Yes I searched...

2012 Road King, 10k miles. Lights for low battery and check engine lights have been coming on intermittently for last six months. Of course when I brought it to the dealer a month ago it was working fine. They cleaned grounds and sent me home. The regulator doesn't fall within the dates for the replacement program. Last weekend the light came on and stayed on all day, eventually draining the battery and leaving me on the side of the road, looking for a jump. Got it to a friends house and charged the battery. I trailered the bike to the dealer, and wouldn't you know it, the lights are not on, it's putting out 14+ volts, and the dealer can't find anything wrong. They even put a heat gun to the regulator bringing it up to 200 degrees. They checked the stator, putting out 60 volts AC, and no smell. Connector plugs and wires look good. Battery is nearly new.

So now what? Any suggestions?
Thanks,
Joe

 

Its still under the fender to fender warranty, if the dealer is blowing you smoke, I would take it to a diff dealer. I would of had it towed to the dealer when it left you standing on the side of the road, instead of charging the battery then taking it. You could of got a bum battery, it has happened in the past to others. I wish you luck man, wish I could help you more Joe. I am sure someone would chime in with a better answer instead of a rant.

 

It sounds like your dealer doesn't think enough of you to spend some real time troubleshooting.

They tend to lose money on troubleshooting when they're not that good at it, because they only get reimbursed for the actual repair under warranty. They really should work through it, and chalk it up as a learning experience for them.

Sending you down the road until the problem becomes so obvious troubleshooting is not required, is a bad business model. I don't know how Harley gets away with it.

The charging system is really not that complicated.

You need to insist on results!
Or find a new dealer to do business with.

 

I had this exact same thing happen to me. Lights came on and I continued on to work. About a couple mile till my destination, the radio squealed and cut out, the guages started dropping out one by one, the running lights died, the head light died.
The very last electrical component that went out was the passing lights, odd as they take more juice than anything else except the headlight!

I got to work, got off the bike and looked around while it was running and could not find a single light or guage that was working, everything was dead, including the check engine lights on the dash.

Turned the bike off and tried to restart it. Dead as a doornail, would not even make a noise! It had just enough juice to run the spark plugs.

So I put a charger on it and let it charge all day. I left work later that day and when I started it, the voltage guage showed about 14v as I was leaving.
I got about a block down the road and volts dropped to 10v. It stayed there till I was almost home and it started dropping.
Once again the guges and lights started dropping off one by one. This time I was keeping an eye on the volt meter and I watched as it dropped down to zero.
I got home and same as earlier, the battery was completely drained!

It was about a week before I had time to take the bike to the dealer. In the mean time I had charged the battery but I had not rode the bike since riding it home that day with the dead battery.

I go fire it up one day when i was taking it to the dealer. I figured I could make it there before the battery drained so I rode it.
Well I'll be a somebitch, the volt meter showed over 14v and it stayed that way all the way to the dealer!
The problem seamed to disappear!

I was also having some other warranty work done on the bike and they said they checked the charging system and found no problems.
I bitched and told them they need to dig further. So they claim they found a problem with the voltage regulator.
I already had the recall regulator done so this was only 6 months or so old and was not from the bad batch of regulators.
But they replaced the regulator anyway.

Since then, I have not had the problem come back.

 

They offered to sell me a new regulator, but I declined. They also complained that riding the bike takes a lot of time... But they seemed to have checked all the obvious items. Hard to tell how deep they went from talking to the service manager.

They are going to try it again today, and I'll pick it up tomorrow. If the light comes on during my ride home I'll ride right back. If not I'll go to a different dealer next week. Warantee ends next month.

Thanks, Joe

 

1.) a fully discharged battery will loose about 50% of it's capacity to hold a charge.

so you now have a time bomb under your seat- at some point it'll leave you stranded

2.) a discharged or damaged battery can overload the charging system- causing further damage.
this may happen when you get a jump start, and not only is your charging system trying to keep the lights and spark plugs going, but also trying to charge a battery that will not maintain a charge.

it is like trying to fill a bucket with a hole in it

this really can damage the charging system.




as above the charging system is simple-

the alternator puts out AC power, and the specs to check it are published

the regulator converts that power to DC...and keeps the voltage below about 14.8 volts
( excess is shed as heat, which is why chrome covers are stupid)

the battery stores a charge and also helps to regulate so that the bike see more like 12 volts, not teh 14.8 put out by the regulator

basics are always, clean tight cable connections, fully charged battery of proper capacity
otherwise many of the system checks will not return valid data


you need to find a tech that you trust.

at this point, trust is lost and you'll never be confident of the work performed.


if you have HOG, the included road service can be converted to unlimited mileage for $20- do that.

next time let the roadside service tow your bike rather than jump it, possibly causing further damage

anyone wants you to jump it, get them to sign paperwork taking on responsibility for any further repair costs
mike

 

Had to have my regulator replaced under warranty last month. Battery and check engine lights would come on, volt gauge showed a significant drop and when I pull into the dealers lot, it fixes itself. The next time it happened I had my Power Vision gauges set to monitor voltage. It got as low as 9.5. I had already checked my battery connections - tight and clean. Popped the derby cover off to smell for burnt electronics - no smell. Dealer did the same thing and checked out charging system. They changed the regulator under warranty even though it was just outside the recall date. No problems since.

As you have found out it seems to be an intermittent problem. Every time it happened to me I let the service writer know about it. Mine never left me stranded so I guess I caught it before it really self destructed. Next time it happens maybe you should take a picture of it if you have a cell phone camera, to show the dealer.

 

My regulator was intermittent for a few days before failing hard.

 

The battery is used for only one thing - electric start. Once the engine is running operating voltage comes from the stator/regulator. The regulator appears to be working. It's a solid state device and must be grounded to regulate properly. There is a parallel shunt circuit that drops excess stator voltage to ground - that's the reason for the cooling fins, the voltage drop results in heat.

Did the dealer check the maxi fuse/holder? The regulator's output taps into the power rails on the starter post. There should be two connecting wires, one is for the charging voltage (from reg) and the other is from the battery and is cranking supply. These connections need to be snug and normally a problem would be indicated with problems cranking.

If all else fails (all connections are checked, reg is properly grounded, etc) then the next step would be to replace the reg for sure.

Ur under warranty, abuse the sucker!

 

No luck with this dealer, couldn't replicate the problem... I think I'll ride it for a while and if the light comes on on the way to or from work, I'll drive to another dealer close to work and let them have at it.
On the other hand, I don't know if these are single or three phase alternators. If three phase, maybe I'll get a cycle electric rectifying regulator, it doesn't ground excess current, so no heat.