Problems with my 2012 Roadster

slipperydippery

.020 Over
Joined
May 26, 2015
Messages
23
Ride
2012 R3R
I’ll start off by saying my bike is a 2012 Roadster with about 4,500 miles on it. I’ve put around 200 miles on it myself. The bike was purchased as a leftover on 4/2014, so it’s still under warranty until 4/2016. Here’s a few things I’ve noticed in my short ownership.

1.) The heat shield bracket that connects the heat shield where the manifold comes in to one and the next heat shield piece has sheared in half. I noticed a pretty loud rattle every time I hit a bump. I decided to check it out Saturday and found that that heat shield piece could easily be pushed in. I took the bolt out and got under it and couldn’t find anything that the bolt was threading in to. After a few minutes of thinking WTF, I found the bottom half of the broken bracket wedged up in the upper part of the heat shield. Not a huge deal but pretty annoying to spend the most you’ve ever spent on a motorcycle just to have it rattle every time you hit a small bump.

2.) This will be a 3 part because I believe they’re all related:

A.) I’ve only ridden the bike for about 200 miles, and it’s stalled on me twice so far. Both stalls occurred while decelerating. In fact, both were while I was decelerating in second gear and pulled the clutch in. The bike was fully warmed up during both occurrences and actually happened towards the tail end of the ride both times.

B.) The bike sometimes has an erratic idle. It will go anywhere as low as 500 and up to about 1K. Again, it will do this while fully warmed up.

C.) I use my engine for braking. When I downshift, I’ll blip the throttle to rev match so not to lock the back tire up. Sometimes when I blip the throttle to rev match, I get a back fire from the bear claw section.

3.) The rear brake gets excessively hot. I do not use it hard. I do not ride the brake. I probably split the braking 80% front 20% rear. It was so hot on the one ride that I smelled it while sitting at a red light and just assumed it was the POS car in front of me. However, I pulled it in the garage and could quickly smell that it was indeed my rear brake. It gets so hot you can’t even put a finger on it for more than a second. The front brakes will be warm to the touch but you can rest your hand on them for as long as you’d like. The bike just had new tires put on it. Did someone reassemble something incorrectly?

Also, I don’t believe this is an issue, but I figured I’d ask. This is my first shaft drive bike. Whenever I’m in first gear going slow and I pull the clutch in, I can hear a solid “click” like sound. I am assuming this is because the shaft drive is engaging and disengaging?

Here’s the kicker. The gentleman I bought it from works as a technician at a car dealership. Naturally, no technician wants to hand an oil change over to someone when he is fully capable himself. He did the first service and another oil change himself, and did not fill out the log book. Will this hurt my chances of getting anything fixed under warranty? How does one go about filing a warranty claim? Thanks for listening guys and I look forward to your input.
 
Ok here's my 2 cents, I had about half of the problems that you had when I bought my bike new. The remedy was take it to a different dealer. The new dealer spent two days trouble shooting the bike and they said all the problems ( stalling, intake backfire and a few other things) were from improper set up by the original dealer. All this was covered.

The heat shield may not be covered, because that could be abuse, but can't hurt to ask.

The rear brake should float and could be dirty or corroded, remove and clean the mounting pins and lube up the with high temp bearing grease, light coating. If that don't do the trick the caliper is hanging up, replace or clean the Pistons. Maybe mounting could be loose or bent??

If it's getting that hot don't ride it could cause all kinds of problems!! None good!!

On the shaft drive check the bolts on the bevel box to shaft connection, check the oil level, and check the rear axle bolt, (the rear brake also mounts to the axle bolt) my shaft make no noise and never has, the only clunk you should here is when you drop it into first gear.

This is all the simple things you can check in a short period of time.

The dealer should work with you as long as your honest with them and nice. I would be a bit Leary about taking it to the selling dealer because, a lot of these problems sound like improper set up from new. Then again the original owner might be a half ass mechanic.

Good luck
 
1. Take it into the nearest dealer and get them to put in a warranty claim.
2. Get the dealer to firstly check the tune in the bike and then make sure the TPS is adjusted correctly. Sounds like a TPS issue to me, although the Stepper motor could be playing up. Get them to check that too. This should all be free of charge.
3. Not unheard of for some bikes to do this. Can be caused by a sticking piston in the calliper. If you pull out the pads, look to see if they are wearing evenly. If not, again this should be fixed under warranty. In any case, get the dealer to look at it for you.

Finally, go back to the guy you bought the bike from and get him to fill in the service book. Doesn't need to be a dealer but you could have issues down the track if you can't show the bike was serviced as per the service schedule.
 
And stop "blipping the throttle" going down through the gears , it's a Harley thing ... and it will eventually f#ck your cam chain.

Is that something exclusive to the Rocket? I've done that with all of my bikes and never had an issue.
 
Others and Myself have had the issue with the bike stalling while pulling in the clutch during deceleration.
In my case the T.P.S was out of adjustment.
The dealer set it to specs and the problem went away.
I'm curious about the clicking noise you hear when engaging the clutch, does it come from the rear of the bike? Or from the front near the gear box?
 
Others and Myself have had the issue with the bike stalling while pulling in the clutch during deceleration.
In my case the T.P.S was out of adjustment.
The dealer set it to specs and the problem went away.
I'm curious about the clicking noise you hear when engaging the clutch, does it come from the rear of the bike? Or from the front near the gear box?

I believe it's coming from the rear but I'll have to double check that. I notice it the most when pulling in my driveway. I have a rather large hump that I have to slow down and pull the clutch in to get over, and it's between two houses so all noises are amplified.
 
My closest dealer is closed today so I've sent them an email. I'll wait to hear back from them and go from there. Thanks for all the input already guys!
 
My closest dealer is closed today so I've sent them an email. I'll wait to hear back from them and go from there. Thanks for all the input already guys!

If you have the bike in second gear while pulling/letting out the clutch the trans will make clinking and clunking noises.... this is normal. It will not make those noises in any other gear. Just throwing this out there not sure.
 
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