r1100s Poor heated grips performance

[jings]

Hi guys. I've owned a '99 11s for 4 years now and in all that time the heated grips have only ever been slightly warm even on position 2, i.e. hardly any warmth travelling through my gloves. They do work on both settings but nothing like the heat my wife gets from her Harley heated grips. Any suggestions on how to improve their performance?

[Neil178]

It could be as simple as a bad earth. Increasing resistance and reducing the current flow which would in turn reduce the amount of heat.
A volt meter would help, checking the supply voltage in and out of the switch. If you don’t have one it should be a cheap and easy check for an auto electrician to fault find.
On the second setting mine get too hot after a while with summer gloves. Good luck!

[jings]

Thanks Neil, I've pulled the switch apart and cleaned the contacts with electrical cleaner and discovered a pin in the under tank connector wasn't seated properly too, so hopefully things will be better now. Out of interest how long does your grips take to heat up if the engine isn't running?

[Boxered]

Out of interest how long does your grips take to heat up if the engine isn't running?

Out of sympathy for the alternator & battery I've never tried that, I always turn them off before I switch off, and wait until the bike is running and rolling before turning them on again. And in my experience on both my old R11S and on my current R12S the two heat settings are : 1= bloody hot, and 2= molten lava! but then I only ever wear summer gloves.

Steve

[SP250]

Like Steve, I don't switch the heat on until the engine is running.
Position 1 is just warm and ok with thick gloves if its not too cold.
Postion 2 is hot and I have to keep turning it back down to 1 as hands feel too hot. even with thick winter gloves, so I am always switching up and down between 1 and 2 when its really cold.

[Neil178]

Ditto to what Steve and John said.
My bike didn’t originally have the heated grips. Come the cooler days I really missed them so I bought the bits and pieces from Motorworks yonks ago.
My bike has the smaller alternator together with the smaller battery (no abs and bigger fuel tank) but even so I never seem to run out of electrons thankfully.