It did do something strange all right -- it asked me to clean the burned in place plastic off its pipes and take some starting actions to get the stickers off the tank.
I didn't wash or polish it although it asked for it, instead I took off the side covers and the seats and rigged a cheater wire to the positive battery terminal for ease of charging (until the male and female adapters arrive and I can wire it up properly).
I cannot take off the buddy pad, it has the bike's CPU hidden under it. I find that if I kiss the windshield and toss my leg up from there my toe can sweep in short of the buddy pad and it all works out just fine.
I did find the Dr's current reported trouble which put the bike in Craigslist, a trouble which felt like a strong intermittent stumble and "popping sounds". He says it has happened before and costs about $350 to fix (and a week at the stealership while they clean the tank and teardown clean and re-balance the carbs).
Yeah, to me it sounded just like what you get when you need to switch over to reserve ......
Yup,
Bike had no gas in it and the fuel pump was sucking air .....
The bike needed:
..... a tank full of fresh gas
..... an overnight slow charge on the battery
..... being taken out on the beltway and exercised some
It came home a contented very happy little bike. It has been talking to my Savage and it likes having a Daddy that can fix it whenever it needs it. It's old daddy was nice, but he was a klutz mechanically.
Yes, my Savage is a guy and my Intruder is a girl, so obviously they get along together well and my Savage has even lent her his license plate so his girl can go out and play some today.
..... of course she thinks they're formally engaged now, but I don't think that's what he meant .... he thought he was just being nice.