Modern Buddy

My wife went down last week on her 170i. No serious injuries other than a bruised ego.

The bike was running on its side for a couple of minutes before she was able to get her head around what had happened, hit the kill switch and then pull her foot out from under it. It remained on it's side for an addition several minutes. Maybe in total, the bike was on it's side for ten minutes. When she got back on it the bike wouldn't start. Towed to our house and now I am tasked with getting her back on the road.

Facts:

- All lights are functioning as is the horn
- Both hand brakes activate the brake light
- When you first turn the bike on you can hear the fuel pump do its thing
- You can hear the starter solenoid engage but the starter doesn't run
- I pulled the front cowl off and all the fuses are good and well seated
- The battery is well charged

What am I missing? Why won't this thing start?

Kill switch? You did way too much. Don't bring the temple down for a minor problem.

Edit-I used to live in Glendale. I love L.A...........<iframe width="420" height="315" src="//www.youtube.com/embed/0b5LzCOc98E" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

Greatscott wrote:My wife went down last week on her 170i. No serious injuries other than a bruised ego.

The bike was running on its side for a couple of minutes before she was able to get her head around what had happened, hit the kill switch and then pull her foot out from under it. It remained on it's side for an addition several minutes. Maybe in total, the bike was on it's side for ten minutes. When she got back on it the bike wouldn't start. Towed to our house and now I am tasked with getting her back on the road.

Facts:

- All lights are functioning as is the horn
- Both hand brakes activate the brake light
- When you first turn the bike on you can hear the fuel pump do its thing
- You can hear the starter solenoid engage but the starter doesn't run
- I pulled the front cowl off and all the fuses are good and well seated
- The battery is well charged

What am I missing? Why won't this thing start?

Take it to David at VSO. Tell him Dan sent you. The doors will fly open wide..

While I don't know the 170i's FI system and can't offer input to the problem (other than maybe pulling off the front below-seat cylinder head cover (4 screws, 3 under floor mat) cover and making sure the spark plug cable is securely seated on the plug, I hope some 170i-wise folks chime in.

But your wife did EXACTLY the right thing using the kill switch as soon as she was able. That's what it's there for. She reacted absolutely correctly as soon as she could, and should be applauded.

Edit: sorry - didn't read closely enough that the starter/solenoid just 'clicks' rather than cranks. Ignore my plug advice. Just to be sure it's not your battery, though, jumper-cable it to a car battery and see if it cranks. If not, something likely came loose at the starter. If so, your battery has enough juice to run the fuel pump, light the lights, toot the horn, but not enough to crank, I guess. Also check your battery terminals for tight connections to the cables - I have a ganked-up terminal on one of my cars that does this to me regularly - all the accessories work, but no cranky.

KrispyKreme wrote:I used to live in Glendale. I love L.A

Ain't that something?! We actually are in Glendale.

PeteH wrote:If not, something likely came loose at the starter. If so, your battery has enough juice to run the fuel pump, light the lights, toot the horn, but not enough to crank, I guess. Also check your battery terminals for tight connections to the cables - I have a ganked-up terminal on one of my cars that does this to me regularly - all the accessories work, but no cranky.

I'll give this a go when I get home tonight. The battery is pretty new (less than three months old) and I had it on the tender over night before I started meddling with anything.

Thanks.

What you describe (starter solenoid engages but starter doesn't spin) sounds quite possibly like a weak battery.

Worst case, this could also be a seized engine. Running on its side for a couple minutes could be a case of "not good" with regard to lubrication. Could maybe pull the CVT cover and make sure engine turns over freely by hand (via the variator pulley).

If starter itself is suspected bad you could test with direct jump to terminals.

Benzo Mike wrote:What you describe (starter solenoid engages but starter doesn't spin) sounds quite possibly like a weak battery.

Yeah man. We could speculate all day how it happened, but the short version of the story is that the battery is most likely toast. I suggest the OP pull it and take it to a battery place for verification.

Question for the folks recommending battery check/replacement... the battery is new and has been on a tender. The tender light was red when I first hooked it up and the next day was green. All very normal. With that information... why would the battery be bad? It never lost full juice so a recharge is completely expected. Are they sensitive to a being bounced around? Seems like bad design for a battery that goes inside a vehicle that bounces around city streets.

This is a serious question and I'm not mocking the comments. Promise. I'm just a sponge looking to soak up info.

... I'm also regretting a lunch choice and can't sleep. Gotta post thoughts somewhere and the kids in Reddit just eat me alive, haha.

I'm not sure if the Tender's charging / metering circuit can be fooled by a compromised battery (weak cell, funky chemistry, etc.). Your battery should be a sealed unit (?), but it's been laid on its side just like the bike. Eh.

Anyway, have a shop check the battery for cranking capacity - there are testers for that at pretty much any auto parts store, and eliminate the battery as the problem by attempted jump-starting.

That bit about oil deprivation has me a wee bit worried - running on its side for 2min _maybe_ without oil being pumped from the sump. But if that were the case, it should probably have died before your bride shut it off. Ach. I speculate. Anyway, a jump start may help determine whether all the moving parts indeed move, which if so, then point to your battery as the weak link.

Greatscott wrote:Question for the folks recommending battery check/replacement... the battery is new and has been on a tender. The tender light was red when I first hooked it up and the next day was green. All very normal. With that information... why would the battery be bad? It never lost full juice so a recharge is completely expected. Are they sensitive to a being bounced around? Seems like bad design for a battery that goes inside a vehicle that bounces around city streets.

This is a serious question and I'm not mocking the comments. Promise. I'm just a sponge looking to soak up info.

Based on your second post, I'm now voting for a loose connection. Pull the battery cover, then grab hold of the big wires on the battery (one at a time), and wrench them around. Are they loose at all? If so, snug them up. Then retry starting. No love? Put it on the battery tender again. Red Light, Blinking Green Light, Solid Green Light, all within a few minutes? Try starting again. Still no love? Crap! Pull the battery and take it to the battery store. Load Test, Please!

As for the battery itself, no, they're not brittle or anything, but they can fail in funny ways as PeteH is saying and we're wondering if that's what's happened to yours. There are some not-so-nice things that could have happened, like the battery case cracking and the electrolyte (battery acid) leaking out, but that is a really remote possibility. That fact that this battery has been well taken care of reduces, but doesn't eliminate, the probability of a failure due to the kind of harm that happens internally to a battery when it is repeatedly discharged within an inch of its life. That kind of thing can weaken the plates which might cause them to fail structurally or maybe cause a piece to break off and short a cell or something like that.

There is also "Factor X" which in this case is the remote possibility that the battery just happened to pick this time to fail or some other equally remote low-probability event. We'll see.

Try the above. Let us know what you find and we'll go from there.

Good Luck!