My wife's 2012 had two intermittent starting issues.
The first time it was the clutch switch. There is a little circuit board in the switch that has some contacts to the connector. The board had moved just enough to cause an intermittent connection. I soldered the connections to fix it.
The second time was corrosion on the starter solenoid connection. I tried fixing it but it is hard to access, so I ended up taking it to the dealer to clean up the connection.
Thanks for the input!
Is the switch accessible? looking at the pedals, I can't tell where it might be.
Found this online, might be worth trying also, if I can figure out where the bloody switch is:
"
At about 30,000 my 500 Sport started getting hard to engage the starter. Kept having to press the clutch down harder and further into the firewall. Of course, being a procrastinator I just worked with it until one day it took five tries to get it to engage.
Anticipating this someday I had a spare interlock switch. So back to the campground to figure how to replace the sucker. No Youtube video and no room to make one. After getting the metal frame off, I had a good look at the switch in place, but could not figure how to remove and replace. So....
After studying the switch in place and the replacement, I wondered it the problem was a tad too much wear between the switch actuator arm and activator on the clutch (piece of plastic acting as a pusher). The switch shown is with the front to the left in its position in the clutch area. The wiring harness goes in the rear. The lower part with the purple is the actuator arm.
So I tore up a heavier weight piece of paper, cut to size and folded. Then I slid the shim into the front part of actuator cage (on the black side, not purple part).
AND IT WORKED!!!!! No longer had to even push clutch pedal to the firewall.
It seems the clutch switch and actuator, both of plastic, wore just enough to not push actuator arm forward enough to engage the starter. The little bit of thickness made all the difference."
