BMW R1200RT/R1250RT Forum

So after 99000 miles I’ve got the dreaded fuel gauge problem. Filled up one day, hit a few potholes as our roads are crap, may or maybe not be related..... start the bike next day and the fuel gauge shows zero, light flashing and hazard triangle on.
Bike still running fine.


Spent hours reading about the issue, tried the piezo lighter trick, didn’t work,  got a price of £293 from the Northampton dealer, are you serious! To replace the fuel strip and decided to live with it.


So I made up the well publicised dummy full tank with the 2 resistors and wired it all up but still all the annoying flashing lights and warnings:(


I also measured the voltage across pins 1-4 of the removed connector and get a maximum of 133mv and when connected even less. I also checked the continuity of pins 2-3, good and pins 1-4 good. I can even use the piezo lighter to get a spark right through the fuel strip to its matching pair, so 2-3 and 1-4 so the fuel strip might well be ok and my heater is not getting any voltage.


Does anybody have experience of the same issue?


I didn’t think of taking my 12v feed from the battery as the guys that found the fix did initially. I guess that might rule that out. But I’ve run out of daylight:)

BMW just replaced my 2009's fuel strip for free under an extension of the warranty for 12 years, so you should be still under it with your 2009.  There's a whole thread here about it.  Sounds like your dealer's a bit shady, since it's a well-known defect.

Annoyingly that’s only for the US, no idea how it’s a product recall in the US and £300 a time in the UK, but that’s how it is.

It may be that having done the piezo thing the resistance in the sense track is now different, so it may need recalibrating. If you know someone with a GS-911 they can do this for you. You have to remove the strip from the tank and dry it, then plug it back in (but not in the tank, unless you have completely drained it) then run the calibration. If the piezo thing worked properly the calibration itself takes 2 minutes, if it didnt, it wont work. Getting th estrip out takes about an hour, and about an hour to put it all back together. The biggest faff of it all is unplugging the accessory socket on the RH upper panel, my advice is to get hold of the connector with long nose pliers, making sure you are depressing the clip while you pull.

Nick Evans wrote: It may be that having done the piezo thing the resistance in the sense track is now different, so it may need recalibrating. If you know someone with a GS-911 they can do this for you. You have to remove the strip from the tank and dry it, then plug it back in (but not in the tank, unless you have completely drained it) then run the calibration. If the piezo thing worked properly the calibration itself takes 2 minutes, if it didnt, it wont work. Getting th estrip out takes about an hour, and about an hour to put it all back together. The biggest faff of it all is unplugging the accessory socket on the RH upper panel, my advice is to get hold of the connector with long nose pliers, making sure you are depressing the clip while you pull.

Thank you, I hadn't considered that! I'm not sure it's worth the effort:) back to the trip meters and masking tape I think.