6th gen stalled will not restart.

My commute to work is about 8 miles, 3 miles city, then 4 interstate then 1 more mile in the city.

The bike ran beautifully for the first 7 miles. I took the exit for the last mile and as I'm coasting into the stop light and downshifting to make the right hand turn at the top of the exit the bike stalls out. First thought was no big deal.. .I pull the clutch and hit the start button and nothing. I then notice my clock is reset to 1am. I pull to the side of the road and try to give things a once over. I see the clock is at 1:04 am then try to start it again. The dash blanks out and the clock is again at 1am with no sign of trying to start.

I'm about a mile from work and no way I'm leaving my bike on the side of the road at an intersection at the top of an interstate exit ramp; so I start pushing. About a half hour later I make it to my work parking lot with the viffer at my side. AGain I try to start it and it clicks like a dead battery where as before I didnt' even get that.

Any thoughts as to what this could be? It's acting like the battery is fully dead. When I turn on the key all looks normal (no blink codes), but no sign to speak of for starting when the starter is pressed. The bike was kickstand up and in neutral and clutch in when I tried to strart it... the kill switch was also set to run.

I'm typing this at work sweating my ass off and haven't got time to give it a real look over. The battery is new as of the beginning of this spring.


Any thoughts or ideas would be greatly appreciated.

2002 VFR 800
All recalls completed
New battery as of this year
22 miles burned off a full tank of gas.

Chip

 

Sounds EXACTLY like a dead battery. the 8 mile trip to and from work really isn't enough to fully charge a battery. Even if you ride on the weekend by the time you get to Thursday those short trips will take a toll on your battery; it's just not charging enough to hold a charge. Consider a battery tender when you park at home during the week. For now take the battery out of the bike (optional) and charge it over night on a slow/trickle charger. Good luck.

 

I don't usually put it on a tender and it's been pretty much a daily driver, but I'll surely take your suggestion and try it.

It started very strong as it always does and it almost seemed as if the alternator was out.. runnign off battery til it died and couldnt' restart due to running the battery dead during driving.

Your suggesion is free. I have a 2 amp charger I'll put on it. I hope my work doesnt' mind if I leave the bike in the parking lot for a minimal amount of time.

 

If there is any way to get your hands on a voltmeter, check the voltage before you start the bike. If it starts and runs, see if the voltage is higher than your starting voltage measurement to verify that your charging system is working. If it is, then it might be as simple as a dirty battery cable connection at the battery terminal or the battery cable to its destination (ground to frame, etc.).

If the starter motor doesn't engage (clicking sound) with a fully charged battery AND the voltage on the battery isn't dropping much when you try to start it, that would definitely suggest a bad electrical connection. If the voltage takes a big dive when you hit the starter button, your battery might be bad.

 

I went and talked to our maintenance department. They hooked me up with a 2amp charger and a volt meter. Before hooking up the charger I was at 12.31 volts. It's on the charger now and when it gets enough charge to start I'll check the pre start volts then the running volts to see if the charging system is working. It'lll get to charge for about 2 hours.

I luckily found a space near our buliding with a power outlet to hook the battery charger into.

Thanks for the replys. Keep em coming and i'll post back with results.

 

*UPDATE*

Turned off the battery charger and voltage read 12.9x, attempted to start and it did start and run. Running voltage was reading 13.7x.

What should the running voltage and should I check the runnign voltage at a certain RPM?

 

I just checked the service manual, and it's kind of lame. Essentially, turn the high beams on and run the engine at 5000 RPM. If you have less than 15.5V, you're good; no minimum voltage is specified. I'd say if you have at least 13.8 you'll be OK, but that's "old world" knowledge and primarily comes from automotive systems.

I would still be suspicious of a bad connection, as your battery took a charge and the charging system seems to be working. Like SS pointed out, though, 8 miles isn't much running time, and bike systems don't have a lot of output.

 

LGN makes some very good points. If you still are having problems, cleaning and checking the connections is a great and easy (and free) step. If 2 hours on the charger brought you marginal results my personal bike radar still wants to point to a dead battery. A good over night charge "should" solve the problem unless the battery it not holding a charge. When the new battery was purchased was it trickle charged before use?

I would really suggest getting a battery tender for over night topping off. Since you seem to only ride for commute and for a short distance (assuming) it would really kill a battery pretty quick since longer rides are few and far between. You may have to do some really hard work and take the bike out for a long ride this weekend (after charging the battery over night of course). Try LGN's suggestions as well to really nail down the problem. Report back and good luck.

 

Junyr, I hate to tell you this, but I believe that your stator is fried. I'll explain why when I get an extra second.

 

Now back to our regularly scheduled programing. I'm doubting, based on your explanation, that the new battery is the problem. Although a fried stator will have similar symptoms as it kills the battery. A couple of weeks ago my bike was behaving just as yours was today. I stopped to gas up and it wouldn't start again, all the symptoms of a dead battery. I got it push started and headed out for a long ride thinking that the battery would get the needed charge. That ended up being a huge mistake.

Anyway, as I would come to a stop the bike would try to stall unless I kept the RPM's way up. Finally the bike does stall out while I'm doing about 10mph, and after several attempts to push start it failed, I had it towed 60 miles ($390 if memory serves) to the dealership. The first thing that they did was check the battery; very low voltage. Low enough to prevent a second push start, but once out of the bike it showed signs of taking a charge. The mechanic surmised that for that to happen something had to be going on with the R/R, the stator, or both. The stator came out first and sure enough, 3/4's of the ring was cooked. The battery ended up taking a full charge (14.5 volts) overnight while it was out of the bike, so no need to replace it. I had to replace the stator before the now charged battery would stay charged in the bike. The new stator was installed, allowing us to now check the R/R and it was also fine. Appearentley when a stator goes it will often enough take the battery and R/R out with it. Thankfully, not the case with mine, and hopefully, not with yours either.

If you have the know-how to remove your stator, I would start there. If it looks burned than you'll know that the unit is finished and you can save yourself an hour of diagnostic labor at the mechanics. If it is cooked then you'll need to make sure that the battery is accepting a full charge before you re-install it, along with the new stator. Also check your R/R for any obvious signs of damage.

My dealership got me for 1hr labor ($85) and parts ($320 for OEM), plus 1hr for the diagnostic and the battery charge, to make the needed repair.

 

Ouch! Expensive tow... I'm curious; did the dealership give you any indication of whether this happens a lot? I know the 4th and 5th Gens seem to have both the R/R and stator fail, but I don't recall many threads on the 6th having stators (or R/R's) fail.

 

The dealership said that they havn't seen many issues at all with the post '05 R/R. They did say that they've seen some stator failures at varying mileage, but not many. He blamed most failures on people who would consistently maintain less then the 5000rpm's required to keep a full charge and even then it was usually on bikes with 25K or more miles. Mine failed at 15K miles and I ride above 5000r's while cruising , so it's assumed that in my case it was just a bad unit to begin with.

 

Interesting... Junyr, are you having the same problem with having to keep the revs up at low rpms? You didn't say you had that issue before so if you can clear that up it might help everyone.

 

When it happened it just died. I didn't have time really to try to see if it'd stay running at higher rpms since I was off throttle coming to a stop light. AFter my 2 hour charge I rode it a couple blocks near work while my wife was on the way to pick me up. It ran exactly like I'd expect it to. Not a sign of any type of issue. I ran it through the gears, high rpm, and first gear idle putting in the parking lot... It's still at the work lot and likely tomorrow me and the wife will head out there and I'll see if I can get it home. Worst case scenario for me is a UHaul bike-trailer is 20 bucks to rent for 24 hours.

After I rode the bike wile waiting for my wife I checked the voltage with the engine off and it was at abotu 12.75, then 20 mins later it read the same. Engine running at about 3500rpms is just shy of 14 volts, 13.7 - 13.8. at the battery terminals.

 

One more update... still haven't got it home yet due to camping, but did go back to work and check it out again... The battery is holding a charge still, even enough for it to still start. This is near a full 24 hours after putting a 2amp charger on it for 2 hours and driving it maybe an eighth of a mile. I'm pretty positive the battery isn't an issue. STator maybe. When I get home I'll give it a good going over.