Well, it's freakin' cold now when I ride home from work around here, and the hands are the first that freeze. I've had heated grips on my last two bikes, and let me tell you, try them once, and you'll never be without again.

This is my fourth heated grip install, and by far the most difficult, as well as expensive. My local dealer had a 20% storewide sale so I got them for about $180. I bought Symtec heaters for my FZ1 for $30

For this bike though, with limited room under the seat and on the handlebars, I decided to do the HD ones since everything is nicely self contained. No relay is needed because the install includes a trigger wire to the fuse box to keep them from staying on when the bike is off.

The install is pretty much a bitch, but most of that is because of how much stuff I had to take off the bike to get the wires run. I decided not to cut the crossover tube, so I couldn't completely remove the tank, but it's pretty easy to feed the wires under the gas tank. The install pretty much goes like this:

Remove seat, and disconnect battery.
Remove stock grips.
Install throttle side grip and fish the wires coming from the throttle side through the bars to the clutch side grips.
Plug the clutch side grip into the harness from the throttle side grip, and install the clutch side grip.
Run the wiring harness down the outside of the handlebars and under the gas tank back to the fuse box.
Locate the B+ connector attached to the main wiring harness behind the fuse box. I had a real bitch of a time finding this connection.
Crimp the gray connector included in the kit onto the red wire from the wiring harness you just ran, and plug it into the B+ connector.
Ground the black wire on the wiring harness.
Remove the bolts from the fusebox and pull it out so you can see the back.
Plug the orange fusebox connector wire included in the kit into the open slot in the back of the fusebox, and crimp the orange wire from the harness you ran onto this wire. This will make more sense when you see the instructions and have the fusebox in front of you.
Install the 2amp fuse into the slot you just created with the fusebox connector wire.
Put the bike back together and enjoy!

While I was in there, I also added a Battery Tender pigtail to the battery.

I haven't test rode the bike yet, but I did fire it up and turn on the grips. They heat up very quickly, and on 6, are VERY hot. They feel as though they heat all the way around too, which was something my factory Suzuki grips on my V-Strom did not do.

All in all, this is probably the way to go, even though they're expensive as hell, just because they're nicely self contained and require no wire splicing and no relay. There's such a cluster of wiring under the seat that finding a place to tuck a relay would be tricky.

Overall, I'm very happy with everything about these grips with the exception of the price. But hey, I love my bike, so I don't want to skimp out on it. Get 'em if you live somewhere that gets cool, I promise you'll love 'em.

 

Sounds like a lot of work. Do they keep the tops of your hands warm? Electric gloves for me - simple, cheap and keep my entire hand warm - both palm side and top side.

Richard

 

Yeah it was a decent amount of work, but not really that bad. They're sharp looking grips, and functional. I don't like heated gloves because of the wires and whatnot. The grips however don't really keep the backs of your hands warm, but they do a great job none the less.