mikes xs coils

[yamahansolo]

I keep hearing. People say they are all failing but I only know of 1 person who actually had them fail. I also remember the supposed cause was popping the wire off the plug and letting it hit the motor to test it. I would like to hear feedback from actual people who had a failure not just oh I heard someone's fail. And for those failures how many of you tested them by arcing them to the motor.
I have had mine for 3 years I think. And they are fine.
I don't think they should be poopooed for going bad if the cause is operator error.especially since they are only 34 bucks a piece.
Also I'd like to hear how many people have them with no problems.

[madmax-im]

Hmmmm..One of the things I got when I asked abt coils was that Mike's XS coils dont have a warranty...as opposed to others that do...yet Mikes coils fail...But what i havent heard is when they fail...how soon after the purchase? Is it after 1 year? Warranties on coils like Dyna...are only for one yr...so if they fail after that period of time then you're no better off either way.
I too would like to see some hard facts....

[MidniteSpec]

Coils

I put the blacks in this year,,almost 3000 miles without a hiccup. I will update status when apropriate. As an aside,being in the northeast i don't generally see the temp. extremes a lot of peeps do.

[yamahansolo]

I made a poll about this. My coils have around 20,000 miles on them no problems so far. I'd be interested in searching the 650 forum to see how they like them. As I said I gave tons of miles in mine with zero problems. And I know someone that pulled his wires off the plugs to test them and this fried the coil. If you want to respond from experiance please use the poll thread. Thanks!

[bikerphil]

I had a black coil go out on me less than 10K, had to limp the bike home about 5 miles, not fun . AFAIK, I did not run the bike with a wire disconnected. I gave the one good coil to another member as a spare to carry with him as he was/still is? running black coils.

[yamahansolo]

Phil it must have been your voodoo electronics ...

[bikerphil]

Phil it must have been your voodoo electronics ...

LOL, nope that was pre voodoo. Lol.

[BigRed]

I've got the green coils, and they survived my operator error. I forgot to put a wire back on a plug once, and rode a few miles before I pulled over to see what was wrong. I can't think of any reason why arcing the wire to the engine would kill the coil, but it's supposed to be hard on them if they don't have anywhere to arc to.

[cywelchjr]

I've got the green coils, and they survived my operator error. I forgot to put a wire back on a plug once, and rode a few miles before I pulled over to see what was wrong. I can't think of any reason why arcing the wire to the engine would kill the coil, but it's supposed to be hard on them if they don't have anywhere to arc to.

If the coils are designed with just enough insulation internally to resist shorting enough until the plug gap is jumped, having a much larger gap can cause that insulation to break down and short out the coil internally. Cheaper coils will tend to cut that much closer than the more well made coils and so will handle it better. It's also all about quality control, meaning that it may be that 75 out of 100 of them are every bit as good as the dyna coils, but that 25 of them are such that just a few cycles with the plug wire unhooked will kill them. Yes, a properly designed quality coil should not have a problem with that, but a cheaply made coil with poor quality control may well have trouble.

For all we know, the MikesXS coils could be made in the same factory in different runs with lower quality control standards, meaning they let coils through to ship that dyna would throw away.

Even the black coils are not a 100% failure rate clearly, as even those with failures most have had one of two coils fail. At the price, it could almost be worth buying 3 black coils and keeping the spare with you for when/if one fails you just take 20 minutes to swap in the spare and then order another. I'm actually beginning to think of doing that myself. It might be by the third you might not get any more failures at all, or by the fourth.

[crazy steve]

For the few $$ difference, it doesn't hardly seem worth it to risk a stranding and/or roadside repairs....

For me, given the mileage my truck gets, just one 'retrieval' would probably eat up the price difference....

[cywelchjr]

Seems like with a dresser like mine, an extra set nicely wrapped up will fit in the saddle bag with my tools just fine, and would take well less than 20 minutes to change out if it failed. At the moment, with my budget constraints and the need to make it run well in wet weather, I either need to replace the coils or do the wire replacement. I can't afford even the green coils right now, but I could afford to get a set of black coils. I figure on moving to dyna's at some point, but right now they are not going to fit into the budget no matter how hard I squeeze.

I know I would not even consider the MikesXS green coils, primarily because with just a little shopping around you can actually get dyna's for the same or less. But nothing is going to get the dyna's cheaper than the black coils, and at this point, I am going to NEED to settle for good enough.