wheel pressre sensors

I will be going on a long ride next week I have the Angel GT's on now with about 2500 miles on them I am pretty sure that I will have to get some new tires along the way. The owners manual has a section that deals with the sensor that states caution when changing tires with regards to damaging the sensors. I will try to get new tires at a BMW dealership but if not and I have to go to an independent shop what special precautions should be taken? Has anyone had any problems with the sensors on a tire change?

I had to have new rear tire installed at a Yamaha dealership a while back and they were fine with the whole procedure. Most dealerships are familiar with the process (it's not that big of a deal) and I had no issues at all. I would not worry about it

I will be going on a long ride next week I have the Angel GT's on now with about 2500 miles on them I am pretty sure that I will have to get some new tires along the way. The owners manual has a section that deals with the sensor that states caution when changing tires with regards to damaging the sensors. I will try to get new tires at a BMW dealership but if not and I have to go to an independent shop what special precautions should be taken? Has anyone had any problems with the sensors on a tire change?

Afternoon pdpwcd

First & foremost be sure to tell the tec doing the tire change that the wheel HAS an RDC sensor & that it is located at the valve stem area of the wheel. (wheel might still have the RDC sticker on it).

The RDC sensor can be damaged in basically 2 ways. One is sticking the tire iron into the tire too far at the RDC sensor location. The other is if the tire is pried up on the opposite side from the RDC sensor therefore pulling the unseated tire bead down into the RDC sensor on the RDC side.

Just ask them if they have done BMW wheels with sensors and put it on the work order or form they use. Some shops use labels or stickers to mark sensor wheels so they don't forget when working on it. Just takes care/awareness during breaking the bead, taking old tire off, and mounting new one.

Just ask them if they have done BMW wheels with sensors and put it on the work order or form they use. Some shops use labels or stickers to mark sensor wheels so they don't forget when working on it. Just takes care/awareness during breaking the bead, taking old tire off, and mounting new one.

Interesting this is good for when I talk again to the shop about why after they installed new tires both front and rear tire pressures immediately stopped displaying. I'm certain something they did during the install caused this as there really is no other good explanation as to why BOTH front and rear died at the same moment. Well, sort of died...

I use the same local dealer for all my tire changes. They installed 3 sets on my old F800GT, and I had them put the 4th set onto my '16 RT I bought new that now has 34,590m. I had them install Conti RA3's prior to a trip I took starting June 19 up the left coast and up into the Canook Rockies by way of the fabulous North Cascades Highway. BTW, these RA3's are positively the best tire so over PR4GT, Metz Z8, and Pirelli Angel GT. IMMEDIATELY upon leaving the dealer after these tires were installed BOTH front and rear tire pressures did not light up in the dash (I have them set to always display). On my F800GT and on this RT ALWAYS they will light up a few seconds after exceeding 6mph as the rider manual describes. So I called the shop from about 5m away and asked what happened, and they told me 'BMW says it can take up to 10miles for pressures to display...' Well this is nonsense from at least 3 perspectives: my experience on two different models, what the manual says is supposed to happen, and indeed they start to lose value as an emergency alert device when they don't display for up to 10 miles. Anyway, they began coming back on, but intermittently for my entire 3,300m trip. On 3 or 4 occasions suddenly the rear tire graphic would turn red and the yellow triangle ! indicator displayed suggesting I had a drop in rear tire pressure, this all the while w/ the front and rear displayed pressures turning off and on relatively randomly while riding. The first time this happened I pulled over to learn the rear tire had no loss of pressure. So the next time this happened I did the cry wolf thing and road on, ignoring it. Long and short of it, since the bike has 35K miles I called them to have them evaluate why they suddenly began screwing up after they installed the new RA3's. So it goes in on Aug 14th for this and 36K mile service items I don't do myself. For reasons I can't imagine, after returning home from our trip and parking the bike for a week, I've taken it out for at least 8 rides since and voila TPC normal functioning returned. All of this has me wondering if they could have gotten some lubricant or something that got on to the actual sensing interface on each wheel sensor, partially affecting it, and it took that long, what with centrifugal force wanting to hold that material in place, it took all of those miles to clear itself. Sound plausible?

That's the longest sentace I've ever seen !

Anyway, I would look for either a Kawasaki or a Yamaha shop as both the Kaw Concours and the Yam FJ1300 have TPM available and they are familiar with them.

I would avoid Cycle Gear as we would sell the local one a new wheel annually when they dented or scratched one.

In fact, we had a Concours in as the batteries had gone dead, so while changing tires we were replacing the sensors too.

The customer brought in the new sensors but not the o-ring or something and the R1200RT sensor/o- ring was identical .

Same brand.

I mean ,how many manufacturers could there be, right ?

Just ask them if they have done BMW wheels with sensors and put it on the work order or form they use. Some shops use labels or stickers to mark sensor wheels so they don't forget when working on it. Just takes care/awareness during breaking the bead, taking old tire off, and mounting new one.

 

Interesting this is good for when I talk again to the shop about why after they installed new tires both front and rear tire pressures immediately stopped displaying. I'm certain something they did during the install caused this as there really is no other good explanation as to why BOTH front and rear died at the same moment. Well, sort of died...

 

I use the same local dealer for all my tire changes. They installed 3 sets on my old F800GT, and I had them put the 4th set onto my '16 RT I bought new that now has 34,590m. I had them install Conti RA3's prior to a trip I took starting June 19 up the left coast and up into the Canook Rockies by way of the fabulous North Cascades Highway. BTW, these RA3's are positively the best tire so over PR4GT, Metz Z8, and Pirelli Angel GT. IMMEDIATELY upon leaving the dealer after these tires were installed BOTH front and rear tire pressures did not light up in the dash (I have them set to always display). On my F800GT and on this RT ALWAYS they will light up a few seconds after exceeding 6mph as the rider manual describes. So I called the shop from about 5m away and asked what happened, and they told me 'BMW says it can take up to 10miles for pressures to display...' Well this is nonsense from at least 3 perspectives: my experience on two different models, what the manual says is supposed to happen, and indeed they start to lose value as an emergency alert device when they don't display for up to 10 miles. Anyway, they began coming back on, but intermittently for my entire 3,300m trip. On 3 or 4 occasions suddenly the rear tire graphic would turn red and the yellow triangle ! indicator displayed suggesting I had a drop in rear tire pressure, this all the while w/ the front and rear displayed pressures turning off and on relatively randomly while riding. The first time this happened I pulled over to learn the rear tire had no loss of pressure. So the next time this happened I did the cry wolf thing and road on, ignoring it. Long and short of it, since the bike has 35K miles I called them to have them evaluate why they suddenly began screwing up after they installed the new RA3's. So it goes in on Aug 14th for this and 36K mile service items I don't do myself. For reasons I can't imagine, after returning home from our trip and parking the bike for a week, I've taken it out for at least 8 rides since and voila TPC normal functioning returned. All of this has me wondering if they could have gotten some lubricant or something that got on to the actual sensing interface on each wheel sensor, partially affecting it, and it took that long, what with centrifugal force wanting to hold that material in place, it took all of those miles to clear itself. Sound plausible?

Afternoon NoelCP

That seems to be a unique failure as the sensors came back on line after a much later time. I have seen tire pressure sensors in automobiles go away after a tire change but they wouldn't come back until they were woken up & recalibrated into the electronics.

While anything is possible what are the chances that both front & rear were blocked at the same time by an extreme excess of mounting lube getting into the tire then finding it's way into BOTH pressure sensors?

The only thing that I have seen contaminate tire pressure sensors is gooey fix-a-flat type products & water/rust contaminated shop air (REALLY bad contaminated shop air). But this usually doesn't fix itself.

 

Afternoon NoelCP

 

That seems to be a unique failure as the sensors came back on line after a much later time. I have seen tire pressure sensors in automobiles go away after a tire change but they wouldn't come back until they were woken up & recalibrated into the electronics.

 

While anything is possible what are the chances that both front & rear were blocked at the same time by an extreme excess of mounting lube getting into the tire then finding it's way into BOTH pressure sensors?

 

The only thing that I have seen contaminate tire pressure sensors is gooey fix-a-flat type products & water/rust contaminated shop air (REALLY bad contaminated shop air). But this usually doesn't fix itself.

 

The odds are probably lower than the tire changer physically damaging BOTH sensors, but then what are the odds of physically damaged sensors coming back on line of their own accord, both of them? It's a complete mystery. There were also 3 other potential explanations:

1. The only other task done by the shop that day was to tap into the hot wire at the front right power outlet. I use this tap in to power the an LCD monitor I have on the bike that I use as a rearview display. Prior to this wiring task I had simply plugged the power lead from the monitor into that power socket using a standard powerlet plug, so the wiring they did was to conceal the connection is all. Of note, this lead was not active (the monitor was not plugged in) while all of this was going on, but as I say, this was the other work done that day by the shop. I understand ground faults can cause RF interference, so this became a plausible explanation. Once again, it all fixed itself after returning home w/ no change to a potential ground fault.

2. Related to #1 was a coil of extra wiring that connects the LCD display to a wide angle rear view video camera. As I was trying to come up w/ explanations as to why both sensors were affected I started to wonder if the RDC Control unit might be being affected by RF interference from this coil of extra wire (a 10' cable came w/ the camera so rather than cut it and splice it I just made loops out of the extra cabling) because I noticed I had set it near the RDC control unit, not knowing what this little black box was, and then realizing RF interference could certainly explain the fact the sensors would start and stop working randomly, though always the rear tire was more prone to suddenly just disappearing after working for 15 miles or what have you. The only problem w/ this explanation is I've had the camera and wiring installed for several months w/ no problems w/ TPC system. To complicate the story more, I did relocate that coil of wire well away from the RDC Control unit, but test road the bike a few times after that and the situation was unchanged.

3. I thought perhaps the tire carcasses was the culprit, perhaps causing RF interference. The fact that the rear tire which is considerably more massive than the front was adversely affected by far the most could support this idea. I tried searching for similar stories on the new Continental RoadAttack 3 tires but didn't hear of any issues like this so far.

Anyway, we have no clear explanation currently with none in sight!

 

The odds are probably lower than the tire changer physically damaging BOTH sensors, but then what are the odds of physically damaged sensors coming back on line of their own accord, both of them? It's a complete mystery. There were also 3 other potential explanations:

 

1. The only other task done by the shop that day was to tap into the hot wire at the front right power outlet. I use this tap in to power the an LCD monitor I have on the bike that I use as a rearview display. Prior to this wiring task I had simply plugged the power lead from the monitor into that power socket using a standard powerlet plug, so the wiring they did was to conceal the connection is all. Of note, this lead was not active (the monitor was not plugged in) while all of this was going on, but as I say, this was the other work done that day by the shop. I understand ground faults can cause RF interference, so this became a plausible explanation. Once again, it all fixed itself after returning home w/ no change to a potential ground fault.

 

2. Related to #1 was a coil of extra wiring that connects the LCD display to a wide angle rear view video camera. As I was trying to come up w/ explanations as to why both sensors were affected I started to wonder if the RDC Control unit might be being affected by RF interference from this coil of extra wire (a 10' cable came w/ the camera so rather than cut it and splice it I just made loops out of the extra cabling) because I noticed I had set it near the RDC control unit, not knowing what this little black box was, and then realizing RF interference could certainly explain the fact the sensors would start and stop working randomly, though always the rear tire was more prone to suddenly just disappearing after working for 15 miles or what have you. The only problem w/ this explanation is I've had the camera and wiring installed for several months w/ no problems w/ TPC system. To complicate the story more, I did relocate that coil of wire well away from the RDC Control unit, but test road the bike a few times after that and the situation was unchanged.

 

3. I thought perhaps the tire carcasses was the culprit, perhaps causing RF interference. The fact that the rear tire which is considerably more massive than the front was adversely affected by far the most could support this idea. I tried searching for similar stories on the new Continental RoadAttack 3 tires but didn't hear of any issues like this so far.

 

Anyway, we have no clear explanation currently with none in sight!

Morning NoelCP

Some tires do have a carbon band, or multi carbon bands, molded in to eliminate static electricity build up but I haven't ever heard of that effecting the tire pressure sensors. But something odd like this that could explain the rear tire being more of an issue than the front.

Obviously some sort of RFI interference could be the problem but that shouldn't change with the bike sitting parked for a while. (unless something was moved, changed, or removed when the bike was parked).

I don't have a lot of experience with BMW motorcycle RDS oddities as the BMW system seems to work pretty good without problems or strange behavior. I do have a lot of experience with automotive TPS systems though.

When you mention acting up then being OK after parked for a while the first thing that comes to mind is the RDS sensor internal batteries as the more the bike is ridden the more that the RDS sensor batteries are pulled down as the RDS sensors are turned on continuously for long periods.

When the bike sits the sensors turn off & THAT can allow the batteries to recover slightly.

BMW has a special hand held RDS sensor battery tester (just point & shoot) so have the BMW dealer check the RDS sensor battery condition when you take the bike in for service.

 

When you mention acting up then being OK after parked for a while the first thing that comes to mind is the RDS sensor internal batteries as the more the bike is ridden the more that the RDS sensor batteries are pulled down as the RDS sensors are turned on continuously for long periods.

 

When the bike sits the sensors turn off & THAT can allow the batteries to recover slightly.

 

BMW has a special hand held RDS sensor battery tester (just point & shoot) so have the BMW dealer check the RDS sensor battery condition when you take the bike in for service.

 

That too was the first thought I had about the batteries recovering while parked, but that doesn't seem to explain the sudden appearance of both sensors not functioning correctly immediately upon picking up the bike up after tire change. What are the odds both batteries began dying enough to manifest this at the exact same moment--doesn't seem likely to me. Oh sure it's possible, but not very likely I don't believe. During my trip after the first event where the rear tire graphic turned red suddenly w/ the alert triangle ! I contacted the senior mechanic and this was his first guess, that since the batteries were likely out of the same batch installed on the same day it very well could be battery starting to fail, but now as I say I've ridden the bike virtually daily now for 30-140 miles per day for a couple weeks now and all's well w/ sensing and displaying pressures. Thanks for the tip re the sensor batteries even though the issue has resolved it would be worth asking them to check them if it's a simple procedure. They will also scan for RFI as well which they tell me they can do.

I had my tires changed about 3 weeks ago with the 24k service , and right after that service both my displays are coming in and out.

the front would be out for 30 miles and then reappear and then just as fast the rear would go blank.  had the crazy red low light with the triangle  several times now and also even at engine start up, like its locked in the memory.  I wonder if the tire sensor computer is actually going bad. ???  Is there an antenna somewhere that did not get placed back correctly when the removed the plastic for the service.  I am going in for another warranty issue with the home switch sticking and they will take a look.  I can believe both batteries are dying at the same time.  And at 2 years this should be warranty work as well right ????

4 hours ago, mig said:

I had my tires changed about 3 weeks ago with the 24k service , and right after that service both my displays are coming in and out.

the front would be out for 30 miles and then reappear and then just as fast the rear would go blank.  had the crazy red low light with the triangle  several times now and also even at engine start up, like its locked in the memory.  I wonder if the tire sensor computer is actually going bad. ???  Is there an antenna somewhere that did not get placed back correctly when the removed the plastic for the service.  I am going in for another warranty issue with the home switch sticking and they will take a look.  I can believe both batteries are dying at the same time.  And at 2 years this should be warranty work as well right ????

Morning Mig

Difficult to tell with the limited info furnished but if your system worked fine before the tire change & now doesn't then the place to start the troubleshooting process is at the service where it went from working good to acting up (that would probably be the tire change).

If the tire change wasn't done with care & knowledge then it's possible the in-wheel pressure sensors were damaged.

Your dealer should have a hand held device to test the in-wheel sensors output.  

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Well dirtrider:

 I'm back from the dealer.  The front was replaced due to low battery and the rear was not communicating to the sensor , so they replace that as well.  Now both come on about 15 seconds into rolling, BUT !!!  the tech said he noted rear bearing wheel movement of 1mm and the limit is .05 mm.  So they are ordering me a new one!???  Have you heard of such a thing.  My bike is 2 years old, and barely 24k on it, no drops or hits or anything.

I guess I can't complain, it will be free and then with another 2 years warranty.  

Dang and i thought this bike was going to be trouble free

9 hours ago, mig said:

Well dirtrider:

 I'm back from the dealer.  The front was replaced due to low battery and the rear was not communicating to the sensor , so they replace that as well.  Now both come on about 15 seconds into rolling, BUT !!!  the tech said he noted rear bearing wheel movement of 1mm and the limit is .05 mm.  So they are ordering me a new one!???  Have you heard of such a thing.  My bike is 2 years old, and barely 24k on it, no drops or hits or anything.

I guess I can't complain, it will be free and then with another 2 years warranty.  

Dang and i thought this bike was going to be trouble free

Morning Mig

I'm not sure that you can blame the bike for the pressure sensor issue. (no problem before tire change /then/ problem after tire change= some doubt from me  on root cause)

On the rear bearing, there is probably nothing wrong with yours as the play measurement is based on a cold measurement & even then it depends (subjectively) on how hard the wheel is pushed/pulled & where on the rim it is measured.

Unless the tec set up a dial indicator on your bike (I doubt he/she did) then the play measurement is probably just a guess on the tec's part & they usually FEEL like more movement than they actually have. The newer final drives are designed to have some bearing play when cold.