You guys are making me nervous!!!!

Gee....all these 'my bike wont start' threads are starting to make me really nervous.
Not new to bikes but new to this one, is there anything that is standard practice to check or change to avoid most of these problems??
There seems to have been a few probs with the kill switch which seems really odd for a jap bike??
I have had a look around the forum and its been mentioned a lot but I haven't found a thread that properly describes how to disconnect the stand switch and the clutch switch. Seem first thing to check is always the fuses which is pretty normal, not keen on all these other things that are designed to stop the bike running!!
It was the FI etc that made me a little reluctant to get a WRR initially, so far I think its a great little bike......but some weird switch playing up in the middle of no where would really bug me.......

Any help or advice to avoid these problems by long time owner/users would be greatly appreciated.

Could be the battery. The fuel injected WR has a 6 A-hr battery. My old carbureted Ninja 600 had an 8 A-hr battery. You have a little battery that has to prime the fuel pump with every start. They make up for that with a big alternator, but it wouldn't take much for a weakened battery to be drained quickly if you're not riding it a long ways between starts.

Every message board dedicated to a certain model of motorcycle I've belonged to has that feature:
The HELP!!! threads that pop up like mushrooms overnight.

What adds to the seemingly numerous threads about problems is that the original poster often won't come back on and explain what the cause of the problem was.

We also don't know what kind of fooling around with the bike was done before the trouble cropped-up because we're usually not told that part.

All we read is, basically, HELP!!!, and then nothing most of the time.

I've never had a switch on one of my bikes become unplugged without it being done by me, if you know what I mean. :)

Except for when the spark plug broke on my bike (denso iridium broke in two basically at the porcelain) and when I drained the battery inadvertently a couple times my WRR has never failed to start. With the broken spark plug incident, my bike was throwing code 19, showing the side stand switch was busted, but it wasn't.

Both the clutch and side stand switches are easy to remove. For the side stand, cut the plug off the wiring lead that runs to the switch, connect the two wires, then plug the lead back into the harness. For the clutch side, the wires also just need to be connected (close the circuit).

The other thing is that a lot of people only post up with thier problems. You don't hear as much from the people who don't.

Slrsedan wrote:

Gee....all these 'my bike wont start' threads are starting to make me really nervous...

Any help or advice to avoid these problems by long time owner/users would be greatly appreciated.

"All"????

How many out of how many posts here and how many members - presumably, most owning a WRR/X?

Most of us can't help you with how to avoid these problems because we've never had them.

But this might be the most common thread in those having electrical problems with their bike:
Don't screw with the electronics or modify it involving the electronics.

That will probably cover the cause of most of the electronic problems - an owner attacking their bike with tools and screwing something up.

At one point I heard that up to 70% of warranty was customer related breakage and the other thing to remember is at least 80% of complaints come from 20% of the people
When you add these two together you get what seems like a lot of problems when in actuality Its a combination of misdiagnosis and modification or poor maintenance all mixed up together
Factories track warranty repairs down to about 1/2% and also parts movement so there is very little likelihood of a high volume problem
A lot of times when a guy has a problem they don't diagnose it, they just throw parts at it based on internet babble
Maybe they inadvertently fix something when messing with something unrelated (loose wire, water in a connection etc) but a lack of diagnostic skills means he is on the net saying his Yada Yada valve was broken
Not many people wil admit to a dumb mistake after talking about it on a forum either

Thanks for the replies. Yes I agree learning about stuff like this on the net is not perfect because of the points raised, but it is the purpose of these forums isn't it?? to gain knowledge from others experiences.

I agree with you YZEtc, I also have rarely had problems with things that myself .....or someone else hasn't played with first, for this reason when I get a bike now I play with it as little as possible, like to learn about things but I like the simple stuff I can understand. My style is do the maintenance required and do it well....but dont play with things that aint broke!

skierd, read your post and a broken plug is just unlucky, does happen, but in the years Ive ridden I think Ive only ever had one.

0007onWR, thanks for your comments, I am not a mechanic but spent 15 years as an auto bodyman (we call them panelbeaters down here) and am constantly amazed at some of the stuff you see people do, some people are fussy and some aren't I guess.

What I was wanting to know here is if there was any obvious or re-occurring faults that people with plenty of miles on had noticed, the crap like.....wiring rubs through here, or this fuse blows all the time in the wet, etc etc.
I don't have big plans to modify the bike, electronics or anything else, happy with the standard pipe and power delivery, gear it down and good tires is all I have planned at this stage, if I wanted horsepower I would have bought something else.

I didn't want to offend anyone or attack their choice of bike, after all I bought one as well, in saying that, I have owned bikes with stand and clutch switches and fuel injected bikes as well, but they have all been road bikes, never been jumped, ridden through water, dumped on their sides in the mud etc.

This bike has technology that is very different from dirtbikes I have owned in the past.

If my intention was to ride this around the lawn and maybe to and from work I guess it wouldn't matter much, if it breaks down I'd be near help, but this isn't the riding I have planned, I intend to be riding, often alone, in areas that are a loooooong walk from help, you cant stop freakish things but I do expect a bike less than a year old to be pretty trouble free.

The only 'rubs through' item is the chain slider, and it doesn't seem to happen to everyone. Probably caused by a combination of factors starting with chain tension and ending with gearing choice as anything else. I replaced mine once at 6000 miles and have been fine since I stopped running a 12T sprocket, just under 25k now. Others have to replace theirs every 4-5k or sooner.

The other random failure seems to be 2008 fuel pumps, though there has been at least one report of a 2009 pump going. There's a VIN range for failures, around 1500 +/- a few hundred. Mine's dead center and has been fine, others have failed in short order, others have lasted to as high as 18k miles. It was a batch of bad pumps and for the most part Yamaha has been proactive about fixing it when it happens. Its a $225 part, many have replaced it prematurely as piece of mind, I haven't and it hasn't bitten me yet (part of why I bought a damn extended warranty imo). I don't believe there has been a failure on replacement pumps, so if you're really paranoid and bought an '08 just replace it. Or don't.

That's it though. Part of why we love this bike so much is nothing really breaks lol. There are no 'must do!' reliability mods that if not performed will take out the motor and leave you stranded with a rescue and repair bill. It really is that good lol.

Sorry man not getting on your back, didn't mean to
It's just that there is so much bad info on the net and the modern Japanese bike is very trouble free
I get all wiggy when guys disable safety stuff because they heard about a guy on the web who's switch broke etc etc
The best thing you can do is know your bike and maintain it, know where the parts are and what they do
Use the Internet carefully
Now let's go burn some gas

Thanks guys, appreciate the feedback.
skierd I have noted the mileage you have clocked up on your bikes and thats confidence inspiring, I agree that Japanese bikes do seem very reliable, but as mentioned this is a little different to what I normally ride.

When looking at the way the wiring from the sidestand switch is zip tied to the frame........well, it just didnt look like it was well thought out, more of an after-thought.....which got me to thinking about the rest of the electrical system, reading a few of these 'bike wont start' threads didnt help and then the fuel pump thing......just got me worried!

Apart from removing the indicators and a skid plate my bike is a stock 09, indicators is a great example, when I removed them I taped the original plugs, carefully put the factory boot around them and then zip tied them so they dont rub or rattle around.

Not sure what type of riding or the conditions are like that you ride in up there, but down here most rides involve plenty of mud/water/scrub which give anything 'hanging of' a bike a hard time!!

Thanks again, guess I'll just see how it goes.........you've all put my mind at ease!!!!!!!!!!!!!