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2009 Spyder GS with an Electrical issue - no power; no dash; new battery; good fuses and relays. What to check next?

09SpyderSE5990

New member
Greetings,

No power. No dash lights. Nothing. New battery. I checked all fuses under the hood and seat - All good. The master and slave relays under the hood - Good. Do the starter relays go bad?

What to check next?
 
I'm not suggesting that any of the following will definitely be your specific problem here, but unless you make sure that all of this lot is good before you start looking too much further, you might needlessly be chasing your own tail down an endless rabbit hole searching for a problem that's actually at least partly due to one or more of these basic things not being up to speed - and it's really not hard or expensive to do any of this, so I'd suggest you check all this stuff out FIRST! ;)

Did your 'new battery' get a good charge before installation - at least 8 hours on a proper 'charger' not just a tender?? Is the 'new' battery one of the current crop of OEM/factory supplied but 'less than adequate' excuses for a battery? Your Spyder NEEDS at least a 350 CCA 21 A/hr battery or you'll have problems sooner or later; and since the latest factory issued batteries are often these cheaper, lower capacity 300CCA batteries that might be able to work for a short while, IF you're lucky, you really need to check that too! And as always, check to make sure all the terminals, cables, lugs, and earth/ground points are clean, tight, and making good contact on shiny metal? :unsure:

These Spyder things are really power hungry, and even if you've got a brand new 350+ CCA 21+ A/hr good quality battery that's just been installed, many brand new batteries don't get a good charge by the retailer/supplier/dealer before being installed, so they might be potentially capable of working well for you, but the 'barely adequate' charge time they got to boost the surface charge up to 12v might not be sufficient to do anything but show there's some charge there on a meter or load test. And even new batteries can fail too, so you might want to get your battery load tested to make sure that it still has at least 12v under starting load - anything less might be OK for less power hungry machines, but not for our Spyders!! :rolleyes:

As for the cables, lugs, battery terminals, and all the earth/ground points onto the frame - if even just one of these isn't clean, tight, and making good contact on shiny metal, even the best of batteries might not be able to get that 'better than 12v' to where it needs to go!! There's one frame earth/ground point onto the frame that's hidden behind the frunk deep inside the hole behind the LH Front wheel, in the middle of the bike and right alongside the DPS (the DPS is the electrical power steering unit, one of the largest power users on your Spyder!) which is often an issue on many Spyders, so you need to check that, and while you're at it, check the lugs on the end of the cables too - on mine, the frame end lug there was loose on the end of the cable and I had an intermittent but complete power loss as a result whenever that cable moved as I took a corner! 😣

Aaaand, on those early Spyders, where the battery is sorta tucked away on its side under the seat instead of behind the frunk's rear wall; and where the earth/ground cable securing bolt tightens the ground lug onto the frame just in front of the battery, that nutsert/thread/whatever you've got there is prone to stripping the thread &/or captive nut out of the frame, leaving you with a poor 'main earth' for the battery even tho the bolt in that earth point might seem to be tight cos it's tight on the cable ending lug, but you also need to check/make sure that the lug is actually secured properly into bright metal on the frame and the bolt/lug/earth isn't just floating loosely in the breeze despite that really tight bolt! 😖

So check all those before you get too far down that rabbit hole - and if you haven't already, even if it might just be on the off chance, you might want to check & cycle the Kill Switch a few times too?! If we are truly honest about it, and even (or maybe 'especially'??) if we've been riding for years, there's not too many of us who HAVEN'T been caught out by that bloody anachronistic Kill Switch at least once!! 🤬

Good Luck! I do hope it's one of these simple to find and resolve issues. (y)
 
Just wanted to know when did you last start this Spyder? Is this the first time this Season?
When did you have the 'new stuff' installed?

Also check out Peter Aawen tips (post #2)
 
It's been about a year since it started. The battery ground to the frame was good until I took the bike to the dealer to trouble shoot a week ago. They had it for a week. No progress. I've decided to take it to another dealer when I get a chance. During the course of reassembling they stripped out the ground threads by attempting to insert an over sized bolt. Makes me wonder if they were using my bike as spare parts to fix another bike. The bike was also missing a couple of plastic fasteners that hold the body panels secure. To top it off, they scratched the paint during the disassemble or assemble, despite the fact that I wrapped the bike in plastic to prevent dealer shop damage. Prior to that shop damage to the bike, the ground was good. I had another dealer replace the battery a year ago when the bike wouldn't start. The bike still would not start. No dash lights, nothing turns on. The first dealer said after the battery install that they don't do work on older bikes?

My next guess is the Denso starter relay switch under the seat. $12 at amazon. I haven't replaced anything except the battery.
 
Well that first shop by the sounds of it should not work on them at all! I can see a shop not wanting to work on older rides because of the hassles of finding parts, but they are out there if you want to sit down and do some work and think out of the box!! Some shops just want to be parts changers and go the easy route! If you can't take the skirts off and put them back on without damage, COME ON! If your issues started around one of those battery changes, I would start there and make shore that EVERYTHINGS tight and right, and workout from there. Somewhere down that line you are going to find that disconnect!
 
Turns out that the trouble seems to have been a battery issue all along. The first dealer installed a cheapo dud battery. 330cc. The second dealer couldn't get the bike started with no solutions.

I was forced to figure out the issue without the convenience of a dealer. For starters, I bought and installed a 350cc die hard, GOLD battery and the bike started right up. Purrs like a kitten again.😀

Thnx to all, for all, your kind words, comments and encouragement. The take away, better to check the forum first for possible solutions, and don't rely on a dealer for a quick fix.

Cheer's.
 
People for some reason have a HARD time with not looking at the real facts, and go with, well it is a new item, it should be good, especially when it comes to batteries. A simple load test can tell you a whole lot, it's the heart of the machine, and without it being right it will do all kinds of strange things! Glad you figured it out!!! (y)
 
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