Hello,

Do not use your pigtail to jump your softail.

I was taking a 7 hour motorcycle safety course 50 miles from home.

My 2019 Heritage ran like a champ, despite the many times I had to shut off and restart.

The course finished and the dreaded battery failure occurred.

The police officers assisted by jump starting with their booster power packs and their truck.

My mistake was using the pigtail to jump start.

I managed a tow back home and I proceeded to remove the battery. In the process, I found out that I was missing a battery removal strap.

I purchased a new battery and a charger.

The charger when to standby mode after flashing green and red.

I rode up to the dealership and spoke with Kieren (service writer). He knew exactly what was going on.

He pulled the left side cover off and pulled the 7.5 fuse. Harley provided a spare and he replaced the burnt fuse.

Kieren stated that the pigtail is for charging and cannot take a booster pack or another vehicle jump. It will always trip the fuse.

I rode home and connected the charger and it worked perfectly.

The battery cover/left side cover mounting point makes jumping the battery difficult.

I have learned an expensive lesson with the tow, battery and charger costs.

I figured a 2019 was put together in 2018 and the battery would be 3 years old.

I hope this helps someone to check their battery, know how to replace in case of emergency and what not to do (jump with pig tail).

Thank you for your time,
Lboy06.

 

Battery cables are the size they are for a reason!!
Asking that little old pigtail to handle that much current is ludicrous........

 

Use the big lug on the starter next time.

 

Well....seems you're not the only one.

 

Thanks for manning up and posting this. Some know, some don't.

 

I always place the positive cable on the positive terminal on the starter and the negative cable anywhere to get a solid ground. Then hit the starter button. I never connect the battery booster directly to the battery.

 

Your post reminded me to get the LiFePO4 battery I had in my wishlist for my bike. Battery is 4 years old and it was dead at the dealership when I went to buy the bike. Was a pain in the *** to get to the battery connectors and jump/charge the bike.
New-fangled lithium battery going in as soon as I get the bike home.

 

Wonder if anyone has tried jumping their bike using the cigarette lighter port? It has a higher amperage fuse, I think 30A, so might work without frying anything, but I haven't tried it on mine, so don't know for sure. There are lots of new "jump start" units that plug into the cigarette lighter port for starting cars, so just wondered if anyone tried it on a bike.

 

30 amps is not nearly enough.

 

Like Hulkss said 30 amps isn't enough. Power draw during a jump start of a truly dead battery could be well over 100 amps, I'm not really sure. But if the battery were just a bit low, a booster pack connected through a 12V accessory outlet would probably work, same as it would in a car.