Carol and I had planned a 900 mile ride so I was excited to hear the steering recall patch was ready. We had limited our riding until the fix was out. Last week our spyders went into the dealer for maintenance and the recalls.
We were due to leave Friday. I got Carols Spyder back Wednesday and she rode it to work Thursday. Calls me from work. Spyder wont go over 45 mph and reverse and neutral indicators are flashing and gear shift indicator reads "E" no matter what gear she is in.. She "limps" it home from work. Well Now its Friday and we have to leave so no chance to get hers looked at , so I pick mine up Friday Morning from the dealer and we now ride double up. (Gee why did I spend 32 grand on 2 spyders when we can just ride double...grrrr) I bought the BRP passenger footpeg extensions Friday so she would not be cramped. Wasn't planning on that expense but hey , if we have to ride 2 up we may as well be comfortable. (And all the while I'm thinking I get hardly any time off at work and now we cant do what we planned so Im getting a little miffed) (She is a great passenger though )
NOTE (Both spyders backfire now on decel as noted in the other posts , I could care less about this , many of my bikes have done this and the dealer informed me that along with the steering patch there was fuel map update. My spyder got just under 40 mpg on the trip , fully loaded with both of us and 3 givis packed to the brim averaging 72-76 mph through tons of mountains. Thats far better than we ever got before so
OK back to the story.... Ahhh and now as the trip winds down , my spyder wants to be a copycat and is also in limp mode and "E" is displayed with reverse and neutral lit up. What a grand ending to our trip.
OK now my patience has ended. Having spent alot of time researching this patch , it appears that as many have discovered there is a issue with the gear shift sensor (located near the front drive sprocket on the left side) that could cause the computer to give a false signal to the steering control unit. (ie: If the spyder was travelling down the road at 60 mph and the sensor gave a false signal that lets say the spyder was in first gear, it could change the boost of the steering and cause what appeared to be locked up steering ...) In essence to understand this , you must note that the spyder has power steering that changes its boost depending on several factors so its easier to turn in parking lots and has stiffer feel at speed , much like a car). Well it appears the patch just tells the steering computer to stop "listening " to the gear sensor and only listen to the speed sensor , thus eliminating the issue if the gear sensor fails. (why replace the FAULTY sensors when we can just take them off line... grrr)
So , they DID not address was the faulty sensor itself as part of the recall.. and researching this will show there are TONS of them that are bad on the SE5's and manuals. merely taking it out of the steering loop does not correct the sensor being bad. and guess what , the new computer program is now having an issue deciphering the signals from the bad sensor. Duh. They should have just done the sensor as part of the recall.
