My first "Oh Crap" moment, got off cheap!

I had to go to a customer site that is only 10 minutes from my house, so of course, take the Spyder they said. It'll be fun they said.

When my work was done, I went out to the parking lot to start her up. Turn the key, everything wakes up, all is normal, until click....and the instruments go dark, and I have no parking brake. I was on a gentle incline, so I finagled a way to chock a wheel while still on the brake.

So a loss of power that sudden and complete signaled to me that I had a fuse go out, or worse, an electronic module of some sort, with the wallet damage going up exponentially. Now as the regulars here know, I have only had this thing a month, a 2017 RTL with some miles on her. The guy I bought it from drove it 13 hours to deliver it to me. He had just bought a battery, and gave me the receipt for the warranty.

So I called the wife to bring the jumper cables. A brand new battery giving up the ghost suddenly is not likely, but I'm sure it happens. In the mean time, I started checking fuses, and all were good. When I clipped the jumper cable to the positive lead of my battery, everything came back to life! So I decided to remove the cable and everything was still alive!

So there was a connection that they didn't get tight enough when they replaced the battery. When I crammed my backpack with my laptop and tools in the frunk, I no doubt put enough pressure on the battery to loosen that connection just enough to disconnect everything. With that much current, just a small increase in resistance could be all it takes to shut her down.

I'm sure I tied a bunch of others for the cheapest fix in Spyder history! $0! Just passing this along for others to store in memory if anything like this happens to them. If it ever happens to me again, I know the first place I'm checking! :clap:

Clean post, star washers and a good tightening, can keep the gremlins away!! But new battery's can go south, keep that in mind!

Yup, clean, and put starwashers on... Nice learning curve.... if all goes south, try the west or north

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Originally Posted by Mikey

Clean post, star washers and a good tightening, can keep the gremlins away!! But new battery's can go south, keep that in mind!

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:agree: and good advice on the STAR washers .....Mike :thumbup:

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Originally Posted by dmiles

When I crammed my backpack with my laptop and tools in the frunk, I no doubt put enough pressure on the battery to loosen that connection just enough to disconnect everything.
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Shouldn't a 2017 have a cover over the battery to keep things from pushing up against it?

Couple months ago, bought a 7900 mile "used" 2020RT LTD-C from a dealer. In conversation I must said something about getting a trickle charger pig tale. Next day when I picked her up, she was electrically dead. The tech that added the wire forgot and only finger tightened the battery bolts. 20 seconds later all was well.

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Originally Posted by bikerdawg

Shouldn't a 2017 have a cover over the battery to keep things from pushing up against it?

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Yes. it does, but there is only so much a thin piece of plastic can do to guard against some moron cramming his backpack into the frunk. Ok, maybe a bit harsh. Maybe I just left my thinking cap at home that day.

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Originally Posted by obiwanbill

Couple months ago, bought a 7900 mile "used" 2020RT LTD-C from a dealer. In conversation I must said something about getting a trickle charger pig tale. Next day when I picked her up, she was electrically dead. The tech that added the wire forgot and only finger tightened the battery bolts. 20 seconds later all was well.

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Previous owner added a pigtail, and USB ports with a 12v plug at the center of the handlebars. So things are getting a little crowded on the terminals. I will be doing something way overkill today to get things squared away.

Many folks pull accessory power off the battery to a power distribution block, like the Black Box or Fuzeblocks that SlingMods and others have on their websites.