JUST FIGURED IT OUT! So I started checking connections and voltages but then had to take a break. In my experience when the bike won't start you check the easy fixes first--as many of you recommended in your posts. Most of these items had been checked (battery, connections, switches, etc.), but I kept wracking my brain trying to think about other simple solutions. I was thinking about what constants existed in the SSS syndrome I had experienced. The one thing I kept coming back to was that I was pretty sure the kickstand was down every time I had the issue. We all know that these bikes (like many) have a finicky neutral light. When the kick is down, and the bike is in gear, it creates a kill switch. This was the problem! Apparently despite the fact that the neutral light was on, the internal kill switch wasn't fully disengaging to allow the bike to start. It was essentially creating a short. This was also what was making the bike kill itself. As soon as the switch allowed the engine to turn, it shorted and re-engaged the kickstand kill switch. The video shows the proof. So in future, if any of you experience similar symptoms while trying to start in neutral (or false neutral as the case may be), just flip the kickstand up and engage the clutch. It should start right up.
SAME EXACT PROBLEM! i've been having the same exact problem on my brand new strada. i rode it home 50 miles from the dealer after purchasing it brand new and the very next day it would not start. i called the dealer and he had a service rep come and load it up on the pick up truck. the service rep also was unable to start it. however, when they got it back to their shop, it has been starting and they have been unable to find the source of the problem. unlike you however, i have had the kick stand up, bike in neutral, and have been squeezing the clutch, and it would not start at all. i am concerned, as the mechanics have not been able to find anything, and i don't want to be stuck in the middle of no where unable to start. the strada is still in the shop (brand new and having only been able to ride it once on the way home from purchase).
Hey Condor. You might experiment a bit with the kickstand and see if shifting and using the clutch alter the situation. I feel fairly certain that I have figured out the source on mine (I really hope I am not wrong). Yours might be a faulty switch at the kickstand causing the same symptoms?
ok thanks will give it a try. hope that's what it is. i'll have to say, that kick stand has a hair trigger and is pretty finicky
The kick is an easy fix too. You need a hammer and some touch up satin black paint. Whack the "D" welded to the kickstand (forward, if I remember correctly) a few times and the "suicide kickstand" will be a thing of the past. Then touch up the paint as needed with a little spray paint.
That kickstand switch needs to go. But on the bright side Next, maybe you can pull the back wheel or something to fix it next time it don't start LOL, don't you feel silly now. But thanks for the persistence to find what may be an easy fix should this happen later. My bike used to die every time I put it in gear, dang I was PO'd. The fix, put up the kickstand. Dumbest idea ever, and then to top it off, the kickstand will pop up when you need it down. If you are under warranty, I would take it in to fix the switch, maybe other issues related to it, something breaks and gets wedged etc.
Hi Condor thanks for that info, three times my Terra has not started with me. Turn the key all the bells and whistles on the dash light and the fuel pump primes then press the key and nothing, no clicks no dimming of the lights. Each time I've pressed the kill switch a few times kicked the side stand put it in gear and rocked it back and forward and eventually it will go. I thought it might be something to do with the starter switch because on mine you have to push it all the way in and some to get the starter turning. Scotty
Search around some for kickstand fixes. I just used a big crescent wrench and bent the "D" ring to change the angle of the spring pull...took a couple of trial & error attempts but no touch up paint needed. Kinda used the crescent as a crow bar for bending tool for leverage. It worked very well...no hair trigger anymore. The stand stays down.
HA! Yeah I was glad it was such an easy fix. As for takign it in, I am not sure that there is any real malfunction here. Many of the bikes I have had in the past had unreliable neutral lights, however this is the first one that "flickered" and kept you from starting the bike despite being in mechanical neutral. In the initial video around 1:45 you can see that the Neutral light is flickering when it struggles to start. Theses bikes can be in neutral with no light, or the light can be on and it can still be in gear. The part that threw me was that it was "trying" to start with that little wheezy click. When it is fully in gear it just won't start at all, so this wheezy click symptom had me perplexed and I had never seen anything quite like it on another machine. I was so preoccupied thinking that it was the battery/wiring or the switch that I didn't watch that little light when it was going out. The green neutral light was on when I shifted into neutral and began the startup process, but as both videos show it then "fell back out" of neutral electrically while still being in mechanical neutral--if that makes sense.
My problem is slightly different but MAY be the same cause somehow to others. Intermittently when I go to start it it turns the starter over, fires ONCE then stops . Doesn't even keep spinning the starter or clicking ( indicating a low voltage/bad connection to battery/stuffed solenoid). You have to take you thumb off the starter and repress or nothing happens. Does it repeatedly then will all of a sudden ( sometimes quite a few times later) spin properly and fire and start... Smells of fuel.
