Anemic 2000 VFR

I have been the proud owner of a yellow 2000 VFR since August of 2002. Before this bike I owned a 2000 HD Road King Classic. To say the least, the VFR has much more power than the Harley. At this point, I must admit that I have had very little time to ride the VFR (it had 2800 mile on it when I bought it and it now has 6900), so the bike sits in my garage far more than I would like for it to. So that's the set up of this story, now here's the problem and later the resolution. Lately, the VFR has been running rough, especially at low RPM's. It recently started missing and backfiring a bit. So, against my better judgement, I took the bike to the local "stealer" to see if they could fix it. Since I don't have much time to ride, I have even less time to do my own maintenance. I dropped off the bike at the dealer and told them to call me if they could figure out what was wrong. After a couple of calls to me to see if I had been tinkering with the bike, and having three technicians look at it, they determined that my spark plug wires were not emitting enough spark and one plug wire had stopped working all together. They flushed out my gas tank and replaced the plug wires and the plugs. Well I've got to tell you, this bike has twice the power it had when I bought it and it sounds like heaven (thanks to the Staintune slip-on). I could not believe it! It's like Christmas for me. When the service guy brought the bike out of the garage, I thought it was a tricked out RC-51. To my amazement, it was my bike! So if anyone has a sluggish 2000 VFR, I recommend flushing the gas tank, changing the plugs and, most important, get rid of those factory plug wires. biggrin.gif

Interesting stealer story. I can see it having bad gasoline from sitting so much, and the bad gas causing fouled spark plugs. But I can't see the plug wires going bad. Did they replace the fuel filter? Seems like that would need replacing too.

USMCDad, Oct 29 2005, 03:14 PMInteresting stealer story.  I can see it having bad gasoline from sitting so much, and the bad gas causing fouled spark plugs.  But I can't see the plug wires going bad.  Did they replace the fuel filter?  Seems like that would need replacing too.

The technician said the gas was not cloudy or discolored, so they elected not to replace the fuel filter. Flushing the tank was done early in the diagnostic process before they discovered the real problem, which was the plug wires. I'm not sure if 2000 VFR's have a history of bad plug wires, but I have read several postings complaining of the same problem I was having. Most people discover they have a performance problem with their bike after they ride someone elses bike.