My battery died yesterday, and it went down with a vengeance. I have a lot of experience with batteries-probably have 17 in service at the present time, but this experience was new. I rode the 2009 F800GS the 3.5 miles to the Post Office, was in and out in 2 minutes and it was over.
I turned the key, the instruments made their sweep, hit the start button and the screen went blank and reset the clock to 12:00. This caught me by surprise as I had just ridden the bike and it was fine. I had the tools with me to get at the battery so I took the covers off to see if a connection had come loose. As all was fine I called my brother for a jump and while waiting I pushed the bike out of the way. My brother arrived with cables and a donor battery and when hooked up- did nothing. We changed to direct to the car and the bike started fine but when the cables were disconnected the bike immediately died.
A call to the local dealer (Dunbar Eurosports) suggested that if it was a battery failure that had enough surface charge to cycle the electronics but the Canbus system saw the voltage as not right, it would not let it start and run. I thought I was doing pretty good by having the maintenance charger lead out so I could move with a dead battery (and a donor), and still maybe so but not with what happened to this battery. So if you see symptoms like this, it's time for the trailer-or a battery swap-out. The battery in the bike that has gone this kind of bad won't let it run.
While on the trailer I took it to the dealer who confirmed the battery was bad and fixed me up with a new battery. The battery was about 1.5 years old so it was covered by warranty . Hopefully this will help others if they see this condition. Gary
I turned the key, the instruments made their sweep, hit the start button and the screen went blank and reset the clock to 12:00. This caught me by surprise as I had just ridden the bike and it was fine. I had the tools with me to get at the battery so I took the covers off to see if a connection had come loose. As all was fine I called my brother for a jump and while waiting I pushed the bike out of the way. My brother arrived with cables and a donor battery and when hooked up- did nothing. We changed to direct to the car and the bike started fine but when the cables were disconnected the bike immediately died.
A call to the local dealer (Dunbar Eurosports) suggested that if it was a battery failure that had enough surface charge to cycle the electronics but the Canbus system saw the voltage as not right, it would not let it start and run. I thought I was doing pretty good by having the maintenance charger lead out so I could move with a dead battery (and a donor), and still maybe so but not with what happened to this battery. So if you see symptoms like this, it's time for the trailer-or a battery swap-out. The battery in the bike that has gone this kind of bad won't let it run.
While on the trailer I took it to the dealer who confirmed the battery was bad and fixed me up with a new battery. The battery was about 1.5 years old so it was covered by warranty . Hopefully this will help others if they see this condition. Gary
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