'08 GSA tire pressure monitoring problem

New to me 2008 GSA. Recently both the front and rear tire pressure displays have gone out. According to the manual, one or more of the sensors have failed since I get the "---:---" symbol along with the yellow General Warning light on steady.

Yes, I've had the bike out well above 20mph, so that tells me it isn't a "signal transmission disrupted". Also discount that is that I have the solid General Warning light.

Any ideas on what this could be, other than the obvious failure of both sensors? I would hate to see how much they cost to replace. Since I didn't get the "RDC!" warning, I'm assuming it isn't a sensor battery issue. They both went within a week of each other. I had no tire or wheel work done, just went to ride it and the went away.

The tire pressures no long report in the display:

If just one sensor goes out, it will blank out both readings until you get the bad one replaced. Could be a batt went out. On my 2007, I found the batts lasted about 80,000 miles or 5 years.

Anyone know if this is a DIY thing or does it have to be done by the dealer?

The batteries are not supposed to be replacable. You have to buy a new sensor. I have seen where one guy was able to repace a battery in the TPM by cutting out the glue that holds them in, but it is a bit funky. Your problem is that you don't know which sensor is bad. As mine were going out you could tell by the fact that instead of getting a reading in just a few seconds when you start riding, it would take minutes before the reading would come on the dash. Eventually, they just give up the ghost. They are bout $150 a piece. Oh, and when you get a new sensor, it does have to be reprogrammed by the dealer.

Ughhhhh. :eek1

Oh well, nobody ever said owning a BMW was cheap!

I had my sensors replaced about six months ago. At the time my display read bland as it does in your pic. Now, my reading is 29/29, although I know the pressure in both is about 33psi. The right 29 (back tire?) is blinking and the RED alert is blinking. The tech at BMW says those display readings are rarely accurate, but everything else is reading correct...clock, range, temp, etc. Pain in the ass.

It will blink and mark red if it reaches a low level.. Have you tried reading the pressure with a gauge? Maybe it's truly low? - if you bought the sensors new, they should be more accurate and should last a couple of years ..


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1) You can change the battery by peeling off the silicone potting compound over the battery and cutting the battery loose. It is a common CR2032 coin cell (except the original has welded tabs to connect to the PCB). It is a bit fiddly but it can be done with a little care. Connect the new battery and silicone it to hold the battery back in. Cost is about $1 for the battery and your labour.
2) You can buy clone sensors from China for about $20 each, just in the process of trying this on a friends 2008 GSA. When his sensors failed he could identify them because first the front wheel failed (leaving only the rear reading) and then about 3 weeks later the rear failed. So my experience is that they will fail individually (and the good one will continue to transmit) but since they were likely made at the same time and have about the same usage they will likely fail close to the same time.
If you look at the GS911 TPMS pages it appears to allow the setting of the sensor serial numbers in order to install new sensors. Will have a better idea of how this works in a few days as we plan to replace the sensors on my friend's GSA with the cheap clones this weekend.

I have done a few replacements.
Soldering directly to the button cell will damage it (shortened life). You need to purchase cells with solder tabs.
I found some on fleabay a couple of years ago.
In the end if you do this for yourself and don't charge for your time, it might be worth it. Digging out the epoxy takes time and patience if you don't want to damage the circuit board and components inside. Sealing with RTV silicone is the easiest part of the mod.
I made a spinner to test them so I did not have to install on the bike to make sure they worked.
Your bike will be off the road for 24hrs+ to allow the silicone to cure.
The GS 911 does allow setting serial #s of new ones.

I agree that the solder tab batteries are the best and that your chances of soldering a non tabbed battery are very poor to non existent. You can find the tabbed batteries but not as easily (and at a greater cost) as the standard ones. I think that one of the places that had them the last time I looked was Digikey. It does take a lot of time and patience to free everything, that is why we are trying the $20 option this time.

i bought a couple of tpms from Amazon, both were like $120 I think.. didn't wake up, so I wrote to the seller who without asking for reasons sent me another pair.. (I was suspicious why he didnt ask me to double check if the sensors were ok).. new pair didn't work either.. tried the battery replacement and one of the four worked for a week only.. ended up buying the original sensors from a dealership.. no more drama

I've done the battery replacement too, no worse than fiddly if you take your time. I got the batteries with tabs from Amazon and re-sealed the sensors with hot melt. Worked first time with issues. Its a low cost try compared to new sensors so I'd say give it a go. If you wanted to take your time you could pop normal valves in while you're doing the batteries?

Interested in how this works out. Can you keep us posted as to how the clones worked out? My '09 GSA isn't exhibiting any of the signs and symptoms yet (it only had 6900 miles on it when I bought it in July), but I want to be prepared for the inevitable and don't like the BMW price tag. Also interested in if my GS911 will allow programming for the clone sensors!

Can you forward the clone sensor info to this thread?

Thanks in advance,
John

hi DaveCR
a lot of sensor from ebay or amazon doesn't come with bar code, is the dealer one come with bar code?
my 2008 r1200gs sensor battery run out a few weeks ago.....
thanks!

The clone sensors are iffy at best. The replacement of the battery is easy. Send a PM to Heloflights and ask him to send you his notes on the subject. He will even tell you where to get the perfect batteries with the tabs on them.

Update on clone sensors. Friend got 4 of them for about $20 each along with a note saying that they were tested and if he had trouble with them to contact them before leaving bad feedback (eBay). We installed two after noting the serial numbers. He forgot to bring his laptop to hook up the GS911 so he just rode the bike home without trying to set up the new sensors. Initial problem after hooking up the GS911 was that the serial numbers aren't the ID numbers for the sensors so you cannot do the direct entry of the ID number into the GS911. He tried to do a wakeup on the sensor by dropping the tire pressure and letting the GS911 pick up the ID number, no luck there. We took the two sensors that were not installed and tried to wake them up by spinning them, no luck. We put the bike in gear on the centre stand and spun the rear wheel for about 5 minutes, no luck. I am picking up a TPMS tool this weekend that has the capability to wake up sensors and read the ID so that is the next step. Hard to believe that he got four defective sensors but it is a possibility.
The new sensors are identical to the ones that came with the bike. Aside from different serial numbers you could not tell them apart if the are placed side by side.

You might try waking up the sensors with a magnet, before you spend the $$. Wave a strong magnet at the area of the Schroeder valve to see if that works.

Tried the magnet along with the other tricks, no luck on anything. I now have the tool but it requires you to enter the CAR make and model before it tries to read the sensor. Works fine on my car but I haven't gotten it to read the data from a bike sensor although it may be waking the sensor up and just not reading. More experimentation this week.

I bought this TPM and installed it on BMW metal valve stems...the BMW sensors but they cannot be activated since they were not in the vehicle order when the bike was manufactured. So I bought this and it works very well. Since you have metal valve stems, this is a lot easier to mess with and it works.
BTW, Beemer Boneyard has the sensors for around $75 ea.

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0..._m=ATVPDKIKX0DER&pf_rd_r=1KBXT9C9S1XTRJYS33Z7

My '08 GS started having intermittent zero (---:---) readings about 6 months ago. Typically, but not always, the front reading would drop first, then both readings would be lost. Resetting the bike didn't help, but sometimes after the bike sat for a couple of days, they would start working normally again.

I took it to the dealer to diagnose -- they replaced both sensors, assuming it was the transmitter batteries (second time - first set was replaced in 2012). All worked fine leaving the dealer and for a few days afterward; then it started again. Brought it back to dealer, who was quite puzzled and they ran it through some special service channel through BMW's system (I forgot the name of this support system, but it's evidently like what I would describe as a Tier-3 level support in the IT world, where you actually get a senior engineer to look at and resolve your case). After several hours, they realized that there was a higher-level software integration load for the RDC computer (located under the rear seat), so they installed that update.

Again, everything worked normally for a couple of days, then the identical intermittent problems recurred. Do these controllers ever fail? The dealer is suggesting that should be the next logical step, but can't guarantee that that will solve the problem -- and of course, it's out of warranty. The unit is also backordered. I'm already out the cost for two replacement sensors. Any ideas?