DIY fuel strip replacement?

[bhmav8r]

Any body replace thier own fuel strip?

I think mine is bad, as I have run out of gas three times. The first two times, I thought I was misreading the bars - confusing the black gas pump icon for fuel bars. But nooooo , this time it clearly showed three bars, no low fuel light. Luckily I have coasted to safety each time.

I will never trust it again, but it would be nice to have one that is somewhat close, with a low fuel dummy light.

Thanks guys.

[angellr]

Any body replace thier own fuel strip?

I think mine is bad, as I have run out of gas three times. The first two times, I thought I was misreading the bars - confusing the black gas pump icon for fuel bars. But nooooo , this time it clearly showed three bars, no low fuel light. Luckily I have coasted to safety each time.

I will never trust it again, but it would be nice to have one that is somewhat close, with a low fuel dummy light.

Thanks guys.

Remember, the odometer (low-tech option; trip meter) is always your friend. I never put ANY trust in the fuel strip only to correlate what the odometer is saying. Someone here mentioned the process somewhere, might I suggest you use the search feature here to give it a shot?

[Bob Ain't Stoppin']

The fuel strip is easy to change out. Remove the tank, filler assy., fuel pump. Then you can reach both ends of the strip and make the change out.

But why would you do that? I'm pretty sure you can get the dealer to do this free under warranty, regardless of the miles on the bike. They have had so much trouble with these things that they must be giving extended coverage. At least check this out.

Note the strip costs $170

[bhmav8r]

Seems like you have to go to the dealer to have it calibrated any way. Probably worth the extra $100. It's just a PITA to take it in vs picking up a part.

Might be useful to know how to do it, since they apparently havent fixed the problem with the strip, and will probably have to do it again.

Thanks.

[websterize]

If you're out of warranty, your dealer could most likely successfully appeal that Motorrad replace it under good faith, free of charge.

[bmwk100]

Mine was in the shop today getting a new strip. At 7K the strip stopped working. My tank showed empty with the warning light on the whole time. I refuse to accept "don't trust the gas gauge, use the trip meter" as an option. (I do use the trip meter.) These are $15K vehicles and a gas gauge is something that is a basic concept. I expect BMW to fix this on my bike.

[sandycruz]

When I started riding the trip odometer was the only mechanism available to judge how much fuel was remaining until you ran out of fuel in the main tank. There was a reserve section of the fuel tank the could be accessed via the fuel petcock. The fuel petcock had three positions: off, on and reserve. How far you could go on reserve was a bit of a gamble, so using the trip odometer was a good idea and having the reserve as a backup in case you were riding into a headwind or there was some other condition that increased your fuel consumption. Those kind of conditions required some judgement on the part of the operator. And my guess is that despite the proliferation of advanced technology on today's motorcycles, judgement is still required.

I never got out of the habit of resetting the trip odometer when I fill up. Mostly the on board computer seems to be close when it calculates miles remaining until empty. Seems to be more accurate if the overall fuel mileage reading is reset when I fill up the tank.

There have been times however, when, had I relied on the "miles left calculation", I would have run out of gas. So I'm glad I have retained this old habit.

From the number of folks that have had problems with the fuel strip, there seems to be a strong possibility that there is something faulty with either the technology or the manufacturing/ installation process. The more folks that bring this problem to BMW's attention the better. I'd think that eventually BMW will figure out what is going wrong and address the problem. In the mean time I will continue to use the trip odometer combined with some awareness of conditions and hopefully be able to avoid running out of fuel.

Ride safe, have fun,

David in Santa Cruz, CA

[Catchina]

From the number of folks that have had problems with the fuel strip, there seems to be a strong possibility that there is something faulty with either the technology or the manufacturing/ installation process. The more folks that bring this problem to BMW's attention the better. I'd think that eventually BMW will figure out what is going wrong and address the problem.

I had a similar thought when reading about the fuel strip failures. So my question is does anyone know if the 2011 still has this issue, has it been reported on the 2011 or is it still too soon to know? I have 2600 miles on mine and so far so good.

[deilenberger]

Mine was in the shop today getting a new strip. At 7K the strip stopped working. My tank showed empty with the warning light on the whole time. I refuse to accept "don't trust the gas gauge, use the trip meter" as an option. (I do use the trip meter.) These are $15K vehicles and a gas gauge is something that is a basic concept. I expect BMW to fix this on my bike.

So what you're gonna do is continually run out of fuel? How is that going to make BMW fix your bike? If you are using the trip meter - sounds as if you have accepted it at least as an adjunct to the fuel gauge.