Modern Vespa

My ET2 dies when I ride it in heavy rain. What is getting wet and how can I fix it??? Nothing has been modified or removed. Anyone else have this problem???

Hello,
I have not had this particular problem, and I've ridden in some pretty heavy rain. But, if the vespa has been sitting uncovered in the heavy rain, sometimes water will afffect the kill switch and prevent me from starting it until I blow the switch dry or flip it on and off a few times. I also believe you might run into, with enough rain, your air intake getting choked with the moisture. This used to happen with my old mopeds, but the air intake to their filter was in a fairly silly place...

Perhaps you are getting a short with your electrical system (I would speculate the kill switch) or (I think less likely) your engine is choking for air.

Good luck!

+1 on suspecting water in the kill switch. It's happened to me twice. Both were in fairly heavy rain. I've ridden in more rain for long with no problem. The second time, when I knew what it likely was, I just shook the headset a bit and flipped the kill switch a few times and it started right up. I keep meaning to seal it up a bit better but I haven't gotten around to it. My speedometer stopped working the other day and I need to check the brake fluid so I'll do it when I have the headset apart.

Check the air intake hose to see if it is cracked. With a big or small crack a little bit of water might be getting in there. The same thing happened to me, and I replaced my cracked hose. Works like a champ when driving in the rain now.

+2 It's the kill switch!

OK, how can I fix it??

I couldn't say for sure since you haven't messed with it/changed anything. Perhaps you could put a "gasket" just inside the opening for the switch to further limit how much water can get in there. Just don't make your gasket too thick to stop the motion of the switch! Personally I'd try to still leave some space between it and the switch.

Does it stop working completely when it rains, or just tend to stall out after starting or when stopping and starting on the road?

My ET4 sometimes has an annoying tendency to want to stall out on me at red lights and stop signs in very wet weather. Annoying.

The problem goes away after about an 1/2 hour of riding. I just keep a touch of throttle on while I'm waiting and I feather the throttle to go until then.

I'm sure that if I just turned up the idle a bit, my problem would be solved. Or maybe if I just took a light cover to throw over the scooter while it's parked to keep it from getting soaked.

It dies as I'm riding it in heavy rain. Then it won't start again until it's dried out again. And unless it's fully dried out it will die going down the road after I've been able to start it again. It's not an idle issue.

I wonder if you might find a safe way of covering up your kill switch next time it rains heavily, without impairing your ability to drive it, and see if you no longer experience your engine-shutoff problem. If you don't, then you could go from there trying to discourage water from getting in around the switch in a more permanent fashion, such as my suggestion of making the opening around the switch a little smaller.

If it is the kill switch, the fact that it doesn't happen to the same degree to all of us has me wondering if your kill switch wiring is not in some way more exposed... if you get to that stage where your head-piece is open to get inside, you might look at the wiring in addition to the switch opening.