2018 Batteries and Starter Doesnt work!

[webmaster]

I purchased a 2018 300 6 days and am having issues which I think are caused by a battery that isn't holding charge. I only had the bike 1 day and the battery went flat overnight. I charged it up and connected it to a battery meter and watched it discharge from 14.4v and kept falling right down to around 10volts. Local dealer is great and has already ordered another battery. I'm just waiting for it to arrive.
I'm hoping my issue will be solved with a fresh battery but I'm confident my local dealer will find the fault regardless.
Josh

Was the battery connected to the bike when it discharged?

jeff

 

[MxPhlipper]

Kills the warm up theory if you had the same issues with a lead battery tho. If this whole warmup theory is correct, installing a lead battery would fix the problem. I would put a new fully charged battery (lent by the dealer. LoL) in and document what happens.

I jumped on the KLX450 bandwagon in 2008. Bought from a dealer in Little Rock, AR. Cranked fine at the dealer.

Get down south to Jim Cooks Smackover hideaway and it wouldn't do shit right off the trailer. Always gave me fits until I put a Shorai in.

The issue, as all us KLX owners learned, was that the headlight pulled too much voltage and the battery couldn't effectively be charged. Everyone started putting an inline toggle switch in it. Geesh!

 

[Cox76y]

G'day Jeff,
No the battery wasn't on the bike.
Josh

 

[redbone]

Mark woodlief, I have been joking around with you about buying your bike! Which I would but your on the other side of the states. Anyway truthfully I just want to know how the bike compares to the Beta 300rr? I think you said you had one? Im contemplating going from my 300rr to the 18 300EC. I just want to get a real world opinion from someone that has rode both.

 

[markwoodlief]

Mark woodlief, I have been joking around with you about buying your bike! Which I would but your on the other side of the states. Anyway truthfully I just want to know how the bike compares to the Beta 300rr? I think you said you had one? Im contemplating going from my 300rr to the 18 300EC. I just want to get a real world opinion from someone that has rode both.

I have ridden the 17 300rr quite a bit, but I have the Beta 500.. so kind of apples and oranges.

I prefer the GG over the Beta, besides the obvious odd estart issues, The Beta felt kind of hash (suspension can be fixed of course). And the motor a touch boring compared to the GG. My GG is finally sorted as far as springs, jetting, etc. and it really kicks ass. The motor is flat amazing.. tons of power but super smooth. Beta is one helluva bang for the buck though. Not sure if the RR comes with the voyager or not, but on my 500 it's really nice to have, that's more my dualsport/desert/fire road type of bike now that the GG is my primary woods weapon.

 

[markwoodlief]

My experience tells me that the voltage drop from cranking the engine over is having an effect on the electrics. It might be a situation where the DC powered CDI stops triggering at a certain voltage. Let's say it's threshold is 10VDC. A 13V battery may be dipping this low and causing trouble. The only way to be sure is too hook up a voltmeter and see what happens to the battery voltage.

Jumping from a large battery is an easy way to troubleshoot. It will have more than enough capacity. I put an eight cell Ballistic brand Lithium Ion battery in my bike just to have a bit more cranking power. Once the temperature goes below about 40*F, the Bendix engagement can be iffy, so I use the kickstarter on my first start. Even when troublesome, my estart will almost always catch by the third try.

Automotive systems weren't always trouble free. The battery cables on some GMs would heat soak and fail to pass current. Once everything cooled down, it worked again. Chrysler products used to have a ballast resistor in the ignition circuit to modify the ignition voltage.

So here is today's findings with voltmeter hooked up.

13.1 after sitting for about 12hrs - bike doesn't even turn over the starter motor sounds like a dead battery, engages but immediately stops..like it would if you battery was toast, drug the voltmeter down to 0 (may not matter) and after trying to turn it over battery reads 12.0

Waited 30 seconds and watching the voltmeter it slowly crept up to 12.9 and stayed strong there.

Tried starting again.. same symptoms, would not turn over, just like a dead battery scenario again.

waited another 30 seconds
battery read 12.8 this time and fired off like a champ.

super odd to me.. and kind of takes away from the Li battery 'charging' while you wait 30 seconds.

 

[Neil E.]

How does the estart system work if you jump the bike battery with a car battery?

Your results seem to indicate that the bike battery is the problem. Maybe GG received a bad batch from their supplier.

I've never noticed a "cranks better after you wait between cranks" scenario with my Ballistic battery. It's very close to the size of the original Yuasa lead acid battery.

 

[markwoodlief]

Your results seem to indicate that the bike battery is the problem. Maybe GG received a bad batch from their supplier.

This is my 2nd battery. The OEM battery was dead without a doubt. The dealer just put this new battery in a few days ago, which produced the results above.

 

[Neil E.]

Another possibilty is a parasitic loss that runs the battery down (this would be an issue if the bike sat for a long time). Connect a multimeter in series between your positive terminal and your battery cable (cable disconnected). With the meter set to milliamps, you should get no reading at all.

I'd bet your estart system works OK when jumped using a car battery. If so there would be no doubt that the bike battery is the weak part of the estart system.

 

[arminhammer]

Just got a text that GasGas is aware of the problem and working on a fix. Apparently an ECU firmware problem.

 

[markwoodlief]

Just got a text that GasGas is aware of the problem and working on a fix. Apparently an ECU firmware problem.

Interesting. I've not heard about this at all, and had a call with both the CEO of GG and Rod Overstreet last week and neither talked about that. Maybe it's a recent discovery.

 

[arminhammer]

Interesting. I've not heard about this at all, and had a call with both the CEO of GG and Rod Overstreet last week and neither talked about that. Maybe it's a recent discovery.

Rob Lang said he had spoken with Mark Berg and the the factory is working on a fix. That's all info I received at about 8:30 pm Eastern.

 

[markwoodlief]

Rob Lang said he had spoken with Mark Berg and the the factory is working on a fix. That's all info I received at about 8:30 pm Eastern.

yeah, talked to Mark Berg last week, instead of mentioning a fix, got chastised by him and Rod for telling people I have a problem online. I like Mark Berg a lot, seems like a real professional, although we do not see eye to eye on this, I respect him and his opinion.

 

[arminhammer]

yeah, talked to Mark last week, instead of mentioning a fix, got chastised by him and Rod for telling people I have a problem online.

Well I hope I didn't get Rob in shit with the brass. I guess I look at things different. I see this as good news. I personally don't care if there is a few teething problems with a new model as long as the factory addresses them honestly.

 

[markwoodlief]

Well I hope I didn't get Rob in shit with the brass. I guess I look at things different. I see this as good news. I personally don't care if there is a few teething problems with a new model as long as the factory addresses them honestly.

I'm in the same boat. I get there are issues, and I'm ok with that. How it was handled and the shit I got tossed on me for mentioning it was what chapped my hide. As shitty as this sounds I'm glad others are popping up now, now maybe they'll address the issue instead of blaming it on the customers not knowing how to start the bikes or just flat telling me they've never heard of this issue before.

 

[Andredup]

Starter issue saga

Armin, I have the same issue. Rob told me the factory is working on it and will have a fix ASAP.

I picked mine up on Friday pm Oct 27th. You picked yours up from Rob Sat am!!

I love the bike a lot and it is so much nicer than my 2009 and 2013!
Just hope the starter issue gets resolved soon!!

 

[arminhammer]

Armin, I have the same issue. Rob told me the factory is working on it and will have a fix ASAP.

I picked mine up on Friday pm Oct 27th. You picked yours up from Rob Sat am!!

I love the bike a lot and it is so much nicer than my 2009 and 2013!
Just hope the starter issue gets resolved soon!!

Yes great bike! I think the problem is a gear reduction and starter draw issue.
We shall see what happens.

 

[RobbieL]

I have found the solution! I believe the problem lies with the current draw from the starter is pulling the voltage down too low for the CDI to create a spark, I was getting no spark with the e-start, but good spark with the kicker. I changed out the main starter cables from the battery to the relay, then from the relay to the starter with 8 gauge cables, then ran an 8 gauge cable for the ground directly from the battery to the starter case. I'm now getting excellent spark & the bike starts perfectly on the e-starter. The mod took me less then an hour to do and about $5 in wire & connectors.

Rob

Lang's Off Road

 

[markwoodlief]

I have found the solution! I believe the problem lies with the current draw from the starter is pulling the voltage down too low for the CDI to create a spark, I was getting no spark with the e-start, but good spark with the kicker. I changed out the main starter cables from the battery to the relay, then from the relay to the starter with 8 gauge cables, then ran an 8 gauge cable for the ground directly from the battery to the starter case. I'm now getting excellent spark & the bike starts perfectly on the e-starter. The mod took me less then an hour to do and about $5 in wire & connectors.

Rob

Lang's Off Road

Excellent recon there Rob.

 

[webmaster]

I have found the solution! I believe the problem lies with the current draw from the starter is pulling the voltage down too low for the CDI to create a spark, I was getting no spark with the e-start, but good spark with the kicker. I changed out the main starter cables from the battery to the relay, then from the relay to the starter with 8 gauge cables, then ran an 8 gauge cable for the ground directly from the battery to the starter case. I'm now getting excellent spark & the bike starts perfectly on the e-starter. The mod took me less then an hour to do and about $5 in wire & connectors.

Rob

Lang's Off Road

Note that this is Rob's first post on the forum. This has gotta be the best first post of all time.

Welcome!

jeff