View Full Version : brake failure flashing
was riding this week in a lot of rain and frosty conditions... last night the red triangle and the brake failure light started flashing whilst driving .... I quickly tested the function of front and rear and had a look at the container on the handle bar....all good... so i drove carefully home.....
this morning I went to work and luckily all seems to be normal again...
Did anyone experience the same thing ??
Is it just a electrical fuck up with all the bad weather ??
2004 gs , 32 mls, fluid was replaced 2 month ago
Sometimes on the older GSs there can be a problem when the handguard moves round and fouls on the front brake lever, just activating the microswitch.
Rick
i also had the same problem ,it was a rear brake light switch sticking ,easily cured with a squirt of wd40,but bmw changed as it was only a week after i bought the bike.
off course a fault with the front brake light switch would do the same thing but if your using your bike in this weather its more likely to be salt and crap around the rear.:thumb
I'm not sure about a 1200 but on the 1100/1150 a flashing brake warning triangle was also an indication your brake light lamp was defective. Mine used to come on now and again and a new bulb sorted it. :blagblah
I would start by replacing the rear light bulb. In my old 1150, I got a warning light, even though the rear light and stop lamp were both working (apparently). Was told that it could have been the rear light filament blew, but the clever system sent the current to the stop light filament, so it looked like both were working or the bulb was on the way out and therefore not working properly all the time.
It's a quick & cheap fixto try before you get involved in anything more complicated (and if you are me probably cock something up that was fine before).
I'm not sure about a 1200 but on the 1100/1150 a flashing brake warning triangle was also an indication your brake light lamp was defective. Mine used to come on now and again and a new bulb sorted it. :blagblah
This might depend on if they have the LED rear light or the bulb one.
However if you do have the bulb one be aware that BMW had a nifty way of sorting things so that if a filament in either brake or riding light failed that the circuits switched over to a "get home mode" of sharing one filament so that lights would still appear to work. Obviously you still have a fault and the remaining filament in the bulb might fail quicker because of it
I had the guard fouling thing too, worth a quick look :
thanks guys.....:) so far it hasn't happen again and everything seems to be in perfect order. yeagh
but i will have a go with wd40 on the brake light switches and the bulb housing anyway..... corrosion is not a friend here as I'm living next to the sea and the place is wind swept. ....it also happend when driving in heavy rain and just after spinning the back wheel in a bit of sand that was blown onto the road... so the salty stuff could go anywhere
In that case ignore it mate, assuming the brakes function ok i recon its just done a bit check whilst in motion
I think that on the 1200 you get yellow triangle warning and a symbol comes up on the LCD screen.
For now I'd give everything a check over, clean and squirt with WD40 where appropriate.
Rick
The red triangle of death and brake failure warning (with no evidence adverse brake problems) MAY be a precursor to the speed sensor in the rear wheel packing up.... If you get a speedo needle that takes on St Vitus' Dance too, that is almost certainly what it is....
It can also manifest itself if the battery charge is low... not hard if it's cold out.... I might well bet on that, lacking any better evidence.
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