I bought my brand new 2023 RG3 just a few weeks ago, and rode it the 173 km each way to and from my HD dealer last Saturday. It proved to be an eventful day, for multiple reasons:


The Weather:

I had picked A Saturday for the trip, since the route involved both divided and undivided highway segments, through areas with high volume weekday commuting cagers and triple-pup semi rigs, and a Saturday would make the ride quiet versus too exciting. Our weather here HAS been nightly lows of 8C to 10 C = 46F to 50F, but when Saturday morning arrived, it flourished in at 2C = 36F. COLD!!


The Erroneous HD advice on how to power the NEW line of 12 volt heated riding gear:

I put on my brand new HD 12 volt heated jacket liner, but could not find my HD heated glove liners, so had to leave wearing unheated gloves. Lookiing at the frontal view of an RG3:



You would THINK "no problem", since you cannot see the hand grips behind the sharknose fairing, but you would be proved wrong! The cold wind blast DOES get to your hands! My wife found the heated glove liners after I had left - they had fallen down from a closet shelf to a spot behind an old tank bag, but by then I was on the highway at 60 mph and my hands were getting COLD!

I was glad that I had at least the newest HD heated jacket liner, which has nano-circuit technology, and which made me comfortably warm at first. But somewhere in the 20 to 30km range of riding, I noticed that I was no LONGER "comfortably warm", and wondered why. At 52 km into the ride, I stopped in a safe spot and checked things out. The lighting on the heated jacket liner had turned OFF! No, I did not accidentally turn it off. I theorized that it had turned off because it blew the fuse, and later investigation proved that was correct.

The REASON it blew the fuse is that the HD dealership misled me by saying i could simply connect the jacket liner's COAX harness to my existing battery tender SAE harness to get power for it, by using a COAX to SAE adaptor cable. Official HD product introduciton videos and even some aftermarket videos, both still online, say you can do this. But that is NOT true. The actual user instructions booklet that comes with the heated jacket liner and the heated glove liners says specifically that you must use the wiring harness provided with the heated products, AND you must run it DIRECTLY to the battery terminals.

The reason for this becomes clear when you examine the fuse HD puts into the dedicated heated gear harness: it's a FIFTEEN amp fuse! The battery tender harness is fused with only a 7.5 amp fuse, so naturally, once I got well onto the highway, and the cold penetrated past my Klim Badlands jacket layer, the heated jacket liner, which is now THERMOSTAT controlled, sensed that it needed more power, and did draw more power, blowing the batteyr tender 7.5 amp fuse. I checked the user manual specifications after my return trip, and they say that the heated gear system can draw as much as 10 amps CONTINUOUSLY, with the jacket liner itself being the BIG power user, and the power draw can briefly peak much higher to GET you to the required temperature level (You have a choice of 3 different temperature levels). This is why you need the 15 amp fuse and a separate DIRECT connection to the battery.

Furthermore, if you have a passenger using heated gear, she must have her OWN separate harness (Yes, TWO separate harnesses for rider and passenger). This is because HER usage added to YOUR usage, will blow even the 15 amp fuse. HD did not want to fuse the system any higher for obvious safety reasons.

Unfortunately, HD's product introduction staff apparently did not know any of this, and so produced introductory videos, which the HD dealers believed, and so buyers like me ran into this problem the first time they rode in really cold temperatures. The user manual that I got with my relatively recent purchase (about 2 months ago) finally gives users the correct information, but NO ONE at my HD dealership knew any of this, probably because tha dealership does not sell the HD heated gear products - they only take special orders for them. They stock only a different, less expensive and inferior aftermarket line of heated gear. Not great.

Melted Wiring:

Before my first service, I had while washing and waxing the chariot at about 1100 km, had discovered that it had a sleeved segment containing 3 or 4 separate insulated wires inside it, which led into a 2 inch long plastic "terminator" that led "nowhere". This sleeved segment and terminator was evidently intended to be clipped via a plastic clip to the frame of the RG3, on the right hand side, right near the hottest part of the exhaust system: the cat. Unfortunately, the HD factory had either failed to actually attach the clip to the frame, OR the clip had come loose and allowed the sleeve and terminator to contact the exhaust, because that wiring sleeve and the terminator both had been MELTED by the heat of the cat!



I had called my HD dealership's service manager to report the problem right away, he did some quick investigating at his end, and called me back about an hour later. he said at that time that this sleeved wiring section and terminator are "unused" on my trike model, and if no trouble code had appeared, it wa safe to ride the trike, and he would replace the wiring at my 1600 km service.

When I got the 1600 km service, he filled me in completely. That wiring section is part of the standard trike wiring harness, but is actually used only on California trikes. On non-California models, the terminator simply seals that unused wiring. So, the remedy was to remove that section entirely, since being in Canada, I am obviously far from California. This was billed back to HD under warranty.


BOOM! "Info" screens:

Since I bought my RG3 brand new only a few weeks ago, I had not yet even read the separate user manual for the BOOM! system. While waiting at the dealership for my chariot's first service to be completed, I watched an online video on the system, and learned that among other features, it has an "information" set of 4 separate screens. These screens contain a LOT of informaiton, but some of it is puzzling.

For example, there is a screen that includes an "Oil" status, which simply reports that the oil is "OK". What does THAT mean? Does it mean that the oil LEVEL is ok? Does it mean that the oil PRESSURE is ok? Or does it mean that the oil TEMPERATURE is ok? Or does it mean that ALL 3 are ok??

It also reports the individual tire pressures for the front tire, the right rear tire and the left rear tire. That's great, because I can easily now see the tire psi effects when I try different psi than HD recommends, since their 26 psi recommendation for the rear tires is way too high. Unfortunately, if I go too low, the TPMS (the tire pressure management system) will apparently light up a low psi light, and HD does not tell you at what psi it will do so, nor whether it will do so when the tires are COLD or when they are HOT. This is too bad, since optimal HOT tires pressures are apparently supposed to be +10% for UNdriven wheel tires and +10% to +20% for DRIVEN wheel tires. Most trike users seem to find 20 or 21 COLD psi to provide an optimized (but apparently still harsh) ride, but apparently that triggers the TPMS alert. So, I will need to experiment some more. Right now, I am running 33 psi in the front tire and just over 23 psi in the rear tires with decent ride results, but I think i will try going lower and see if I get that TPMS alert. The HD service manager though warned me that at least on some touring models, riders have reported that even dropping just 2 psi cna from the HD recommendations can trigger a TPMS alert light.

The BOOM! screen most useful to me is the one that has a nice large DIGITAL speedometer in its centre. That speedo is MUCH easier for me to read than the analog one, because it is way more precise to read AND is not made less legible by the BRIGHT sunlight we get here at our 3000 foot elevation!

That same Info screen provides a "trip" summary for your last trip that includes distance traveled and MPG! I activated this for my trip home and the results were noteworthy. This screen reported that my distance traveled was EXACTLY the same distance that Google maps shows for the route I took. So, the odometer is accurate, which is a big improvement over the odometer on my previous Breakout, which was about 3 or 4% optimistic.

This screen also reported that my trike used 8.93 liters of fuel to cover the 173 kilometers, which means my trike average 5.16 L / 100 km = 45.6 mpg. The screen rounds MPG to one decimal only, so it reported 5.2 L / 100km. My subsequent manual calculations to check the accuracy of this data seem to confirm that it was accurate.

That was achieved while using cruise control at 97 kph = 60 mph for almost the entire trip, at 17 degrees C = 62.6 degrees F (MUCH warmer than the very cold morning!!), and with a moderate headwind/crosswind at 45 degrees against my direction of travel.


Oil Temperature:

I checked the oil temperature once during the 173 km return trip. I pulled off the highway, stopped, applied the foot brake, quickly leaned down while still on the trike, hit the button to turn on the LED disptick temperature display, and saw 202 degrees F. THis was even lower than the 214 F maximum temperature I had found on a previous ride that had been dedicated to capturing the oil temperature. So, apparently, despite the HD Bluetooth tuner's "gauge' function displaying MUCH higher temperatures for the top of the rear CYLINDER HEAD (temperatutres over 300F), the oil temperature stays a LOT cooler, and well within the HD claimed "normal" of 230 degrees, IF you keep the speed moderate, and IF the ambient outdoor temperature is moderate. But, forum member MikeRG3 has reported oil temperature in the high 260s at high highway speed with him, his wife, and some gear on the RG3. So, forum sponsor DK Custom's recommended engine cooling ideas should be taken seriously.


Like I said at the beginning of this thread, that first 1600km service and the rides to and from it, were eventful.

​​​​​​​Jim G

 

Sorry you had that drama. Ugh.

I put Memphis Shades hand-guards on my ‘22 Road Glide Special and while they do catch bugs and rocks I still used my HD glove liners and jacket liner in cold weather.

I ran HD’s current generation heated gear (not the recently phased out line of gear) plugged into the battery tender last winter and haven’t had any issues. I haven’t tried it yet on my ‘24 FLHP.

 

I installed the dedicated wiring harness for the heated gear yesterday. I haven't yet had an opportunity to test it with the 15 amp fuse. I am curious as to what combinations of ambient temperature and road speed drive up the current enough to blow the fuse on the battery tender harness (typically 7.5 amp apparently?).

What fuse size was installed on your battery tender harness?

What ambient temperature did you use the jacket liner and gloves at? (I see you are in North Carolina).

And at what highway speed?

And for how long? (It takes a while for the cold to penetrate a good outer jacket layer)

Jim G

 

The factory battery tender connector is protected by the 20 amp P&A fuse.

 

I see a set of heated hand grips in your future.

https://www.harley-davidson.com/us/e...ips/p/56100568

Have some on my trike that I use sometimes if I do not have my heated gloves.

 

I would hope the TPMS works like it does on my car and that is when I set the tyre pressure to my preference I reset the monitors in the car for them to learn what I want it to monitor.

 

The battery tender wiring harness may be attached to a circuit protected by a 20 amp fuse, but unfortunately, the HD service manager and parts manager both told me that the the wiring harness for the battery tender itself is protected by only a 7.5 amp fuse. They said they would not replace the 7.5 amp with a larger fuse. I verified that when I got home from the dealership. My battery charger would not indicate it could charge, and I found that it was a 7.5 amp fuse that had been blown. When I replaced it, the battery charger turned its lcharging sequence lights on.

Dud my dealership wire the battery tender harness into the wrong fused circuit on the trike? If so, they are doing it for ALL the bikes they deliver, because they provide a battery charger for every bike they sell!

Jim G

 

The heated grips though only heat the INSIDE of your hands. The glove liners heat them on the otuside, so they are warmer!

Jim G

 

That would be great! I guess I need to read up on the HD TPMS to see if it allows changing the threshold psi for the warning light. It looks like Doc Harley has a video devoted to how the HD TPMS works. I need to watch it I guess.

Jim G

 

I watched the Doc Harley video. It's at:

The hD TPMS is apparently NOT rider adjustable. And Doc Harley says it is expected to alarm when the tire pressure drops by 3 psi. But, the WAY the system measures and reports tire psi is nOT explained in the video. How does it adjust for hot tire psi versus cold tire psi? Which psi, hot or cold, is what it is trying to maintain? BOTH hot and cold psi also VARY with ambient temperature. I'm thinking that the TPMS MUST have way more tolerance than 3 psi in order to handle those variables.

Have any of you had a tPMS light go on? If so, what were the reported tire psi, what it hot or cold psi, and what was the ambient temperature outdoors or in the garage where it alarmed?

Jim G