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Last Saturday I went for a ride in the Mountains in WA State.
I pull over, get off, find my map, find out which way I need to go, and then get back on the bike, start it, and then it goes into limp mode. I then shut the bike off and try to restart it and it does the same thing.
I limp back to a small diner in this small town with one store to look at the bike again. I find a harley dealer number and try to call, no bars on the phone. I am 200 miles from home, many miles from a harley dealer, no phone service, and I am starting to get nervous. This small town maybe has a population of 300.
I dig out the owner manual and I cannot find anything to help me. So after about 15 minutes I hope back on the bike and try to start it and it starts and then I hit the throttle and I could hear the nice sound of my pipe barking. Yeah, so I hit the road and head straight for home.
I get back home and talk to my indy and ask him if he had a clue what happened. He then asked me a question. Did you wait for the little check engine light to go off before you tried to start your bike. I did not have a clue if I had or not. He said they just had another bike in that did the same thing. They disconnected the battery and after about 30 minutes it cleared up.
I went home and read the manual and sure enough it says to wait for the check engine light to go off before starting your bike.
I beleive I will be following the directions from now on and I hope this was the reason my 2011 FLHTK went into limp mode.
If you check for codes you will more than likely at least have one but more than likely two, one that means you went into limp mode. I was riding one day and had probably gone about 200 miles and it just went into limp mode. Pulled over turned the bike off and waited a few minutes just wondering wtf just happened. Started it back up and it has never happened again. When I got back home and after doing some research on here, I did inspect and cleaned out the connector behind the AC for good measure.
Go up above & click on SEARCH, and type in Limp Mode. There have been a bunch of threads like this, and you'll be able to read what others have said about it. Mine did it on my 09 Classic at 15K miles, and it turned out to be corrosion at the end of a wiring harness, under the fairing. Harley knew about it & it was fixed under the warranty. I'd be riding down the road, limp mode, pull over, shut it down, wait 10 or 15 seconds, fire it back up, and it could be fine for 2 weeks, or could do it again in another 2 miles. This isn't something they've never heard of. Ask your service mgr about it.
Read somewhere how to reset the limp mode. I have that info stored in my phone now.
Turn ignition switch on and off 4 times with the run switch on the handle bar turned on. I also store the various bulb #'s in my phone in case I need to buy one on the road. Glad you were able to get home.
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