Hey Sirs, I have noticed a lot of threads about the regulator/rectifier here. How much is this a chronic problem? Are some model years more prone than others? What is the defence against a failure on the road? I know all bikes have their quirks but this has me wondering? Thanks for your help in understanding of this issue.
I don't think there has been a comprehensive reliability study to say that one year would be worse or better than another. I have had to change out one as my lights started to flicker. When I changed it the bike was 12 years old so I suppose it's not bad really. I think this issue stands out only because there is very little to fault on the bike. Thisis the only real issue and it isn't really that common. I met a fella in Canada with 177,000 kms on his 91 model and it had eaten only one RR unit in that time. Some of the fellas put cooling fans on them in an affort to extent the life. It will probably outlast the fan and you will spend more on fans over the years. Who knows.
When I bought my 93, the owner told me they had replaced the R/R. he did not say wheather or not it was because the OEM had gone bad or not and I was not real concerned with it. He did say the replacemnt was a better unit than the OEM one, but then I believe the OEM's got a redesign at some point. To date, I have had no issues with the r/r doing it's job.
