier for the throttle operation and retains more heat.
I have the foam grip-puppies which makes it worse in terms of heat transfer rate ......... Edit: I have a dead left grip in the garage and just dug it out of the box ... the plastic "mounting sleeve" under the heater element is almost 3/16" thick, so there is some insulation value ...
