Buddy 150 staring problem

[Bridger]

Help - Have a 2009 Buddy 150. Will not start unless I kick start it. I put a new Prima battery in but that did not fix the problem. It kick starts every time and runs great but will no start otherwise. One thing I did notice during the last month before this happened it was sluggish to start with ignition switch --- I just thought the battery was going bad. Finally one day it would not start at all without kick starting it.

[jrsjr]

Help - Have a 2009 Buddy 150. Will not start unless I kick start it. I put a new Prima battery in but that did not fix the problem. It kick starts every time and runs great but will no start otherwise. One thing I did notice during the last month before this happened it was sluggish to start with ignition switch --- I just thought the battery was going bad. Finally one day it would not start at all without kick starting it.

Before you do anything else, and despite the fact that you say your battery is brand new, pull the battery out of the bike (a good way to access the wire terminals to clean them) and haul it to a Batteries-R-Us kinda place and get them to run it on a "load tester." If they say something ignorant like, "WTF is a load tester?" Then go to a different battery place. Voltage testing, as many folks have painfully discovered, is just not enough. You need to be 100% certain that the battery has enough oomph to turn the starter over.

Assuming the battery is verified to be okay and is fully charged and the motor still won't start...

Next up, I [usually] would want to eliminate the starter switch. I doubt seriously that this is the problem here, because this sounds like a situation that developed gradually where something went bad. The starter switch is in the low-power side of the starter relay circuit. It doesn't draw much current and all it has to do is pull in the starter relay. For that reason, I'm kind of glossing over this step in the troubleshooting process. If the bike suddenly wouldn't make any effort to start, I would be all about eliminating this as a possibility.

The next suspect is your ground connections. The fix for that is as easy as cleaning up your ground connection(s) - just clean up the connection(s) with a little fine sandpaper. [Don't forget to check the ground connection at the frame. Just follow the ground strap from the battery to the frame and you'll find a bolt that holds the strap to the frame. Check it there before you go any further troubleshooting because we know that has caused folks grief before. If you see something there that looks like charring, that is your problem. No matter what make sure you have shiny metal to shiny metal at that primary ground point.]

The next suspect is that your starter relay is going south on you.

Last and most expensive is that the starter motor is going bad.

P.S. I did not consider the status of the Kill Switch because the OP states the motor will start with the kickstarter.

P.P.S. It's best to get the electric starter working again ASAP because the Buddy kickstart mechanism is not exactly the most robust mechanism in the world. Continuous usage of the kickstarter will wear it out fairly quickly, sorry to say.

Good luck tracking this down. Please let us know what it turns out to be.

[Bridger]

Thank you for your help.

This is actually the second battery. I took the fist one back and said it was bad. So I got the second one charged it and same thing.

I will try to work through your suggestions!

[Bridger]

I will mention one more thing. When I do try to start it there is "click" noise on the back right side. It is a single click each time I push the start button.

[jrsjr]

I will mention one more thing. When I do try to start it there is "click" noise on the back right side. It is a single click each time I push the start button.

That's the sound of the relay pulling in. It's trying to do it's job so the low power side of the starter circuit is working. At least you know that much. But that still doesn't eliminate the battery as the culprit. If it's humanly possible, please pull the battery and take it to some place other than where you bought it and have them load test it.

[k1dude]

People stare at my Buddy too.