Out of fuel or something more serious?

[rikstill]

Hi,

I am a little sorry to be posting this having only been a Monster S4 (2001, 4800miles) owner for 1 week! Anyway as I drove home yesterday, after my second proper outing, the bike completely died on me. I was doing around 70mph on the motorway and the engine simply died.

I was testing the tank range of the bike having only just put in the first full tank of fuel but the warning light was not on although I had done 127miles so was expecting it come come on imminently. Anyway I called the 5th emergency service, known as the wife, and a gallon of fuel was duly delivered.

However the bike did not start, I switched to jumping from the car which also failed. After a bit of web surfing without much joy I gave it once last shot and it started. I rode home OK but this morning it wouldn't start at all.

I have looked around on the web and forums for tank range and fuel light issues and as far as I can tell fuel level senders are notoriously crap and the tank tank range can be anything from 100miles to 165miles. I would guess my MPG to be fairly poor simply due to living on the outskirts of London having done a week of commuting around town so I can could easily have simply run out of fuel as I thought.

Does any of this sound familiar to anyone? Would running out of fuel cause these kind of issues or does it sound more electrical?

The rest if the electrical system seems OK (superficially anyway), the lights come on, fuses are not blown, it turned over plenty of times before it ran out of battery, the battery seems to be charging OK...

[retskcid]

I would fill it with fuel and try it again, I refuel on 100 miles (about when my light comes on!). Also, check you are getting 14ish volts at the battery when its running - these bikes like lots of battery power and seem to eat them, I'm on my second battery in two years.

[rikstill]

Hi, thanks for the reply, I will check the battery, at only 4700 miles in 9 years it must have stood around doing little for quite much of that time probably with the battery flat I am assuming. Refilling at a 100 miles also seem like a sensible idea

[rac3r]

I know mine is a 620 but I have to fill up at about 100 miles as well. Did it cough or splutter when before it died? And when you tried to restart it did the electrics come on?

[rikstill]

No coughing or spluttering, its been while since I ran out of fuel but you do normally get a bit of warning don't you... I found various articles about checking the fuel sensor so that seems like one thing to rule out.

[gary tompkins]

When I ran out of fuel on the M25 it just stopped, no spluttering or warning. EFI bikes tend to stop just like flicking the kill switch when empty, where carbed bikes would splutter a bit before conking out.

[rikstill]

Thanks Gary, did you have any problems getting going again after you got hold of some fuel?

[gary tompkins]

Nope - other than waiting for RAC to turn up :worried:

Stuck a gallon in and it started first press of the button

[Capo]

The fuel pump is both product lubricated and cooled, it does not like to be run dry

[rikstill]

Thanks, Capo. At this stage I am not even sure if it ran dry or not, I will check the fuel light tonight if I can.

[littlejimmy12]

I also have a 2002 s4 and I've been having some cutting out probs as well. Has died on me 4 times in the past 4 weeks, I leave it to stand and then it comes back to life for no apparent reason, very odd. I'm going to get it checked out next week and I'll post the findings.

[rikstill]

Good luck! I am going to try and get mine in the shop this week, just have to get it there... I did manage to rule out the fuel light as not being faulty. Not that it helps me much. Now I am trying to assemble a suitable collection of tubes to drain the fuel tank to see if the sensor is faulty.

[rikstill]

Well, it has a full tank of fuel and a fully charged battery battery but it's definitely not playing ball. Turns over plenty but not even a hint of combustion.

[Bodybag]

Sounds like duff coils to me. I had it on my front cylinder but it may be that the previous owner had an issue with the front coil and simply swapped them over. It could be that the front coil has gone again so you have two duff coils. Pull the front coil out (if you can get it past the front wheel and check that its not split like a sausage as they have a tendency to let water in past the rubber seal.

Hope this helps?

Bodybag

[rikstill]

Thanks bobby, its now on the lost of things to check. I had a coil go on my old TRX, it caused no end of mayhem before I figured it out.