Speed Rs Keyless Shenanigans

anything’s possible I guess but that fault would be completely inconsistent with what happened yesterday as I never touched the key beyond altering where I was holding it.
I might raise the subject with my dealer but I’m not going to throw any money at it because unless Triumph have identified a known fault, letting my dealer mess with it would be like sending it to the slaughter house!!

 

The sales guy from Lings dropped me an email the other day asking how I was getting on with the bike

Well . . . I've got nothing to lose but am expecting the usual fob-off (excuse the pun!!!!!! . . . . . . .

Hi Nick . . . . I do have an ongoing problem with the bike and from talking to other owners, it seems as though many have the same or similar issues.

Given that I’m not the only one, I wondered if you are aware of the issue and/or can offer any advice -


I took delivery of the bike in April 20 after its first registration with yourselves on 31st July 2019. About a year into ownership, the bike stopped responding to it’s keyless fob and I could only start it by using the fob passively – holding it above the rear shock/under the rider’s seat as per the manual.

I changed the battery in the fob but this made no difference and I assumed I had installed a faulty CR2032 battery – although I did test it with a multimeter and the voltage was as per for a new battery. Nonetheless, I tried several new batteries.

It soon transpired that the battery wasn’t the problem. I could go several weeks and the bike would respond perfectly to the key fob but then, suddenly, it would stop doing so and I would have to use the key passively by holding it under the seat for engine start. Strangely, the mere act of doing this would quite often temporarily rectify the problem and the key would continue to work normally for a while whilst in my jacket pocket.

The bike has now been SORNED since September and periodically placed on an accumate. I have occasionally powered up the bike (power on but no ignition) over the winter and with the keyless fob in my pocket and the gremlins appeared to have gone as it worked perfectly each time but yesterday, I decided to prep the bike and tax from April and so gave it a check over, including tyre pressures etc and then once again, tested the keyless ignition . . . .

It worked as it should and the bike powered up (again, power only – no ignition or engine run) several times in succession and then just decided to stop working. Thereafter, each time I press the power button on the handlebar, I get the sequence of LED flashes on the instruments to acknowledge the fact the “power” button has been pressed but it remains dead – nothing happens, no matter how long I leave it. As before, I subsequently placed the fob on top of the shock absorber, repeated the exercise and the thing powered up straight away and thereafter continued to do so with the key in my pocket, using the fob in its more normal keyless mode.

This morning . . .the bike is back to ignoring the “power on” command unless the fob is placed on the rear shock.


Triumph need to ditch this useless system – I will never buy another bike with keyless ignition but of course, that doesn’t solve my problem as of now. Any ideas? Are there any software updates, known hardware failures that are causing this or do I just have to put up with it?? Grateful for any advice you can offer me


Regards


Alan G

 

Good afternoon troops. . .
Well, I never did hear back from our hero at Lings and I think 11 days was long enough in which to expect a response and so I rang them and ended up speaking to a very helpful service guy.
He did acknowledge that he was aware that early iterations of the Triumph keyless systems had been troubled by the issue I was experiencing and suggested that replacement fobs had been supplied in some instances and others had been rectified by software updates but that to the best of his knowledge, this problem had now been largely sorted. I take the latter remark with a pinch of salt but provisionally, the plan is to take the bike to Lings sometime around mid May for further investigation and a software update. Meanwhile, although the problem manifest itself over a year ago, the bike is now out of warranty but he has logged the complaint with Triumph and we will just have to see what if any assistance is available from them, subject to what is wrong of course.
Sadly, when it comes to black box trickery, I'm something of a sceptic in terms of how much faith I would have in your average tech to solve a problem, beyond a mere "suck it and see" exercise". In other words - do a software update and see if the problem goes . . failing that, a new antenna on the bike maybe and failing that . . . a new keyfob. Maybe the best approach would be to replace all the above as a blanket measure but something tells me I'm going to be traveling back and forth to Norwich over the summer. Hey . . .what the hell - I've got to ride the thing somewhere - it might as well be to and from the dealers right??

 

interesting - let us know if it’s fixed.
I will be taking mine in sometime in the next couple of weeks and will post updates as and when

 

I contacted Lings of Ipswich today in order to arrange taking my bike back. The guy I spoke to a few weeks back acknowledged there had been problems with the Triumph keyless ignition but that his understanding was this had now been sorted. His suggestion at the time was to return the bike for a software update as this had been known to fix a few bikes with issues but they would obviously attempt to find the fault and replace any components as necessary.

After speaking with them earlier today, miraculously, it now seems there have been “no problems” with the keyless ignition system and apart from one, unfortunate Rocket owner, I am the first . . . . . .
I have to say I have lost confidence and notwithstanding, decided not to return the bike to them and simply ride it as is.
There were several reasons for wanting to take the bike in. . .

1. My bike had an outstanding recall on the front brakes. Due to the distance from the dealer, Covid lockdown and the desire to ride, I swallowed the cost and fitted a set of EBC pads myself, with a view to having the dealer later inspect the brakes and confirm they were no longer OEM and remove the recall from my bike, except . . . . . . .
"Sorry sir, we can't do that . . . we have to change the pads ourselves"
Lings are now telling me they aren't prepared to play ball on this despite me pointing out the original recall clearly states that, if on inspection the pads are not OEM, the dealer should annotate accordingly and not change them . . . . . so what is the difference???

2. I suspect a software update is available but Lings are unable to confirm this and want to charge £54 for a diagnostic check which could reveal . . . nothing available!!!!
They ought really to be able to tell me and somewhere there will be a list of available updates with respective release dates but their method is to connect up the diagnostics and wait for their software to prompt them which is fine but . . . why pay £54 for a prompt which might confirm nothing available?? Confidence inspiring? . . not really!!!

3. My main gripe is the keyless ignition fault. This is currently intermittent and clearly, I may well ride all the way to Ipswich, only for them to fail to trace and/or fix it and as they now confirm . . . . at my expense as the warranty has expired.
Worse still is the prospect of them claiming to have fixed the fault, charging accordingly and then, 2 weeks later, finding the fault us still there (been there enough times with dealers before)
I suspected that I might be on my own with respect to the warranty and as such, it makes more sense to allow the fault to develop and become permanent and if so, take the bike to my local Triumph dealer for a more certain fix and software update at the time . . . . if one exists!!
Not that impressed with Lings if I'm honest and not a dealer I will be looking to do business with again in the future

 

my bike was first registered in April 2019 and so out of warranty, despite this problem starting when the bike was just over a year old. Unfortunately Covid lockdowns etc meant I wasn’t able to get it back earlier and the bike is SORNED over winter.
It’s no biggie - I’ll just leave it for now. I will have more confidence in it being fixed if the system completely fails as the fault should be more easily traced than an intermittent failure - I can live with it.

 

Mine hasn’t done it for a while now but never say never.
I’m thinking I might speak to my dealer and see how much a new key is going to cost as
A. This seems to be the universal “repair” and
B. It wouldn’t hurt to have a spare and
C. They want a hundred notes to plug it into a diagnostic tester anyway and will doubtless tell me I need “A” and so why bother? Just buy a key unless . . . . they tell he it’s £500 or something daft!!!!!

 

My smart key works in passive mode 100% of the time but still fails sporadically as a smart key.
Sounds as though you have a definite fault with yours then.
Can you let us know how much it costs to replace - key plus coding . . . I’m still considering buying a spare for my bike so that I have two on the go