2018 Starter Fix Thread - Continued.

[Jakobi]

Originally Posted by Wypipo

I haven?t heard anything about this either. Good lord when will it end. The problems seem to just keep piling up. I would love to buy another gasgas after this bike because it?s great everywhere else but unless they make serious improvements with these issues and how they address them I won?t be buying another one. All these problems and their only way to address it is to give you 30 cents worth of copper wire and tell you good luck, and now dealers are telling customers they aren?t aware of starting issues on the 18s... WHAT

Some dealers might not be aware.. Some might be.. or maybe it was just the person on the phone answering questions wasn't aware. Aussie customer service can be a bit.. errr.. lacklustre at times.

It was a whole new bike for 2018. It was sure to happen that something would give niggles.. issues.. however you see it. It shouldn't happen, but it does. It appears that there are a couple of different issues surrounding the starter which is continuing to cause concern.

BUT!! The whole bolt on e-start is a poor design.. it has always been. It always will be. It's a bandaid solution to a market demand.. I'm sure at some point GG will release an engine with the starter in the cases, as they other manufacturers have also done.

In the mean time, be frustrated. Work with your dealers. If you can't come to a solution you can take it higher.. or ditch the e-start. Jump brands if it's a deal breaker by all means.

When mine gives up the ghost I'll be throwing an old plastic stator cover on, and running simple street!

[stabak]

Originally Posted by Jakobi

When mine gives up the ghost I'll be throwing an old plastic stator cover on, and running simple street!

... and lose 3.5kg according to this

[Booki]

Originally Posted by RudolfHucker

Could it be a reference to an uprated stator to provide extra power to charge the uprated battery? I have read somewhere about a stator replacement recall on the 2018s.

The dealer told me it was something to do with the flywheel getting machined, and also mentioned the stator - I will get the full run down when I get the bike back - just dropped it off today.

Originally Posted by Wypipo

How did you find out what issues are specifically related to your VIN ?

I called up pretty much every dealer on my area and only ONE bothered to check my vin with Gas Gas.
Gas Gas got back to them and said it needed a flywheel, battery cables + stator cables and CDI reflash.

Originally Posted by Jakobi

Some dealers might not be aware.. Some might be.. or maybe it was just the person on the phone answering questions wasn't aware. Aussie customer service can be a bit.. errr.. lacklustre at times.

Not wrong about the customer service....

Having the starter motor while doesn't look great where it is, as long as it works I am not too fussed. End of the day people have paid in excess of 13-14k for these bikes and for buyers to just "accept" the fact that shit doesn't work out of the box is unacceptable in my books, regardless of brand.

But seems as consumers majority just put up with it - My previous bike, a Yamaha WR250F had jetting issues right out of the box, I could never get the thing 100% spot on.

Thankfully the jetting seems quite good on on my Gas Gas, maybe the previous owner/dealer rejetted it.

Another issue is when using the kick starter it gets belted on my footpeg - resulting in a large chunk on my kick starter....its only gotten worse since my ownership too!!

[Jakobi]

Originally Posted by Booki

The dealer told me it was something to do with the flywheel getting machined, and also mentioned the stator - I will get the full run down when I get the bike back - just dropped it off today.




I called up pretty much every dealer on my area and only ONE bothered to check my vin with Gas Gas.
Gas Gas got back to them and said it needed a flywheel, battery cables + stator cables and CDI reflash.



Not wrong about the customer service....

Having the starter motor while doesn't look great where it is, as long as it works I am not too fussed. End of the day people have paid in excess of 13-14k for these bikes and for buyers to just "accept" the fact that shit doesn't work out of the box is unacceptable in my books, regardless of brand.

But seems as consumers majority just put up with it - My previous bike, a Yamaha WR250F had jetting issues right out of the box, I could never get the thing 100% spot on.

Thankfully the jetting seems quite good on on my Gas Gas, maybe the previous owner/dealer rejetted it.

Another issue is when using the kick starter it gets belted on my footpeg - resulting in a large chunk on my kick starter....its only gotten worse since my ownership too!!

If you know anyone who paid 13-14K for one of these out of the box then the jokes on them!

Seriously though. It would be great if they worked seamlessly, but the whole starter/bendix after thought hasn't worked well.. Not for another brand either.. Issues with it are expected, and expensive. My last 2 GG's were kick only, so I have no issues kicking and bumping. I'll admit I like the button... but for me it's not a deal breaker.. I'll either pay the upkeep on it.. or I'll ditch it. I'll decide when I'm faced with the issue.

I had a WR250F many years ago.. it had a bit of a lean bog when cold OEM. It could be tuned out.. but took some tinkering.

Point being, nothing is perfect out of the box. Other brands have their own issues too. In a perfect world..

In saying that, the build quality on the 2018 GG is a big jump from where they used to be.

[Booki]

From memory I got quoted about 12ish for a new one + on roads. So ends up being between 13-14k on the road id say (least here in Vic).

Nothing is perfect out of the box, thats true.

Heres hoping my baby will start from the button though, otherwise I won't have a kick starter left with the gouges that come from kicking it!

[Jakobi]

Originally Posted by Booki

From memory I got quoted about 12ish for a new one + on roads. So ends up being between 13-14k on the road id say (least here in Vic).

Nothing is perfect out of the box, thats true.

Heres hoping my baby will start from the button though, otherwise I won't have a kick starter left with the gouges that come from kicking it!

True that! I hope you get it sorted mate.

At least even if you have to throw dollars at the starter yourself in the long run .. you can look on the bright side that your suspension is working out of the box

[ssaulnier]

Good point about the suspension. That puts things in perspective. The starter issues are annoying, but the rest of the bike is fantastic.

On my KTMs I was always messing about with the suspension.

On this new Gasser I just ride and smile 😊

[ssaulnier]

Ok so I replaced the stock battery cables with 8 AWG battery cable, ran an 8 AWG ground cable from the battery negative post to the starter housing bolt. Then ran the old starter wire from the starter housing ground to the coil ground bolt. Left the stock ground wire attached between the aluminum subframe and battery negative post.

Charged the 150 CCA lithium WPS feather weight battery to 13.4 VDC.

I didn?t notice any change in starter behavior on cold start. Still cranks fine but doesn?t want to fire up. One kick and she started right up. Was about 35 deg F so had to blip the choke lever for about a minute so she didn?t stall out. Shut her off then the electric starter fired her right up.

I am not going to mess with the starter any more. Just going kick start when cold and use electric starter as a restarter. Only have 8 hours run time. Maybe things will seat in and work better as others have observed.

[Booki]

Have you done the CDI reflash?
Have you had the flywheel change as well?

My dealer told me that the flywheel + Cdi need to be done together.


My bike has just been done, will be picking it up tomorrow and posting the results.

[ssaulnier]

My dealer reflashed the CDI before I picked up the bike. He didn?t say anything about a flywheel replacement so I don?t know. But I suspect no new flywheel.

As I understand it, the CDI reflash updates you to the latest version firmware with more linear performance in muddy conditions and improved all around performance. I can?t complain. My bike is tractable and easy to ride unless you whack the throttle open and hold it there for a few seconds!

I think the flywheel replacement is for only for ones that were not machined properly. I don?t really know anything about that. Maybe just a couple batches of bikes?