Long-term BMW R12 nineT test update three | Saffron suffers an attack of the gremlins...

This year’s cross-continent adventure on the MCN Fleet BMW R12 Nine T took me through the Swiss Alps as I headed to BMW’s Motorrad Days in Garmisch-Partenkirchen, Germany.

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• Update one: First impressions after two months
• Update two: Time to see how the retro fares on a wet Welsh weekender
• Update four: Long pillion journey for the BMW
• Update five: The Long Way… to Garmisch

But I’ll write about the adventure in the next update, because I have a few issues to talk about first.

The trip began with 150 miles to the Channel Tunnel, and as I sitting in the queue to board, my dash lit up with a fob fault, and then a high beam headlamp fault. The bike started fine when it was time to go, so I continued on, and after the 30-minute break on the train (where the high beam stayed on longer than usual once I’d turned the bike off) the faults disappeared.

Regardless, I stopped at a dealer in Reims on my way to Dijon, and they plugged it in but said the bike was fine.

Thankfully, I had no issues through France, Switzerland, Austria and into Germany despite battling all manner of weather. I began to think the faults were just a momentary glitch… but they came back with gusto.

So close to home

The trip back took me from the bottom of Germany to the midlands of England in two days. It was a pretty standard ride until my last fuel stop, just 40 miles from home. I pulled in at the services and switched the bike off. I thought it unusual the ABS light stayed on but figured it would disappear by the time I’d had a drink. But when I came back to the bike the ABS light was still illuminated… odd.

But, wanting to get home, I tried to turn the bike on. I could hear the click as the starter tried to engage but there was nothing happening.

Related: Best retro bike kit

I walked away, thinking perhaps the fob fault from earlier had come back and I needed to reset the proximity. But no. Trying all the tricks I could think of, I cycled the killswitch and the bike thankfully started, but I had no dash (except for the ABS light) no headlight, no indicators and no brake lights.

I had to repeat the starting process after getting fuel, and then I pulled back onto the A14 with no working electrics. Thankfully, I could remember all the hand signals from my theory test eight years ago and managed to get home safely.

The questions continue

After 10 hours in the saddle, I unloaded the bike, gave it a quick scrub and locked it up, still aware the ABS light was showing on the dash, but with no energy left to worry at that point.

After spending the following day at my desk, I peeked into the garage to see if the problem had resolved itself. Thankfully, everything flashed up as normal, but now the battery didn’t have enough juice to turn the engine over.

As this was now officially a breakdown, I gave the BMW emergency line a call and they sent a tech out to my location.

Unfortunately, as it’s such a new model the technician wasn’t au fait with the bike (and usually worked on cars rather than bikes). But he was a lovely chap, so I showed him how to turn the bike on, where the battery points were (it sits under the tank rather than the seat) and he declared the battery was fine – it was just flat.

He jump-started it and I rode to the nearest Motorrad dealership, Wollaston in Northampton, so their tech team could investigate.

Official diagnosis…or a lack thereof, so far

After Wollaston had taken some time to assess the bike I was told that after a couple of road rides and lots of plugging into computers, they couldn’t replicate the faults. So, nothing could be done to fix the machine, because they couldn’t identify a problem.

Now, the BMW is back in my garage, and I’ve only done a day trip around the Cotswolds where it seemed to behave itself. Let’s see what happens next. See next time for my Garmisch adventure.

Likes: Alpine mountain passes

Dislikes: Electrical faults

Previous updates:

• BMW R12 nineT long-term test update one | First impressions after two months and 1288 miles
• BMW R12 nineT long-term test update two | Time to see how the retro fares on a wet Welsh weekender