Hi everyone, my bike has been stuck in my garage for 3 months. It has an optimate 4 trickle charging the battery. I’m not using it during the lockdown as I don’t think it’s the right thing to do. Yesterday the need to get on it overwhelmed me and I fired it up and did a few laps of the lawn on it (it’s a reasonable sized lawn). The bike fired up first time and sounded fine. However since I have put it back in the garage it is switching the ignition on itself and after a while switching itself off. from what I have found on threads here it’s likely to be the hands free unit. I dread how much that will cost. I was just wondering, is there anything else that could be causing it? Could it be the battery? It’s always on the charger but if the battery is failing it could still be causing issues (the lights on the optimate suggest it’s ok). The only other thing that has happened to the bike is that in January Ducati Glasgow picked the bike up, serviced it and brought it back. So there’s something that might of happened when they had it. I thought I’d check here for any clues or advice before getting Ducati Glasgow involved. Any ideas? Stuart
You don't say what model Multi you have; age and mileage could be a factor. Also battery age. That would probably be useful for others to know. I don't have any experience with your problem but what I'd probably do is reboot the bike by disconnecting the battery the reconnecting after a few minutes. Before you try that make sure you know how to reset parameters back to imperial, kms to miles for example and reset the clock. You'll hopefully get better informed advice so wait for that first is my advice. Good luck.
My 1st check would be the right hand switchgear. There's plenty of posts about that being a problem area. If the battery has been on a trickle chargers it's unlikely to be that and I would guess a battery on it's way out wouldn't throw those symptoms anyway.
Yup, sorry about that. It’s a 1200 dvt s purchased at the end of 2015. Mileage is just under 8000 miles (I know, sad..). Funnily enough I did have some issues with the switch gear when I first bought it. I think they just sprayed some lubricant in it and it’s been fine since. The button feels ok and responds as it should when I switch the bike on and off which led me to believe the button was ok. I will try disconnecting the battery. Thank you for your replies. Stuart
I don't think leaving an optimate on all the time helps. I personally recommend even if using my enduro daily near enough. To pop it on the optimate charger once every two weeks for a good 8-10hours only.
I don't agree with GZB above about the Optimate. I've pretty much retained full-time, the two bikes I own, one of which is a somewhat fickle Aprilia RSV Mille, well known for issues with battery life, on Optimate chargers. Over circa 15 years to date, never an issue, caused directly or indirectly by these chargers. They have maintained battery life and condition without any such problem as noted by Stooby. In all likelihood, the switchgear is the issue, but like Coman says, try dis-connecting the battery and re-boot first. Good luck and hopefully just another one of the weird Ducati Multistrada 'things' that happen, which most, if not all of us, experience at one time or another.
Had this happen on a Twin Spark Multi in Switzerland once, wouldn't switch off the ignition which then timed out and then would switch on again for no reason. I disconnected the battery and reconnected it - that seemed to cure it and I also put a new battery in the key fob. Didn't happen again so not sure if it was the bike battery or the key fob battery, only time it happened. Was a bit worrying as the bike was in a hotel car park at the time!
Thank you for all the replies. It would appear that the problem has somehow fixed itself overnight. It has remained off all day and if I switch it on and off again it stays off. For the record, it was switching itself on without the key being in range - it showed the screen for entering your PIN number. I’ll keep an eye on it. thanks again everyone. Stuart
Had the same happen to mine - 2016. It would turn on with key well away. Had to keep the trickle charger connected until I got it fixed. After Ducati checked it out, ended up being the hands free unit - not too expensive. All good since
