Heated grips not heating...

[beardo]

So, for all the years and all the bikes I have had over the years, I have never had a bike that was fitted with heated grips. The lights on the panel come on, not so toasty, as in, at all. As cold and unfeeling as most of the women in my life. But that's another story.

No manufacturer markings that I see anywhere. And all it says on the grips, is well, 'HEATED GRIPS.'

Seeing as I have zero experience with heated grips, I have no idea where to start looking for faults. Any ideas about this particular system?

 

[SMSW]

I'd start by looking for its wiring, and follow it back to the source of electricity. Does it have its own fuse? is said fuse good? Is it powered by the quartet harness? Do you have power there? Once you have established that the controller is getting power, what to the various connectors to the grips look like? In good shape, corroded or heat damaged?

That looks like a nice neat installation, I'd expect the rest (wiring) to be well done as well. Maybe a name on the back of the controller? Someone else will recognize the brand and chime in.

 

[beardo]

I should have said in my original post that the LED's all come on, on the control panel.

 

[ST-Traveler]

Those factory grips barely lasted the 3 year warranty on my bike- ended up replacing with oxford grips - which worked great for years.
I think the wires in the grip get frail and break too easily.
The problem you will have is they (the dealer) cut a hole in your fairing for the switch and you have to leave the switch in place for the life of the bike even though it doesn't work.

 

[Andrew Shadow]

I think that they are the Honda OEM heated grips. They were notorious for having the wires break where they enter the grips. They usually broke in a location where you couldn't repair them.
If they are the OEM, they were wires in series, so if only one has an open circuit both stop working. They are no longer available, so if you can't fix the break you have to replace them. If you can confirm that that the fault is with the grips, and that the rest of the system is functional, you can replace them with other heated grips, but you will need to wire them in series I believe.

When faced with the OEM heated grip failure, because they are no longer available, most people have chosen to replace the entire system with an aftermarket set.

 

[beardo]

Gotcha, and that is exactly the kind of information I was looking for. I'll give them a quick glancing over, but I'll probably just leave them. I have always been more of a heated glove type, but if the issue with the grips was simple, well, would have been nice, but not essential.

Thanks again!

 

[Willsmotorcycle]

I have seen @Uncle Phil do some cool stuff with heated gear, maybe he can give you insight as to how to use the factory controller with new grips. I too was a heated glove guy, then i installed heated grips.

 

[RaYzerman]

You can check the resistance of each grip at the connectors..... if none, then you know that grip is faulty. If they both have resistance, then the controller is suspect, but I'd think it's OK.

 

[Larry Fine]

If you can confirm that that the fault is with the grips, and that the rest of the system is functional, you can replace them with other heated grips, but you will need to wire them in series I believe.

Parallel, actually, but who's counting.

 

[Andrew Shadow]

Larry:

The OEM heated grips were wired in series. I read somewhere on here that the replacements would need to be wired in series as well, something to do with the controller but I don't remember the details.
If you know for sure whether or not that is so, let the OP know as I wouldn't want to steer him wrong.

 

[Larry Fine]

Larry:

The OEM heated grips were wired in series. I read somewhere on here that the replacements would need to be wired in series as well, something to do with the controller but I don't remember the details.
If you know for sure whether or not that is so, let the OP know as I wouldn't want to steer him wrong.

If you have 6 volt OEM replacements, then of course they should be wired in series like the originals.

As far as I know, all aftermarket grips are 12v, and will only reach 1/4 power if they're wired in series.

 

[Arellcat]

My recently acquired 1300 has the OEM heated grips as well and guess what? They don't work. I know they're factory fitted because they're almost identical in wiring to the also factory fitted grips I had on my Africa Twin. About three years ago those ones also stopped working owing to:

• a burned out controller, which I replaced
• a break in the wiring deep within one of the grips, which I couldn't fix
• my being less than a week away from going on a four-base-layers-and-heated-grips early spring road trip.

On my 1300, two of the controller LEDs light up and others two don't, so whether it's actually feeding any voltage to the grips is anyone's guess until I can get my multimeter and power supply on it. I have a spare Oxford controller, left over from having to replace the grips on the AT, but I'm half tempted to just replace the lot anyway since I'm having to redo the power sockets' installation. Well, 'redo' is a diplomatic way of saying I have to start pretty much from scratch because the previous owner clearly didn't have a clue.