My son's 250QR was running great the last time we went out until I went to load it up to go home and it wouldn't start. It acted like the battery was just too weak. So I pushed it onto the trailer and put a charger on it when I got home. After it charged I bumped the start button and fired right up. I checked the voltage off and while running and they're both about the same 12.xx volts... I did get it to spike up to about 14v one time while reving it. Any ideas on what to test and the specs on how to test it/them? The battery is good because I let it sit a few days and it started right back up but the voltage tests came up the same as before.

 

Charge the battery then do a load test on it. Just have the meter leads on the battery while you crank it over. If voltage drops less than 9 volts,battery could be on it's last leg. They can show 12 volts or more fully charged,but may not hold close to this under a load. Most regulator/rectifiers should charge between 13.5-14.5 volts.If you can only get battery voltage or occasionally above,then the regulator could be breaking down and need to be replaced. You can also check the yellow wires leading from the stator to the regulator. With a meter set to ohms,no yellow wire should zero out to ground or to each other. If any do,then could be a stator problem.

 

Thanks OPT! I'll check those wires out when I get home tomorrow and that should pretty much narrow it down to what the problem is. The battery is only a couple of months old and the voltage didn't drop very much while I was starting it so I doubt it's a battery problem but I'm not against getting it tested.

 

A bad wire between the battery and regulator will cause low charging, I've found that out the hard way, both positive and negative wires need to have good connections or the regulator assumes the battery is fully charged when it isn't. I don't know the 250 quadrunner but the solenoid/main fusebox on most Suzukis can corrode.

 

Well, it took longer than expected to get a chance to check anything because of a bug that's going around here and it's had me down all week. I did find that between any of the 3 yellow wires coming from my stator area I did not have continuity to ground but, I do have continuity between all three to each other. There is also a black with yellow trace and a green with white trace coming out of there as well but I didn't check anything against those two wires. I did this testing by unplugging the plug that these 3 yellow wires were in and checked them by the end of the plug and the back end where the wires go into the plastic plug just to make sure. Does this sound like a bad stator?

 

You will have a reading between the yellow wires to each other.May be a small resistance reading,plus on average the readings should be close to the same. As long as they don't short out between each other,plus don't direct short to ground,then sounds like it's not the stator,but a bad regulator/rectifier. You can even go further with a stator ac test,but probably not necessary.AC voltage from the stator yellows goes into the regulator,rectifier changes this to dc voltage back to the battery.

 

The readings between the yellows are all about the same, just over what the meter reads with the two probes touching each other. And they're infinity when going to ground. Thanks again OPT! I'll hunt up a regulator for it this weekend. AFTER I check to make sure the connections are clean and tight!