I had a short conversation with him shortly after I purchased my C400GT when he was only charging $50USD for the software changes.
We chatted about the BMW TPMS setup. From my understanding, the TPMS receiver module would be ‘McGivered’ in as there’s no optional connection point.
I’m definitely not comfortable with the approach.
I hope the info helps.
@byee ,
@Rugerbear , et al.:
Phad's later position seemed to be that the receiver module is not needed for the more recent model years of the C 400 GT (such as my 2023).
Please read through this post of mine from October 2024, and see if you can make sense of it:
https://www.bmw-scooters.com/threads/tpms-programming.3294/#post-27798
On the plus side, it's nice to know that Phad's certainly added TPMS and made relevant TFT programming changes to support that on one or more C 400 GTs, as seen in some of the videos on his channel (
https://www.youtube.com/@phadmotorrad531/videos ).
On the minus side:
- It's not clear (to me, anyway) what model year(s) he's messed with.
- The service manager at my local BMW dealership was completely uninterested in this work (or I failed to clearly and emphatically make my desire understood).
- All the receipts I get from that dealership have boilerplate text on them, stating that if the owner messes with the firmware on the bike it will void the warranty (although from what I read about such disclaimers they are of questionable legality, i.e., it would have to be shown that such changes affected whatever went wrong with a bike).
Whenever these TPMS threads come up they just increase my blood pressure. That is, they're a reminder that it pisses me off that BMW went to the sideways in-a-spoke placement of the Schrader valves. Why they couldn't just have a hole in the circumference of the rims -- the way EVERY other manufacturer does this -- so we could just add external sensors, is beyond me.
I'd drill such a hole in the front rim myself, or have a shop do it, except that the rims are also slightly V-shaped, which might interfere with proper sealing of an additional Schrader valve. My Meteor 350 has similar slightly V-shaped rims, but the holes where the valves go through the rim are surrounded by a small flattened-out area of the rim.
Sometimes BMW has good ideas, but sometimes they're just jerks, going against the grain because they can. I am reminded about the power-assisted brakes they had years back. No one asked for them, no one needed them, they added needless complexity, and they made moving a turned-off bike around a garage a task fraught with peril.
And then there's the related issue of why BMW just didn't incorporate
internal TPMS sensors on the C 400 bikes, they way they did on almost all their other bikes. Apparently they made some sort of provision for this, as Phad has determined.
Is the C 400 a second-class machine in their opinion? I foresee bad things for the C 400, at least in Europe and Asia, given increasing competition from the likes of Voge and Zontes. Those bikes have very similar specs, but more features, and cost a lot less.
Oh, look, you got me started. Sorry (a little bit) for the rant ...
