Rocket 3 R Hard Starting

New 2022 R3 R owner here. I took delivery 3-months ago. I have just over 1,000 miles on the clock now, and the first service was completed on-schedule. Bike is Brilliant!!!

The bike always started easily at first, but following a recent service appointment (2-weeks ago) starting the bike is no longer effortless. The bike will not start after about 5-6 seconds of cranking. On the second try it always starts...

Battery is fully charged (thanks to Optimate) and I only use Top Tier fuel that is at least 95 RON, or "Premium" 91 (R+M)/2 here in the USA.

The recent service was for the dealer to re-install the Auxiliary Power Socket (P/N A9820089). The dealer first attempted to install this during my 600-mile first service, but they broke the plastic mount points on the Rear Plenum Assembly of the airbox where the Auxiliary Power Socket is mounted. During the recent service they replaced the Rear Plenum Assembly, but the Service Manual indicates that a new gasket should be fitted to the plenum -- same as for an air filter replacement.

I strongly suspect that a new gasket was not fitted, so I am wondering if this could be causing the recent starting problems I am experiencing.

Any thoughts?

New data point: bike was low on oil -- below the minimum limit on the dipstick. I added about 0.4l of oil this morning after following the Engine Oil Maintenance section of the Owner's Handbook. For the 60-90 second warm-up period the bike again did not start on the first try. After adding oil the bike started right up -- could have been because the engine was slightly warm at this point. I'll try starting the bike again tomorrow when it is cold.

Get rid of the plenum and install a RamAir filter.

Your bike mixture should be rich during start up until the O2 sensor goes into close loop. I'm guessing the mixture is leaner than it should be possibly because there is more air getting into the system possibly because of that potential missing gasket you mentioned or vacuum hose disconnected. I don't think you have a low fuel pump pressure issue since it would affect the bike during full throttle.

My bike occasionally does the exact same thing. Keeps cranking on first, I stop, and retry, starts up on first crank. Never checked the oil, and probably never will.
I doubt the dealer did anything wrong regarding this issue.

triplespeed... try switching to regular fuel instead of premium. I'll bet you money it starts up immediately.

EskimoPie said:

triplespeed... try switching to regular fuel instead of premium. I'll bet you money it starts up immediately.

Click to expand...

Seriously?
Funny, the other day a kid working at the gas station asks me why do all bikers fill up with Premium/Super. I told him that's what we were told but didn't have a really good answer.
I've been filling all my bikes with premium, because I've been told it's better for those engines (V-twins), so I applied the same for the R3.

I wonder how many here fill with Premium vs Regular!

I have been told that the manual says 2020 up takes premium the older takes regular
so this may make it start better may cause other.
probably could try this (maybe a tank ) but don't lug the engine because of pinging

My 2021 GT says regular is fine.

EskimoPie said:

triplespeed... try switching to regular fuel instead of premium. I'll bet you money it starts up immediately.

Click to expand...

Thanks EskimoPie! I will try switching to 'regular' 87 (R+M)/2 fuel here in the USA and see how it goes.

At the risk of turning this into a fuel thread, I did try to determine the proper grade of fuel to use for my new 2022 R3 R. I asked the dealer when I purchased the bike, and he confidently said [without hesitation] to use premium fuel. I decided to fact-check his guidance, and the Owner's Handbook appears to have some conflicting information about this. The Fuel section in the Owner's Handbook states:

• "Always use unleaded fuel with a minimum octane rating of 95 RON"
• The next sentence states that "Triumph motorcycles are designed to run on unleaded gasoline with a CLC or AKI octane rating (R+M)/2 of 87 or higher"

From what I can determine on the interweb, 95 RON is considered to be 'regular' fuel (petrol) in the UK, but 95 RON is roughly equivalent to 91 (R+M)/2 'premium' fuel here in the USA.

Perhaps the Owner's Handbook Fuel guidance is really just specifying the use of the minimum octane fuel? If true, then that makes more sense to me: 95 RON appears to be the minimum octane rating in the UK, and 87 (R+M)/2 is the minimum octane rating in the USA.