As we were completing our "break-in" run from PA through Ontario over to Lake Superior and back, I noticed the clutch lever didn't "feel right". At first I thought is was my imagination but then as it worsened, I realized it was not my imagination. It's not returning to it's fully disengaged position. At first I thought the clutch solenoid valve was acting up but it felt exactly the same whether the engine was running or not. Trying to push the lever further forward just resulted in opening up the lever position adjustment mechanism. The last two days home, about 600 miles, I knew it wasn't right. I took it to the dealer the next day and on the way down, I was able to make it slip a little when it should have been fully engaged. So of course a key question is, was it slipping even a tiny imperceptible amount during my last several days on the road?

The tech found one of the pivot pins in the lever was seriously binding. Now that is a strange one. It was binding so tight that the clutch would not fully release. He properly pulled the clutch itself apart to check for damage and did find a slight amount of oxidation on the plates so he and BRP agreed to replace the entire clutch as well. The Brembo master cylinder comes as a complete unit with the lever, micro switch, pivot pin-pushrod, etc all assembled and not to be taken apart. The new unit feels great and all is good again. I'm really glad they did the clutch, too, so there is no doubt about whether it suffered damage or not and could start acting up thousands of miles from now.

The clutch M/C on my 2011 was for all purposes very similar and went 40K thru all kinds of weather with no problem. This one didn't make 4K. I'm sure it's a true one-off rare event but it is really weird. Nothing high-tech or complicated here. A silly little pivot pin/bushing probably cost BRP over a $1,000 in repairs. I'll try to keep it lubed in the future but since you can't disassemble it like my other bikes, all you can do is try to get a little lube on the pivot from the outside in. The maintenance manual would have you never do anything to it.