I have a 2010 Cross Country that I picked up used in Atlanta in February. Bike had 37K miles on it at that time and up until a little over a month ago had no fuel or operation issues with the bike. I only ran into issues after I took the bike to The Vic Shop in Iowa to have Lloyd's cam's, timing gear, air filter, power commander 5 and Atom Bomb mufflers installed and dyno'd.
I rode the bike there and back about 400 miles each way..
When I first noticed some issues was on the trip home and the bike would momentarily cut out loosing power. My initial thought was that maybe I had gotten some bad gas some place. After getting back to Illinois and having run about 3-4 tanks of fuel thru the bike it seemed to be running better.
Since I had just had the bike tuned at The Vic Shop I contacted Rylan there to share what was going on with the bike. He suggested changing the fuel filter out and had mentioned recently changing one out on another CC with fewer miles on it and it resolved that bikes issues.
Honestly I was a bit reluctant and skeptical of it being a fuel filter issue since the problem seemed to have cleared up.. Even so I decided to order a replacement filter and gasket. Both were a bit expensive as others have commented. Any way.. I figured at least I'd have them should the bike act up again. FYI - my local dealer didn't stock the filter and even questioned why I wanted to replace it stating they had never replaced a filter on a Cross bike as of yet.
A couple of weeks ago I rode the bike back to Iowa to the AVR rally and no problems till the return trip back home when the bike began pinging in top gear going into a head wind at around 65-70. The bike had pinged before breifly after the tuning and Rylan at The Vic Shop said it might and if it did to contact him to walk me thru tweaking the timing.
So... back in Illinois and a few tanks of fuel later and the bike is running great again.. I contacted Rylan about it again and pondered if the octane difference in fuel in Iowa and alcohol content might be playing into my issues.. Premium fuel where I wasin Iowa was 91 octane and back here in Illinois it's 93 octane.
Long story short.. a week after being back.. I decided I'd had enough and ran the bike low on fuel in prep to replace the fuel filter.
Replacing the fuel filter is really a breeze.. I know it was a bit intimidating to me at first but seriously.. run the bike low on fuel.. take the seat off the bike (two bolts near the back of the tank). Take the two bolts out of the back of the tank holding it in place along with disconnecting the ground wire at the back of the tank and pull the tank back slightly lifting it up and squeeze the blue tabs on the fuel line under the tank to release it and carefully slide the tank off the bike and flip it upside down on a blnket etc so as not to scratch it. The fuel pump/filter access is on the bottom and extreemly easy to get at. Only suggestion is be very careful when reinstalling fuel pump/filter to make sure you torque it down to spec in the sequence in the service manual.
Now.. back to after the filter change.
To my surprise.. just changing the filter I immediately noticed a ease in the bike starting.. acceleration and power were better and now no matter what I do or how hard I try.. I can not make the bike ping even in 100+ degree temps and lugging the bike in top gear from 50 MPH on up..
When I bought the bike it had 37K miles on it.. it now has 50K miles on it and about 4K miles of it with the Lloyd tunning stuff on it etc. I do pull a trailer behind the bike at times and the trip I was concerned about taking to California this fall is no longer a concern that the pinging issue is resolved.
Below is a picture of the new and old fuel filters for my Cross Country. It's pretty clear which is new and old. I personally only run Shell or BP premium fuel thru my bikes. I'm not sure if the the old filter looks the way it does from discoloration from fuel.. or if its from dirt.
Anyway.. hope my feedback helps some of you others that are considering replacing fuel filters. It's really not that hard to do if you have basic tools.. My local dealer was going to charge me about $200 in labor saying it would take them a couple of hours to do. It doesn't take that long at all and if you have everything laid out and ready can do it in under an hour easily. Personally I prefer to keep my $$$ and be more aware of how the bike is put together etc so I can do at least routine maintenance.
I think I have some other pic's of the fuel pump and bottom of the tank if any of you want to see more of what it looks like. Basically the fuel pump is attached to a flat plate that attaches to the bottom of the fuel tank near the back of the tank.