I've noticed that twice in the last 2 weeks the battery light came on in my '12 wide glide. It started fine and went off 5-10 minutes into riding. Its the original battery so I figured maybe its time to replace. However tonight while night-riding the headlight would get brighter and then the speedo lights would go off. Then a minute later the headlight would dim back down and the lights would come back on in the speedo along with the little red dot near the middle right of the gauge. After a few seconds the red light goes out and all is well for 5-10 min until this cycle repeats. Runs fine. Starts fine. Is this a sign of a weak battery? No mention of this in the owners manual. Just looked up that the red dot that comes on is the electrical system lamp. Any experience or help would be great.

 

A 2012 shouldn't need a new battery yet. I would check your battery connections. Sometimes they vibrate loose.

 

The first thing to check is to see if any codes are stored. You can do a search here if you don't know how.

If no codes, then clean and retighten your battery cable connections on both ends. Dyna's are known for coming loose.

 

I bet your right on the battery connections. To the garage I go.

 

Could be the regulator going bad as well, although usually they just crap out and don't charge. Put me down for another check your connections and let us know

 

Connections were clean as could be. I was able to tighten them maybe a 1/4 turn. They were pretty snug but not as tight as I'd like them. I'll ride tomorrow and see if that was it. Gonna check for codes next I suppose.

 

You did check both ends right? Not just the battery connections?

 

Yes I checked both ground and power. Both ends. Did a search but only came up with code reading for older model years.

 

Sounds like the system voltage spiking and that usually is a regulator going ATU or an intermittent ground in your charging system...Your manual gives a procedure to check out the voltage regulator and charging system using a multimeter on ohms and ac and dc volts. Troubleshooting steps for the charging system are also discussed and explained in user friendly detail in several forum discussions as well.

If it is an intermittent problem, it may be difficult to find it unless you can get it to happen when you have the meter on it. The spiking can quickly damage some system components so you need to get that taken care of ASAP.

 

There is or was a recall on all models of HD's except V Rods on certain date codes of voltage regulators. you can go to www.harley-davidson.com/en_us/content/pages/owners/service-your-bike/service-recalls.html and insert your vin and see if it is one of the effected regulators or call your dealer and see if yours is one of the effected regulators