| Author | Message | ||
     Blackxb9  |
I am a novice rider and mechanic and need some direction. My XB9 which i've only had a few months has not been seeing too much road time due to crappy weather up north. It was running great until I put it away for a few weeks. So I recently took it out on a nice evening just for a short trip to the store and back. It started backfiring and jerking around as I was cruising into my neighborhood. It was running fine for most of the journey. I didn't think much about it and figured it was just from not running it much lately and stored it back under it's comfy bike cover in the garage. Then yesterday it was so nice I decided to go on a little run. Same thing happened only more often. I had a lot of backfires and jerking. It was very hard to start and when I got out on the road it seemed ok until I opened up the throttle then more backfiring and jerking. I didn't go far because I didn't know if I was going to make it home. I'm sure this is an easy fix but for a novice like me I wanted to check with the experts on here before I did anything. I know you guys will steer me in the right direction. Thanks in advance... | ||
| Shred  |
Could be a lot of different things. Start with easy to check stuff. Loose plugs, sometimes will come loose from not being tightened enough or loosen from vibration. Bad fuel or trash in fuel. Have had both problems in past. How many miles on bike? | ||
| M1combat  |
Sounds to me like short runs will foul plugs on these bikes. Check the front one. | ||
| Ingemar  |
If the plugs look good, maybe for some reason the tps is off. If you're close to a dealer I would drop by them and have them check and reset the tps. I had the same thing only it came in gradually and I learned to live with it, until it became so bad that the HAD to be something wrong. I reset the tps, went for a ride and ALL backfires, jerkyness and other bad things were GONE. | ||
| Glitch  |
TPS possibly. Timing more likely. Either way they're both checked at the same time with the Scan Tool. If it's bad gas (or if you think it may be) run it 'til you're at about 25 miles into reserve, and fill up with a gas you know is good. | ||
| Blackxb9 |
Bike is a 2003 with only 3000 miles on it. I purchased it about 3 months ago and it has been running super until now. | ||
| Blackxb9 |
All these suggestions are great! I will probably just run it until this tank is empty then put in fresh gas and check the plugs. What is your opinion of using fuel injector cleaner or octane booster in the tank as well. I do it every 3-4 take fulls in my Jetta but not sure what the standard operating procedure is for these bikes? | ||
| Racertroy  |
i'd steer clear of putting anything in the tank other than good old hi-test; no cleaners, cleansers, detergents, etc. I've pulled plugs in my old turbo car that i ran octane boost in and the plug ceramic had an orange film build up. Made me wonder what the rest of the internals looked like. Just personal opinion, havn't heard the mechanics opinion. I usually run Marathon 93 octane. two cents ciao, --ts | ||
| Xb9er  |
Good modern gasolines already have all the detergents and additives you need. Use at least 91 octane and the bike will be fine. Don't blip the throttle when you stop or whack it when you take off (normally). It's a good FI system and doing that sometimes causes stutters and backfires. Mike |
