The yellow engine warning light came on when I was riding home from work, so I pulled over and cut the engine. When I attempted to start it again the battery was flat and the warning light was flashing intermittently. Clearly there's a problem with the charging system. The lovely people from Yamaha Assist re-charged the battery and kindly followed me the 8 miles home. When home, my voltmeter gave a reading of 11 volts which continued to diminish with the engine running. So, the bike, which is 8 months/3000 miles old, has now been taken to my local Yam dealer to be sorted out under warranty.
Anyone had this sort of problem quite so soon?
I guess the problem probably lies with the alternator or rec/reg?
(It's the first time I've properly broken down in 38 yrs & 100,000's of miles - very disappointing!)

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Sounds like the good ol rectumfier problem. The exact same happened to me twice. Turned out to be loose terminals on the rectifier bulk connector. They all just need taking out of the connector and pinching up a touch to make them tighter. If you'd have given it a wiggle it probably would have come back to life.

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http://advrider.com/forums/showthread.php?t=988891 'South Dakota to South America'

Thanks for that UKbri, I've now researched the forum and see what you mean in that it's a fairly common problem with a seemingly easy fix. It's got me thinking - several months ago the bike had a flat battery when I went to start it one morning. Got it started with jump leads and it was fine thereafter, that is until the the other day. I put it down to mistakenly leave the parking light on overnight but maybe it was the r/r connection (which must have 'cured' itself after the jump start).

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Well, I've now got the bike back from the dealer who replaced the rec/reg unit and packed the new connector block with silicone grease. The original connector was affected by moisture ingress and one of the wires was not properly seated into the block, so it seems a fairly typical defect.

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It is (or was) a fairly typical defect, mostly (but not exclusively) on earlier Italian built 08/09 bikes and perhaps a few 2009 models registered in 2010. It was usually the earth pin that melted in most cases due to a poorly fitted connector. By no means were all bikes from that era were affected (mine's an 08, which I've had from new, and its still absolutely fine.)

Yours is slightly unusual in that's it's a 2013 bike. I think everyone was under the impression that situation had improved since Yamaha became more aware of the problem and they had got better at fitting the connector, and that dealers had become more vigilant during their PDIs. Obviously not all production line workers and dealers are being watchful of this? Or maybe your bike's an earlier one but registered in 2013?

Just out of interest, what's the country of manufacture on your VIN plate under the seat?

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Looked at the VIN plate and there's no country of manufacture (unless I'm looking in the wrong place)......all it says is MBK INDUSTRIE with a the VIN number and a couple of other numbers below. Maybe one of the numbers gives a clue on country of origin?
The bike's a 2013 model as far as I know, i.e. with the blue/yellow colour scheme and black engine protector panels.
The mechanic who carried out the repair recalled doing some similar repairs a few years ago but had forgotten about the problem in the intervening time - until faced with my bike when it all came back to him!

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