I recently brought my P1000-5 to the dealer to swap over my tires to tracks for the winter (its free with the service contract). My batteries were both about shot when I dropped it off so I asked them to swap out the starting battery and I ordered a new aux battery that I was going to replace after I picked it up. Things started to go south from there... First off they lost the hardware for the tracks, not related to my current issue but a PIA. Once they finally found the hardware several weeks later they brought it into the shop, put the tracks on and said when they started it up to bring it back outside it was 'smoking and running really rough'. They called, asked if it had ever done that - which it has not, its run like a champ for 2200 miles - and said they were going to do a little troubleshooting.
At this point they changed the fuel, spark plugs, and gave it a normal servicing, but ripped a spark plug boot and said that the plugs were the issue but now I was waiting on the boot. The boot arrived and I asked if the battery had been changed and it still had not - they then told me that a bad cell in the battery was causing the issue so I hooked onto the trailer to go get it while they changed the battery. When I arrived I took a look at the unit and they had changed the aux battery, not the starting battery, so I went in to discuss the issue and said I would just take it home and sort out the battery issue (after all it was running fine when I dropped it off so I suspected it was something simple...).
I swapped the battery around, installed a new aux battery, put them both on a trickle charge over night and as of this morning the problem they described still exists. To confirm what was actually going on I started by pulling the rear plug cable and trying to start - the machine with fire a couple times, sputter and die - never maintaining an idle. I reinstalled the rear plug cable and pulled the forward cable to repeat the process - this time the machine fired right up and idled on 1 cylinder no problem. The next step was to pull both plugs and have a look, the forward plug was wet and black, rear plug looked good so I swapped them and repeated the process. No change, the machine fired up with the 'black' plug in the rear cylinder while the good looking plug did the same in the forward. This tells me the plugs are fine. Next step was to confirm the ignition coil - I removed both coils, installed the forward (upper) coil where the rear coil mounts and tried it with the rear cylinder - the machine fired up and ran on the rear cylinder telling me that both coils are fine.
This is where I am running out of troubleshooting ideas - I will call the dealer back if need be but I really do not want to go down that road unless they have a plan as the cost can get out of control in a hurry (they covered most of the troubleshooting they did under my service contract...most but not all...). Does anyone have any suggestion of what to look at next? I may take the multimeter out now and see if the wires going to both ignition coils are getting the same voltage. I just don't see what could have happened to suddenly cause an issue like this - the only other details I know are that both batteries were indeed bad and froze while at the dealer, I could see where a cell on each was swollen, could they have caused an issue when they put a jumper pack on it? Also, I always keep the machine in my garage, it sat outside at the dealer for over a month - that said I have a full roof and hard cab - temps were very cold during that time frame, I believe it got down to -15 or 20.
Any ideas would be greatly appreciated, its the peak of ice fishing season and I cant get my shack out on the lake without it!! I will also mention that I have searched through the forum and found a number of similar issues but most seem to have been solved with plugs or coils. Should I be looking at the injector? The plug is black and wet so it seems to be getting fuel...
At this point they changed the fuel, spark plugs, and gave it a normal servicing, but ripped a spark plug boot and said that the plugs were the issue but now I was waiting on the boot. The boot arrived and I asked if the battery had been changed and it still had not - they then told me that a bad cell in the battery was causing the issue so I hooked onto the trailer to go get it while they changed the battery. When I arrived I took a look at the unit and they had changed the aux battery, not the starting battery, so I went in to discuss the issue and said I would just take it home and sort out the battery issue (after all it was running fine when I dropped it off so I suspected it was something simple...).
I swapped the battery around, installed a new aux battery, put them both on a trickle charge over night and as of this morning the problem they described still exists. To confirm what was actually going on I started by pulling the rear plug cable and trying to start - the machine with fire a couple times, sputter and die - never maintaining an idle. I reinstalled the rear plug cable and pulled the forward cable to repeat the process - this time the machine fired right up and idled on 1 cylinder no problem. The next step was to pull both plugs and have a look, the forward plug was wet and black, rear plug looked good so I swapped them and repeated the process. No change, the machine fired up with the 'black' plug in the rear cylinder while the good looking plug did the same in the forward. This tells me the plugs are fine. Next step was to confirm the ignition coil - I removed both coils, installed the forward (upper) coil where the rear coil mounts and tried it with the rear cylinder - the machine fired up and ran on the rear cylinder telling me that both coils are fine.
This is where I am running out of troubleshooting ideas - I will call the dealer back if need be but I really do not want to go down that road unless they have a plan as the cost can get out of control in a hurry (they covered most of the troubleshooting they did under my service contract...most but not all...). Does anyone have any suggestion of what to look at next? I may take the multimeter out now and see if the wires going to both ignition coils are getting the same voltage. I just don't see what could have happened to suddenly cause an issue like this - the only other details I know are that both batteries were indeed bad and froze while at the dealer, I could see where a cell on each was swollen, could they have caused an issue when they put a jumper pack on it? Also, I always keep the machine in my garage, it sat outside at the dealer for over a month - that said I have a full roof and hard cab - temps were very cold during that time frame, I believe it got down to -15 or 20.
Any ideas would be greatly appreciated, its the peak of ice fishing season and I cant get my shack out on the lake without it!! I will also mention that I have searched through the forum and found a number of similar issues but most seem to have been solved with plugs or coils. Should I be looking at the injector? The plug is black and wet so it seems to be getting fuel...