Trip Meter Reset upon startup?

I typically turn on the key, let the instrument needles do their 360 and drop down and THEN hit the starter button. Last night I wasn't paying much attention and hit the button before the sequence finished. The bike started, needles went up and then dropped down. That's when I noticed the clock was at 1:00 and both tripmeters were reset to 0. Odo was fine.

Is that normal?

Likely a weak battery. Discussed here when searching on 1:00 starter site:fjrforum.com at Google. It's also been discussed other times too.

You didn't specify the year of your bike when you signed up....so even well-maintained '05 and earlier bikes are going to have them starting to go bad.

Thanks, I should have tried a search before posting. 2004, new battery in Feb 07 (or so I was told when I bought it last month). I don't see any other signs of a weak battery so I'll keep an eye on it.

Check your fuses. The backup fuse could be blown . . .

amansker said:

I typically turn on the key, let the instrument needles do their 360 and drop down and THEN hit the starter button. Last night I wasn't paying much attention and hit the button before the sequence finished. The bike started, needles went up and then dropped down. That's when I noticed the clock was at 1:00 and both tripmeters were reset to 0. Odo was fine.
Is that normal?

Click to expand...

...aman., sounds to me like a loose battery connection. :assassin:

If the windshield auto-retract feature works when the key is shut off, the backup fuse is good. (Assuming that you haven't defeated the auto-retract feature.)

...aman., sounds to me like a loose battery connection

Click to expand...

YES!!! Also, have you been doing a lot of short, low speed riding? If yes, then the battery may not be getting fully charged.

No slow speed rides for me! I'll check battery connects.

There have been no signs of a low battery, but the other thread suggested the starter can place enough load on the system that the clock resets.

I still want to note that AFTER it started, the needles did their 360 thing. I thought that was odd. It did not die at that time and idled smoothly.

Windshield retract is working.

The needles only sweep because they were commanded to do so by the ECU. The only time the ECU should sweep the needles is when it is doing a first power-up test. If the bike is already running and the ECU sweeps the gauges, it means that the ECU had received a quick power interruption. It smells more and more like loose cables at the battery or a loose engine block ground.

While the starter can draw too much current and cause the odo to reset it won't have anything to do with the gauges sweeping after the engine is running.

There is an outside chance that the ECU connector(s) may not locked in place or may not be fully seated.

[unlike gauges from days past, the gauges in the FJR are driven by digital signals, not by straight DC voltages.]

I've had similar events on my bike. Don't know why. I always attributed it to a crap battery. It hasn't done it since replacing w/ a new one.

It's happened once or twice on my bike also. Battery is fine, connections all clean and secure.

The last time it did that was during a hot start. Got a bit of pre ignition which stalled the starter for a brief moment, I think that extra pull of current to overcome that simply drew to much current from the system, hance the reset of my gauges.

The original post is from the San Diego area and he's not the original owner. Heat cooks batteries, so unless making lots of short trips or the terminals are loose, I'd strongly agree with Iggy that the battery is giving a warning. Either way, it'd be prudent to pull the battery cover to have a check on it, as you'll also be at the terminals.