Started having a charging issue. While riding a charging error would intermittently show up. By the time I would stop, and get to the diag menu it would clear. Did some testing and found a bad VR. 2 diodes failing. After getting raped by LAP I has a new VR. Taking the old VR off I noticed the heat compound was not all over the mounting area. Applied a slightly thicker layer of heat compound and not luck. Only transfer is around the flanges and a corner of the housing. VR seems to have a slight concave bottom, preventing the VR from touching the heat sink.
Sanded the bottom of the VR till it was mostly flat. A question I do have is, would removing the black coating under the VR be worth it? I can see the black helping to hinder heat transfer. Debating if I should sand the VR mounting area to bare metal. I'm wondering if that fact may have helped the VR die early!?

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