Low cost CAN bus diagnostics tool for BMW motorcycles

Posted: 7/20/2018

If you own a later model BMW motorcycle, then you may realize that BMW supports a CAN bus diagnostics port on their bikes.  This is akin to the OBDII diagnostics port found in all modern automobiles.  If you have the right equipment, this port allows you to help troubleshoot a variety of problems with your bike.  For example you can get a readout of various status and operating parameters of the bikes engine, electrical, ABS, various controllers, and other functionality. You can also get a readout of an error code if present, as well as the ability to reset it.  For those that do their own service, such CAN bus diagnostics equipment also allows you to reset the annoying "Service" message to remind you when it is time to take your bike to the dealer and get your wallet cleaned out.

For those do-it-yourself types, an aftermarket product by Hexcode known as the GS-911 supports these diagnostic port capabilities.  They offer various versions of this product, with the "enthusiast" version supporting connection to up to 10 unique bikes for $400, and a "professional" version for unlimited bike support for $750.

But if the cost of the GS-911 still seems high, there is an alternative that I have happened upon that works for my 2015 F800GS Adv. It involves 3 ingredients:

1. OBDII diagnostics port module with a bluetooth capability (ELM327 compatible) for communicating with your smart phone or tablet.  You may already have such a device if you do any type of work or diagnostics on your car.  The one I have used for this article is the: BAFX Products Bluetooth Diagnostic OBDII Reader/Scanner for Android Devices.  You can get this for $22 from Amazon here: http://a.co/9pm1MyB

2. An OBDII to BMW 10 port diagnostics port cable.  You can get this also for $22 from Amazon here.

3. An app for your phone or tablet designed to utilize this setup: Motoscan.  It is from a German software company (WGSoft.de) that specializes in OBD2 scanning tools.  It is expensive as far as apps are concerned ($27), but a heck of lot cheaper than the alternatives.  Note that this diagnostics app is not the same of the more popular Torque and other OBDII apps also out there, with some being free. While they may work for reading some of the status information, you will not be able to do more specialized things like resetting error codes or the pesky service interval message.  Motoscan is specifically designed for BMW motorcycles and seems to understand their proprietary codes and can handle these other tasks.

The process for using this tool is fairly straightforward.  The app should be installed first on your preferred device while working with the bike.  Keep in mind that if you want to carry this tool with you on some of your bigger road trips, you may want to use your phone due to its portability.  Motoscan supports an evaluation version with limited capabilities that is free.  You can use this first to verify the entire setup works before buying the full version.  Use of the app is fairly self explanatory, and you should refer to it for more information.

After installing the app, the next step is to find the diagnostics port on your motorcycle.  For the BMW F800GS, this is under the seat, as held by a plastic clamp, and with the port covered by a plastic screw-on cap (pictured to the right).  With the bike off, remove the cap and plug one end of the diagnostics cable into the port.  Next, plug the OBDII diagnostics Bluetooth module to the other end of the cable. After making these connections you can then turn on the bike and begin by pairing the bluetooth OBDII module to your phone.  After doing that, you can then start up the Motoscan app.  If it works, then you should be able to get a reading of various operating parameters of your bike such as engine temperature, RPM, etc.   If you have positive results, then you will want to purchase the fully functional app in order to do more useful things like resetting error codes or the service interval message.

That's it!  All this for about $70, and at the same time also having an OBDII diagnostics capability for your automobile as well.  I have used it with my 2016 Subaru Outback in conjunction with the Torque app and it seems to work fine for that as well. Note: The directions and setup described here pertain to 2015 and older BMW motorcycles with the 10 pin CAN-bus diagnostics port.  Starting in 2016 BMW has switched to a different style diagnostic port known as the LIN-bus.  This requires a different setup that I have not researched. The Hexcode GS-911 product line does have support for this as well.

Update (1/2/2021):

Based on feedback I have recieved and that posted in advrider.com for this thread, the newer versions of the Motoscan app will no longer work with the BAFX Products Bluetooth Diagnostic OBDII Reader/Scanner tool that I referenced in this original article.  The app will complain that it "can't write long messages" when you attempt to perform a service reset operation. There are two possible workarounds (that I am aware of) to this issue:

1. Roll back your installation of the Motoscan Android app to version 0.56.
To do this, you will need to download this from the Motoscan app vendor here and install this manually without going through Google Play.  The easiest way is to download the installation .apk file to your 'Download' folder on your phone, uninstall the original app via Settings, then using the 'My Files' app navigate over to the 'Download' folder, find the .apk file you just downloaded, and execute it.  Once you open the app it may initially be confused and operate in the free 'Lite' mode.  Once I went through the menu selection to upgrade, it seemed to recognize that I already had purchased the upgrade, and transitioned to the 'Professional' mode.  I tried this and was successful in getting the app to work correctly reading/clearing trouble codes, and in resetting my service information using the BAFX OBDII scanner. Note that although successful, when I went to the bluetooth scanner configuration status, it still warned me that my BAFX OBDII scanner was incompatible with long messages.  But nevertheless, it worked sufficient for my goals.

2. Get a newer OBDII scanner that supports long messages.  One I have seen referenced to work is the 'OBDLink LX OBD2 Bluetooth Scanner for Android and Windows'.  As found on Amazon for $59.95, it is more expensive than the older BAFX OBDII version that I originally referenced.

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