NHTSA Complaint #11494971 — 2012 YAMAHA FJR1300

I was riding the motorcycle during daylight hours, and I noticed some glitchy electrical behavior. The turn signal indicators were dimly lit, turn signals themselves were inoperative, horn inoperative, windshield vertical adjustment inoperative, etc. The important part was that both headlights were inoperative, which would be a huge problem if I was riding during nighttime hours. The engine continued to operate normally and I rode the bike home. The symptoms indicated a failed grounding connector. I removed the left side fairing and located a ground connector under the glove box/storage compartment that had scorch/burn marks on it. I cleaned the connector and applied conductive grease to prevent future corrosion. Problem solved…all electrical components worked normally. There was a previous NHTSA campaign for 2006-2009 FJR1300 models, 11V-338, that addressed a failed grounding connector. This bike is a 2012 model which was not addressed by the earlier campaign, and my failed grounding connector was a different one than was addressed by the campaign. I’ll attach a photo of my failed connector as well as a schematic of the ground connectors. The schematic is not an official Yamaha drawing, but from a group of FJR owners that have been working to solve the grounding problems. The original campaign addressed only the “S4” connector located under the fuel tank near the coolant thermostat on the forward left-hand side of the engine valve cover. My failed component was the “S6” connector located under the glove box/storage compartment. I located all 8 ground connectors on my bike, cleaned them and applied conductive grease to each one to hopefully avoid any future electrical problems. Yamaha needs to come up with a fix for the “S6” connector. If a rider is out riding at night and that connector fails, and the headlights suddenly go out…it could be very difficult to keep the bike on the road and avoid a crash.