Anybody heard of gixxers having "headlight cutout" problems? When I bought my 2003 gsxr 600, the guy who sold it to me said that gixxers were notorious for having the low beam cut out/turn off for no reason, while riding. He said just ride with the high beams on and it shouldn't be a problem. So anyway, I was riding on interstate 75 late last night and the headlight just simply went out!!! BOTH HIGH AND LOW BEAMS!! Which ended up in a relatively high speed freeway crash. (luckily I was suited up)
Has anybody had this problem, or even heard of it?
No, I have never heard of GSXR's headlights going out from time to time... Has the stock harness been modified? Is the stock headlight in place? Is it the stock bulb? Stock fuse? Stock switches? Stock relay? Headlight bulbs do tend to burn out once in a while, but I have only had one go in 15 years of full time street riding. If you do a lot of wheelies it might aggravate the problem, and might lead to other problems.
I don't mean to come down hard since you just crashed, but really if you buy a bike with a problem (real or temporary - this headlight thing is a major safety hazard), it is your responsibility to attend to it and fix it before you put the bike on the road.
I have never heard that GSX-R's are "notorious" for having headlight problems, although I may be wrong. I also have a 2003 600 and haven't had any strange problems. I had an intemittent problem a while back, but it just turned out that the bulb was going bad and was breaking the circuit when it got cold.
As the post above says, check your fuses and clean them, check your wiring harness for splices/repairs. Too bad you went down because of some one elses actions making your bike unsafe to ride. If it were me, I would not ride it again until I had figured out for sure what was going on with the lights.
By the way, where are you located. I live about 2 miles from I-75 in Georgia and may be able to offer a hand if you are near my location.
The only problem i have heard of is the factory harness connections under the right fairing will get corrosion built up in them and they need to be cleaned and checked out
I have the same problem and Iam elbow deep in it right now. I found that under the right fairing the plug that come from the switch and plugs into the main harness that goes to the fuse box had a lot of corrosion in it so I cleaned it and now the headlights work but now when I plug it back in the plug here really hot to the touch. I'm looking for a short or bad ground now and I will post when I figure it out
It is the starter switch. What happen is the starter switch is on the same cercuit as the headlights and and there are two little wires in the switch. When the contact in the switch wears out it will back feed thru the cross over wire for the headlights and heats up and makes a loose connection.so replace the starter switch and the crossover wire.