First of all I am by no means an experienced mechanic so many of you may already know this. It's just a heads up for people like me who can change their oils and other easy things but don't really know much about the internal working of their bike.

I put up a thread a couple months ago regarding my 03' RKC Odometer/Tripmeter rubber button having gone bad. Although the bike was registering miles, I could not reset the tripmeter or switch back and forth to the odometer. The feedback I got made me just think the button was faulty so I decided I would get to it when I can. NOT blaming the feedback, but it looks like it may be related to a little more serious issue.

I was riding to Boise the other day for a conference, when as I was about 5 miles from Boise after riding about 2 hours, my speedometer took a dump and my engine light went on. I pulled over at a rest stop to let my two buddies know in case I broke town and we went on. As I continued the engine light would stay on for a minute then go off for a minute and same with the speedometer. Then when I exited the the interstate, I stalled at each red light I hit and the bike seemed way hotter than normal even though it was 90 degrees at the time. Anyway, the bike fortunately re-started each time and I got to my hotel.

As luck would have it, a guy in my class's cousin happened to be the service manager at the High Desert HD in Meridian, ID which was about 10 miles from Boise. I let the bike sit for the night and rode it to the dealership on my lunch break the next day. Dave Allen who is the service manager there, had got a heads up from his cousin that I was coming and took my bike right in (The service dept. was slammed busy). After about an hour, he called me to let me know when hooked the bike to the computer, the only reading he got was for the speed sensor. His guy removed it and said it was filthy dirty. After cleaning it and putting it back in, they got no more bad readings after hooking it back up. Dave said he has seen this before and said the sensor could last a day, a week or 10 years once I take it from the shop. He said when the sensor goes bad, the bike doesn't know how fast it's going so it could react the way it did for me. Dave also told me they found a crack in my y-pipe which had been causing the slight clicking sound I was hearing lately. He said a simple weld would rectify the problem instead of paying $150-200 for a new one. The kicker is, when I went to pick up the bike and asked what I owed him, he told me NOTHING. I know it was probably a simple fix for them and I had a slight hookup knowing his cousin, but I figured I owe something. He was a great guy and if your ever in the Boise area, stop by the dealership. Not only are they a great place if you need some work done, but the dealership is only a year or so old and is a georgeous building with some killer bikes.

I guess the point of my thread is since I got the bike back it has been riding great and with no problems but the odd thing is that my Odometer/Tripmeter button now works which after talking to Dave again, he told me it must have been related to the sensor. He did say though that he wasn't with his guy the whole time so he's not sure if he did anything else to my bike. My thinking is once they got the speed sensor reading, his guy went right to it, cleaned and replaced it, saw my cracked Y pipe(the speed sensor is right below it) and was done, so the speed sensor and bad button have to be related. I've seen some threads on the speed sensor on a search but none relating the problems I was having.

I hope if these two things are related, that anyone who has a bad Odometer/Tripmeter button, may want to just thing of checking their speed sensor in case it needs cleaning. I could be totally wrong but just wanted to throw this out there. Please let me know if you think there is no relation and this guy just happened to be able to fix the button in under an hour.

This gave me so much piece of mind and was a blessing in disguise since I am leaving on a 2,200 mile trip this monday and would hate to have had this happen on the road.

I hope that with the summer season approaching, everyone has a great and safe riding season. Hope this helps someone out.

 

That's great news for sure! Have Fun!

 

Hey, anything we can learn is a good thing...
Thanks and be safe on your trip.

 

Good info! Thanks for the heads up!

Ride Safe, Mike

 

good luck on your trip

 

Good news. Sounds like an AWESOME dealer for those out that way.

 

I think I would have tipped the tech who worked on it $20 or so and maybe the guy you talked to.

 

Unome- I bought a $25 gift card from the bar across the street that would buy him and the tech lunch and a big beer or just a bunch of big beers. He was really appreciative of this. I would have never left without throwing them a bone too.

 

Thanks. Usefull piece of information for the memory banks

 

I had to clean the sensor last October on my '05 when it had 30K miles on it. I was on a trip from MS to MD. The first symptom was my spedometer was jumpy then after awhile the check engine light came on, spedometer and odometer quit working as well as irregular idling. I called the shop in Ocean City and they told me to just clean the sensor. And that's all it took!