At the mechanics shop

[jonathan180iq]

Originally Posted by PimpS

Tell me something: as I understood mechanic: the bike went dead in first place because the lights emptied the battery during the ride, cause rectifier wasn't functioning properly. Is this reasonable?

The idea that using the lights used up all of your electrical system power doesn't make any sense. Batteries on vehicles are generally only used to start the vehicle and to be a source of back up juice during periods of low output by the alternator/generator/stator. Once cranked, the stator is the thing that is making electricity flow through the bike, not the battery. (Although the battery is part of the circuit.) So suddenly having the bike die on you, while riding, sounds like something other than just the rectifier. As Alan mentioned, I would suspect the battery would be the faulty link, since you said all of the fuses were fine.

If your mechanic checked the battery while it was still attached to the bike and the bike was running, then the reading he would get across the terminals would be 12.5-13.7 volts. He would assume that the battery was fine, even though it very well might not be taking the charge. And a drained battery, or a battery with failing cells, can short out the whole system.

I had the exact same thing happen once while driving a Ford Focus down the road. It suddenly would just cut out while riding. Trying to force it through the episode, I gunned it, solving the problem for all of 3 seconds until the car shut off completely and I had to drift to the side of the road. Upon inspection under the hood, I could see that the battery was actually bulging along the sides. Something in the internals of the battery had failed and everything was shorting out. I removed that battery, had it properly disposed of, and installed a new one. That was 3 years ago and there hasn't been another issue since.

As mentioned, before you do anything else, you need to have the battery taken off the bike, charged fully, and then load tested.
If that ends up being the problem, it should be much cheaper than 190€.... At least I hope so. Who knows with those zany Euro prices