Well, it died.

[dhgeyer]

Yesterday morning I was inspired. Beautiful weather in New England, and no place I had to be. I headed North on Rt. 93 from home (Merrimack, NH),  about 8:30. By 10:30  I was 80 miles  North, close to Lincoln, when the GS500 started bucking.  I'd been doing 70+ most of the way, with a gas and pitstop along the way somewhere.

Anyway, I jumped off the next exit, and at the bottom of the ramp, it died completely. Ignition switch had no effect whatsoever - no lights, no nothin'. I bought this bike less than two weeks ago, and they have not gotten me my owner's manual yet. It's an '01, and had 355 miles on it when I bought it. Now it's close to 1200.

I was able to locate the main fuse, and it was blown. There was a spare. I put it in, and it blew so fast I never even saw a flicker of lights. At this point I was quite sure that it was nothing I could fix. Called Progressive's roadside Assisstance. The first outfit they contacted said they could be there in an hour and a half. About twenty minutes before they were due, they called me directly and told me it wouldl be another couple of hours. I told  them to forget it. Called Progressive back. They got another outfit that said they'd be there in an hour. Well, they got there in an hour and a half. The guy got lost. Hey, I was in the middle of nowhere. I'm just lucky I had a signal on my cell phone, and plenty of charge on its battery.

So, between my attempt at roadside repair, all the time on the phone, and the waiting for the truck, I was there about 4 hours. I was in front of a mostly-dead-for-the-season campground. The lady who runs it made me a sandwich, or I might have died. I usually carry some emergency provisions, but yesterday I didn't. Anyway, it was a good sandwich, and I was carrying plenty of water.

I had the truck haul the bike back to where I got it, which is Motorcycles of Manchester. They're kind of a clearinghouse for used bikes. The only new ones they sell are Alpha Sports. Their real business is high volume used bikes. They stand behind what they sell prettty well, at least they have for me.

I talked to the service manager this afternoon. They had a guy working on it most of the afternoon. It kept blowing fuses as they took it all apart. Then they put it back together, and it stopped doing it. He says they're not going to let it out of the shop till they find a problem. That's definitely what I wanted to hear, but I hope it doesn't take all Winter. An intermittant electrical problem can be the worst.

Luckily we have two other bikes, so I am not stuck with the cage for the duration.

I may just tell the dealer to take the bike back in exchange for something else. They will do that. I don't want to, as I think I like this bike better than any I've ever had. But, I do a lot of touring, and I need something I can trust.

This is just a frustrated rant, really, but if anyone has any thoughts, I'd love to hear them.

Dave Geyer
Merrimack, NH  USA

[JetSwing]

there's a short some where...it shouldn't be hard to find.

what year is the bike?

nice of that lady to feed a stranded stranger  

[marc]

Modern bikes use not to have problems, but GS500 is a
15 year-old model... a redesign of the GS450, that's 20 years since
it. So I'd expect having to deal with problems with these bike
since it was designed in these ages where bikes were troublesome
and on-road repair was part of the fun.

But GS500 is definitively not a troublesome bike.

You had bad-luck, and if your bike has only 1200miles, you had
a defective part that was not detected earlier. I bet it's a coil
or a defective spark plug.

[pantablo]

I had my fuse burn out on a long ride once too on my 01. I rode for about 70 minutes to a meet point for a group ride (it was actually an official gstwin ride!). Went to start the bike and it was bucking and wouldnt hold idle. then it just died. Somewhere in the wall of fame is a picture of someone pushing me on it.

Anyway, we never found the problem but I also never had that happen again. We chalked it up to high heat (ambient temp), running a too-high wattage headlight (I had 80/80W bulb, running on high beam). Put new fuse in and it worked for almost a year after that-longer actually, a year after that is about when I sold the bike.

Mine was a fluke thing.

[dhgeyer]

They fixed it. Kudos to M.O.M.'s for taking the time to track the problem down at no charge to me. It took a lot of hours. Turns out it was a build error. One of the harnesses was not assembled correctly, allowing a couple of wires to contact each other (not the frame). All better now.

Still, it will be a while before I ride it out into the boonies again.

[The Buddha]

Yup ... monday morning assembly ... I believe they only do GS'es on Mondays ... tuesday-fri is for the bike they care about ...  :lol:
Cool.
Srinath.