BMW R1200R R1150R/T F800 K1200R R1100R/T R1250R RnineT Message Board

Just sold my R1150R to a friend a couple weeks ago and he just started having a problem with it. When turning handlebars hard left the bike will shut off. Anyone ever have this problem before? I am assuming it is a problem in the wiring harness, but thought we could save some time if this is a common problem. It has never done this when I had the bike or for the previous owner. Bike has about 12K miles on it.

Dave

Hi Dave...these sort of problems are pretty common.

I have an 02 and about 1yr after I bought it the headlight started to go on and off when I turned the bars...they fixed it under warranty .

It was a broken wire in the loom where the loom comes out from under the tank on the right side.

Then a few years later I had another problem with my indicaters..again a broken wire in the same place.

It's because the cable ties that BMW use were too tight.

I fixed my indicator problem myself..I sliced open the outer cover of the loom...found the broken wire and fixed it.

Good luck..and let us know how you go with it.

DJ

DJ is right. I had the exact same problem earlier this year. If I turned the bars fully left or right, the motor would sometimes cut out. I traced the problem to a broken wire, located where the wire loom comes from under the tank and pivots against the frame neck. As described above, an over-tightened tie warp installed by the factory wore against the wire and eventually caused it to break.

I found the broken wire by running the motor and using my hands flex the loom until I located the break. Next, I sliced open the cover over the wires; slipped a piece of heat-shrink tubing over one end of the (broken) wire; soldered the two ends back together; covered the solder joint with the tubing; then wrapped the slice in the loom with electrical tape.

In order to reduce the stress on the wire loom at the point where it pivots, I slipped a four-inch long piece of flex tubing over the area where it's tie wrapped to the frame. I also removed the factory's tie wraps and replaced them with looser fitting wraps. The finished job actually looks much neater than the factory's approach.

If you can't find a broken wire in the loom, start the motor and then wiggle the wires that enter the bottom of the ignition (key) switch. If this is the problem, the switch should be replaced.

I had this exact problem on my 04. I found the problem was in the wiring harness that travels up to the red kill switch on the right hand grip. The way I diagnosed this was to get the bike running and just mess with the different grouping of wires with your hand until the bike shuts off. Once somewhat located I stripped back the harnessing package to find that one of the wire ties had pinched and worn through a wire. I just stripped it back and cut it and wire nutted it back together until I could take it to the shop under warranty. I have no doubt it would be fine with my quick fix but hey I gotta keep the BMW warranty honest. They ordered me in an entire new harness and kill switch an should install it soon.

Add me to the list of victims of the factory wiring harness. I would look for the tightest crease in the loom as it comes out from under the gas tank. I was able to stick my ear up to the harness with the ignition on, but the bike off, and hear a slight "tick" from the harness when I moved the handlebars back and forth. This led me to the offending short in the kill switch wire.

On a side note, this short caused my only crash on a bike in about 20 years. I was pulling a U turn on a small residential road and the bike just died as I got to full lock and was commited to the turn. I gently laid her over onto the side almost like that's what I planned on doing. Only I hadn't planned on it and I was not happy.

ditto what everyone else said.

problem was my bastage of a dealer scratched the f@%k out of my tank while repairing the wiring harness.

Yes it's the wiring fault caused by incorrect fitting the to factory. Had mine fixed under waranty.

+1 victims here...

Just got my 02 R back this morning for the same problem. I talked to service manager and first they replaced ignition wire and that cure 95% of the problem. then they replaced the kill switch wire and finally fix it. cost me around $400 for both parts and labor. ouch...

Ask them about the cause of this? damn cable tie over tighted...