Wiring harness failure

[nielsm]

I was on a ride and stopped my 2021 R18 Classic to fill up the tank. When trying to restart, nothing. No ignition. The station next door tried to help me jumpstart and that did show the ignition, but would not start. I called BMW Roadside and they sent a truck to bring it to the dealer. I’d already had an appointment with the dealer for the following week for the 6K service and new tires.

I‘d hoped it was just a dead battery as it had had intermittent problems starting before, but I figured it was nearly 2 years old, so the battery was probably due for replacement. Turns out that the wiring harness had rubbed through and had a dead short. First time they’d ever seen it, but of course, I wasn’t riding home that day.

The dealer was great & worked with BMW NA to get all the warranty and parts taken care of. They’d not seen this before, but as my bike was a First Edition, so fairly early production dates, maybe this was an issue with earlier bikes.

It certainly was frustrating, but I have other bikes to ride. The dealer called yesterday to say the bike was all ready now. I’m wondering if it was a one-off or others have experienced this.

 

[John K]

I was on a ride and stopped my 2021 R18 Classic to fill up the tank. When trying to restart, nothing. No ignition. The station next door tried to help me jumpstart and that did show the ignition, but would not start. I called BMW Roadside and they sent a truck to bring it to the dealer. I’d already had an appointment with the dealer for the following week for the 6K service and new tires.

I‘d hoped it was just a dead battery as it had had intermittent problems starting before, but I figured it was nearly 2 years old, so the battery was probably due for replacement. Turns out that the wiring harness had rubbed through and had a dead short. First time they’d ever seen it, but of course, I wasn’t riding home that day.

The dealer was great & worked with BMW NA to get all the warranty and parts taken care of. They’d not seen this before, but as my bike was a First Edition, so fairly early production dates, maybe this was an issue with earlier bikes.

It certainly was frustrating, but I have other bikes to ride. The dealer called yesterday to say the bike was all ready now. I’m wondering if it was a one-off or others have experienced this.

I had the same problem with my 2022 Classic the drive shaft wore into the wire harness and shorted out they told me the factory forgot to install a clip keeping the wires away from the shaft, mine only had 1000km when this happened. BMW Roadside took it to the dealer and it took six weeks to get it back. At least they fixed it properly by replacing the main wire harness but had to pull the whole bike apart to install it.

 

[Ulrich]

I was on a ride and stopped my 2021 R18 Classic to fill up the tank. When trying to restart, nothing. No ignition. The station next door tried to help me jumpstart and that did show the ignition, but would not start. I called BMW Roadside and they sent a truck to bring it to the dealer. I’d already had an appointment with the dealer for the following week for the 6K service and new tires.

I‘d hoped it was just a dead battery as it had had intermittent problems starting before, but I figured it was nearly 2 years old, so the battery was probably due for replacement. Turns out that the wiring harness had rubbed through and had a dead short. First time they’d ever seen it, but of course, I wasn’t riding home that day.

The dealer was great & worked with BMW NA to get all the warranty and parts taken care of. They’d not seen this before, but as my bike was a First Edition, so fairly early production dates, maybe this was an issue with earlier bikes.

It certainly was frustrating, but I have other bikes to ride. The dealer called yesterday to say the bike was all ready now. I’m wondering if it was a one-off or others have experienced this.

I am truly sorry to hear Niels ! ... and John, I think you posted that in another thread .. which prompted me to add a few extra zip-ties to the wiring in the drive shaft area ..Thanks !

 

[CVLAO]

Mind boggling....I bought my 2022 TC from Iron Horse B.M.W. in Tucson. The bike had 10 miles on it when I got and all was well. Then one day I was riding with the cruise set at 70 M.P.H. and EVERYTHING went off. No horn, turn signals, headlight,taillight. A minute later everything back on as if nothing ever happened. Two months later on Easter Sunday my son and I are riding back from Clifton, Arizona after 4 hours of riding and on interstate 10 in traffic TOTALLY DEAD AGAIN! Had it not been for my son trailing me a allowing me to get to the shoulder traffic would have never know I was having any problems. Again I minute later everything's fine. B.M.W.'s Roadside comes to my house to pick up my bike to take it back to Iron Horse. They have it for 2 weeks and test ride it and the failure never happens while it's in their possession. I have had the bike out several times since and it has not happened again.
This is my 1st B.M.W. bike out of 35 bikes I have ever owned. I truly hope the problem has corrected itself as I love this bike...BUT I also need to know when my Wife or daughter are riding with me that we will not have to encounter this problem again for safety's sake.

 

[Scott Semone]

I was on a ride and stopped my 2021 R18 Classic to fill up the tank. When trying to restart, nothing. No ignition. The station next door tried to help me jumpstart and that did show the ignition, but would not start. I called BMW Roadside and they sent a truck to bring it to the dealer. I’d already had an appointment with the dealer for the following week for the 6K service and new tires.

I‘d hoped it was just a dead battery as it had had intermittent problems starting before, but I figured it was nearly 2 years old, so the battery was probably due for replacement. Turns out that the wiring harness had rubbed through and had a dead short. First time they’d ever seen it, but of course, I wasn’t riding home that day.

The dealer was great & worked with BMW NA to get all the warranty and parts taken care of. They’d not seen this before, but as my bike was a First Edition, so fairly early production dates, maybe this was an issue with earlier bikes.

It certainly was frustrating, but I have other bikes to ride. The dealer called yesterday to say the bike was all ready now. I’m wondering if it was a one-off or others have experienced this.

Do you have any pictures of where on the bike the wiring harness failed; did the dealership share any additional details on "how" and "where" the wiring harness failed..??

Probably worth that we all check the harness near the drive shaft, based on past failures...

 

[Anibal]

Mind boggling....I bought my 2022 TC from Iron Horse B.M.W. in Tucson. The bike had 10 miles on it when I got and all was well. Then one day I was riding with the cruise set at 70 M.P.H. and EVERYTHING went off. No horn, turn signals, headlight,taillight. A minute later everything back on as if nothing ever happened. Two months later on Easter Sunday my son and I are riding back from Clifton, Arizona after 4 hours of riding and on interstate 10 in traffic TOTALLY DEAD AGAIN! Had it not been for my son trailing me a allowing me to get to the shoulder traffic would have never know I was having any problems. Again I minute later everything's fine. B.M.W.'s Roadside comes to my house to pick up my bike to take it back to Iron Horse. They have it for 2 weeks and test ride it and the failure never happens while it's in their possession. I have had the bike out several times since and it has not happened again.
This is my 1st B.M.W. bike out of 35 bikes I have ever owned. I truly hope the problem has corrected itself as I love this bike...BUT I also need to know when my Wife or daughter are riding with me that we will not have to encounter this problem again for safety's sake.

That would have scared the living soul out of me if travelling on the motorway fast lane and all of a sudden no power and halting to a stop with potential traffic overtaking me on the left ( I live in the UK)
9 out of 10 I ride solo so an even greater concern for me.
I would have thought a fault code gets stored somewhere and the garage should have access to that. I think problems like these don’t fix themselves up, these are little warnings letting you know something is not quite right somewhere and it could be something as innocent as a false contact somewhere.

 

[CVLAO]

I agree with you wholeheartedly, and if I didn't live 1.5 hours away from the dealership believe me I would have it there every week if that's what it takes for them to diagnose IT correctly and correct the issue.
I just had higher expectations from B.M.W. as I have always heard great things about their products after researching this dealership ( IRON HORSE B.M.W. OF TUCSON ) I am left wondering if I made the right purchase.

Maybe the answer is to ride the 3.5 hours it takes to deal with a B.M.W. dealership in the Scottsdale / Phoenix area and hopefully, they can help with this issue. I REALLY do love this bike and the build quality but this problem must be resolved.

 

[ajsilvaoc]

Interesting, I had chaffing of the wire harness at the right fork and the head bearing. Only rubbed through the Tessa tape covering the wire but was starting on the wire. brought it to my dealers attention while the bike was getting repaired for 2 other issues. The are bring the bike back to me today so I'll see if the addressed the issue. Bike has 1300 miles on it.

 

[Petr Kunc]

Hi everyone,
i am from Czech Republic and have expensive experience with wiring. I have a 2020 FE and once it happened to me while driving, that the ''cracked bulb'' light came on and my back light stopped working. Several switching off, turning on the ignition or stopping the bike for an hour didn't help. The next day everything started working normally again.
Unfortunately, after about two months, when I was riding, I found that the front light did not light up, the turn signals did not react. I couldn't even turn off the ignition, I had to use the killswitch, but even then the dashboard didn't turn off. I had to disconnect the battery.
The motorcycle was taken to BMW, where it finally spent 6 months (yes, under warranty, where according to the law the service is obliged to remove the defect within 30 days)
The initial info was that the motor unit had burnt out and everything would be solved under warranty. We waited 2 months for the unit.... after the installation it turned out that the problem is still the same. After complete disassembly of the bike, it turned out that the central cable harness was burnt out in the place where the ground wires are connected together. BMW waited almost 4 months to get an opinion from the DE authorities.
Finally they said that it was my fault because I had replaced the original turn signals with Kellerman...I have to admit, that i am electrician with 30 yrs+ experience and i hve 9 bikes in my garage, where a lot of mods have been done in the past.
Even though the local BMW was on my side and wrote an opinion that it could not be caused by that, the head office rejected the warranty.
I ended up paying almost $1500 for the wiring harness and labor.
According to the mechanic, the problem was the ground wire harness wrapped behind the battery.

 

[2021FE]

Hi everyone,
i am from Czech Republic and have expensive experience with wiring. I have a 2020 FE and once it happened to me while driving, that the ''cracked bulb'' light came on and my back light stopped working. Several switching off, turning on the ignition or stopping the bike for an hour didn't help. The next day everything started working normally again.
Unfortunately, after about two months, when I was riding, I found that the front light did not light up, the turn signals did not react. I couldn't even turn off the ignition, I had to use the killswitch, but even then the dashboard didn't turn off. I had to disconnect the battery.
The motorcycle was taken to BMW, where it finally spent 6 months (yes, under warranty, where according to the law the service is obliged to remove the defect within 30 days)
The initial info was that the motor unit had burnt out and everything would be solved under warranty. We waited 2 months for the unit.... after the installation it turned out that the problem is still the same. After complete disassembly of the bike, it turned out that the central cable harness was burnt out in the place where the ground wires are connected together. BMW waited almost 4 months to get an opinion from the DE authorities.
Finally they said that it was my fault because I had replaced the original turn signals with Kellerman...I have to admit, that i am electrician with 30 yrs+ experience and i hve 9 bikes in my garage, where a lot of mods have been done in the past.
Even though the local BMW was on my side and wrote an opinion that it could not be caused by that, the head office rejected the warranty.
I ended up paying almost $1500 for the wiring harness and labor.
According to the mechanic, the problem was the ground wire harness wrapped behind the battery.

Wow that is terrible! I sure appreciate you sharing your experience though. I often times think about wanting to make a few changes to my bike while its still under warranty but experiences like this help in deciding to wait.

 

[Scott Semone]

Hi everyone,
i am from Czech Republic and have expensive experience with wiring. I have a 2020 FE and once it happened to me while driving, that the ''cracked bulb'' light came on and my back light stopped working. Several switching off, turning on the ignition or stopping the bike for an hour didn't help. The next day everything started working normally again.
Unfortunately, after about two months, when I was riding, I found that the front light did not light up, the turn signals did not react. I couldn't even turn off the ignition, I had to use the killswitch, but even then the dashboard didn't turn off. I had to disconnect the battery.
The motorcycle was taken to BMW, where it finally spent 6 months (yes, under warranty, where according to the law the service is obliged to remove the defect within 30 days)
The initial info was that the motor unit had burnt out and everything would be solved under warranty. We waited 2 months for the unit.... after the installation it turned out that the problem is still the same. After complete disassembly of the bike, it turned out that the central cable harness was burnt out in the place where the ground wires are connected together. BMW waited almost 4 months to get an opinion from the DE authorities.
Finally they said that it was my fault because I had replaced the original turn signals with Kellerman...I have to admit, that i am electrician with 30 yrs+ experience and i hve 9 bikes in my garage, where a lot of mods have been done in the past.
Even though the local BMW was on my side and wrote an opinion that it could not be caused by that, the head office rejected the warranty.
I ended up paying almost $1500 for the wiring harness and labor.
According to the mechanic, the problem was the ground wire harness wrapped behind the battery.

Any pictures of the damaged or corroded wiring?

 

[MilwDave]

BMW wants to participate in the lucrative cruiser market but wants to void any warranty claim if you mod your bike.
They won’t be making any inroads using that business model.

 

[Petr Kunc]

Wow that is terrible! I sure appreciate you sharing your experience though. I often times think about wanting to make a few changes to my bike while its still under warranty but experiences like this help in deciding to wait.

Good morning, that's why I wrote it here. I used the same turn signals that Bmw offers, but I bought them at Louis Motorrad for a third of the price. That means no cheap Chinese crap. All E marked. Everything was wired through a cables from Wunderlich. Total load when all is on on at once, mean all 4 turn signals, brake and position lights (tested off the bike) is less than 1.1 amp. That's why even the local Bmw dealership said it was nonsense and at least 10-12 Amp was needed to burn through the harness in my case.
Nothing extra is mounted on the bike, not even phone charging, auxiliary lights, so such a current load does not make sense. From the point of view of the local dealership, the cable harness was poorly made and there was a resistance at the point of connection of the cables, which heated up.
Even so, Bmw DE rejected the claim and said it's my fault.
I wanted to post this here mainly so that other members would be aware. And yeah, don't do anything during warranty period

 

[Petr Kunc]

Any pictures of the damaged or corroded wiring?

Yes, they gave it to me as a trophy.... Think I still have it in the garage, so I'll post a picture when I get there.
It is a bundle of about 10 pcs of 0.5mm grounding cables connected together by a ring. The whole thing is at the bottom back between the battery and the rear wheel.

 

[MilwDave]

Yes, they gave it to me as a trophy.... Think I still have it in the garage, so I'll post a picture when I get there.
It is a bundle of about 10 pcs of 0.5mm grounding cables connected together by a ring. The whole thing I is at the bottom back between the battery and the rear wheel.

I have completely torn down my R18 to build my bobber project. I can tell you I have never seen so many electrical components exposed to the elements on any bike I’ve ever worked on.
My first reaction was that future electrical gremlins are all but a certainty on this bike.
My bike is a garage queen/bar hopper so I probably won’t have to deal with them but anyone who rides regularly or stores their bike outside is vulnerable.

 

[Petr Kunc]

I have completely torn down my R18 to build my bobber project. I can tell you I have never seen so many electrical components exposed to the elements on any bike I’ve ever worked on.
My first reaction was that future electrical gremlins are all but a certainty on this bike.
My bike is a garage queen/bar hopper so I probably won’t have to deal with them but anyone who rides regularly or stores their bike outside is vulnerable.

I can say that my mechanic at Bmw was yelling and b******g about the harness. Bmw is saying that you can replace the main harness in 3 hours. I doubt, because you have to strip down everything to the level, when only main frame, engine with no covers, front fork and wheel will stay together.
And if you did this job, you probably noticed the ''superb quality'' of painting etc on bike which costs 25k....

 

[MilwDave]

I can say that my mechanic at Bmw was yelling and b******g about the harness. Bmw is saying that you can replace the main harness in 3 hours. I doubt, because you have to strip down everything to the level, when only main frame, engine with no covers, front fork and wheel will stay together.
And if you did this job, you probably noticed the ''superb quality'' of painting etc on bike which costs 25k....

I can tell you that while the design of the bike is top notch, the build quality is well below what I’m accustomed to with other manufacturers.
And BMW’s attempts to lock buyers into dealer services by not publishing a service manual makes this the one and only BMW I’ll ever buy.

 

[CountOlaf]

Hi everyone,
i am from Czech Republic and have expensive experience with wiring. I have a 2020 FE and once it happened to me while driving, that the ''cracked bulb'' light came on and my back light stopped working. Several switching off, turning on the ignition or stopping the bike for an hour didn't help. The next day everything started working normally again.
Unfortunately, after about two months, when I was riding, I found that the front light did not light up, the turn signals did not react. I couldn't even turn off the ignition, I had to use the killswitch, but even then the dashboard didn't turn off. I had to disconnect the battery.
The motorcycle was taken to BMW, where it finally spent 6 months (yes, under warranty, where according to the law the service is obliged to remove the defect within 30 days)
The initial info was that the motor unit had burnt out and everything would be solved under warranty. We waited 2 months for the unit.... after the installation it turned out that the problem is still the same. After complete disassembly of the bike, it turned out that the central cable harness was burnt out in the place where the ground wires are connected together. BMW waited almost 4 months to get an opinion from the DE authorities.
Finally they said that it was my fault because I had replaced the original turn signals with Kellerman...I have to admit, that i am electrician with 30 yrs+ experience and i hve 9 bikes in my garage, where a lot of mods have been done in the past.
Even though the local BMW was on my side and wrote an opinion that it could not be caused by that, the head office rejected the warranty.
I ended up paying almost $1500 for the wiring harness and labor.
According to the mechanic, the problem was the ground wire harness wrapped behind the battery.

Hi Petr,
That is disheartening to read.
I have a similar problem after fitting a bobber kit which also came with Kellermann indicators. Ever since this was installed, the ABS and TCL warning lights come on after 20k's of riding. Engine can only be killed by the kill switch, the ignition switch is no longer responsive. This is an ongoing issue and still being looked at. Buying this bike wasn't a great experience for many reasons and reading this is just the icing on the cake. Hopefully I will get this sorted soon but we will have a look at the wiring harness now thanks to your post.

 

[Petr Kunc]

Hi Olaf
I've been told that Bmw is aware of problems with engine unit (CDI) and they are replacing them under warranty. And yes, i got this CDI FOC during this story. Might be it's your case. I will keep my fingers crossed.

 

[CountOlaf]

Hi Olaf
I've been told that Bmw is aware of problems with engine unit (CDI) and they are replacing them under warranty. And yes, i got this CDI FOC during this story. Might be it's your case. I will keep my fingers crossed.

Thanks Petr, I am out of warranty with quite a number of aftermarket mods. Let's see how BMW reacts. It would be great to get a picture of your cable whenever you get around doing this.