Over the winter took advantage of half off labor and had the dealer install 10” Yaffee’s and a set of Harley heated hand grips. The grips don’t seem to get hot enough to me, when set at the highest level 6 they get luke warm and take about 5 miles to get that way. The temp fluctuates. The dealer tells me they work. Last weekend I removed the fairing to install a GPS and got to see a professional; certified mechanics work. Instead of wiring the grips back to the fuse panel the way the instructions say; they snap spliced into the cig lighter? The wire for the cig lighter is smaller than the power wire for the grips. I would think this would cause some restriction and if I plug something into the cig lighter and run the grips at the same time don’t I risk blowing fuses, damaging whatever is plug in due to low voltage? I have heard Harley had a lot of defectives bad thermostats etc. I’ve tried to compare with a new bike on the dealer floor but I think the bike has to be running a couple thousand rpms for them to work properly?

 

My HD heated grips will cook your hands on setting 3 and they do warm up with the bike idling. No issues or problems with mine and they have been on the bike a couple of years. Heated gloves are probably the best option however, since my palms get hot and the backs of my hands sometime still get cold.

 

I have heated gloves and a heated vest. Didn't want to go through the hassel of wiring grips. The gloves evenly distribute the heat to my hands, and the vest is amazing. I was surprised how well the vest kept me warm. Now I need to figure out what to do about my toes.

 

My HD heated grips work well. I also agree that the way they wired it is questionable, insist that they rewire them by the book.

You could also use a multi-tester to check the power that they are putting out.

 

well half off labor they only did it half right

 

My heated grips worked incredible for the first ride. Then they refused to warm up past luke warm. Bad thermostat would make sense. I know the manual says never to plug anything into the cig lighter, but still I wouldn't think that doing so would draw enough power to affect your grips.

Mines going in under warranty.

 

I would take it back and complain. My roadking had a connectot in the headlite nacelle that I was told was earmarked for heated grips, it was capped). I used it to hardwire my gps as I use heated gloves and jacket liner.

 

Have the gloves, don't care much for them, to bulky, having to connect and disconnect wires dangling. There good for 100 mile plus rides when not doing alot of shifting, braking & stopping. Just got off the phone with the dealer service dept. they insist the cig lighter provides plenty of watts to run the grips and anything I would want to plug in. I said I won't accept short cut shotty work and I want it installed correctly by the book. He said bring it in tuesday and they will take a look at it. My confidence isn't real high, if they refuse to make it right anyone know how to file a complaint with Harley above the dealer?

 

I’m no electrician; however I would think that the cig lighter (with a smaller wire) wouldn’t be the way to go, can you say overload. I would personally want them on their own line/fuse. I would go back to them and discuss this…

I'm not sure if your grips are the same as the ones on my limited or not. Regardless, I added a set of aftermarket heated grips to my other bike and they sort of suck. It takes them awhile to heat up and they don’t get all that warm. The oem heated grips on the Limited is another story; normally I don’t need to go passed 2 or 3, these bad boys will cook your hands.

 

On the heated grips versus heated gloves debate, for the gloves to be effective you have to have them with you! On say a chilly summer evening ride in those lightweight gloves that were perfect earlier in the day, heated grips will be there, willing and able.