Friday whilst preparing my 2015 Multi for the start of an IAM Advanced Rider Course, I seemed to stumble across an issue that is maybe covered elsewhere in the forum, but if so, I haven’t seen it. Upon reactivating my pride and joy after the salt had been washed from the roads about a month ago, I was met with an engine warning light. The bike though was running fine without any apparent engine issues. So on Thursday I disassembled the exhaust valve as I had been told previously that failure to cycle during start up would cause an engine fault. The valve was a little stiff, however with a liberal application of Copaslip I made it free again. Unfortunately this did not cancel the engine warning light. Friday I managed eventually to get Melcodiag to link with the ECU, upon looking at the list of fault codes I was met with a number of statements in Italian. Needless to say this is not a language I am familiar with. I tried resetting the faults to no avail. Details of fault codes elsewhere in the forum did not help with finding what the problems were. I read a number of other posts where people were getting spurious engine alarms, someone had even reported it only happened when popping a wheelie after an engine rebuild? Anyway after a couple of hours without success, I thought bugger it, I would just have to turn up at the course with engine warning light on. Meanwhile I would check as much as I could and commenced a level check. The oil was fine but the only way I could see the coolant level was by sticking a torch over the top of the hole in the tank. The level was about on the low mark but not below it, so in the absense of proper coolant I put about a litre of water in the tank. I tightened the chain. Started the bike and low and behold no engine warning light and there has not been one since. That would seem to indicate a coolant level switch is fitted somewhere though I cannot see one on the tank. Since new I have had various spurious alarms and sometimes the dealer has not been able sort it or even state the cause. So have I stumbled across something here with this epiphany or is it a huge coincidence? One thing is for sure I will be checking the coolant tank more frequently now, especially if the engine light reoccurs.
There is no low coolant warning system on the multistrada. The tank is an expansion tank and should generally be around the low mark when the engine is cool. Never add plain water. A glycol mixture is required
if you have a fault, but the fault goes away, maybe a low battery voltage warning if not used for ages on first start up, but if you then start the bike several times and the fault is not there any more the warning light will eventually go out.
Just a thought. If you say your coolant level was around the low mark. You say you added 1 litre of water which already said is naughty. Surely that is way too much.
