Modern Vespa

This has happened to me twice and its baffling.
I will be cruising along when the engine just quits. I then glide over to the side of the road and turn the engine back on and starts again no problem. Any suggestions ?
Thanks
RIDE SAFE

Edited to make it readable - jimc

It has happened to me too, and no idea why. But why shout so loud??

How many miles on it? When was it last serviced if a decent number of miles on it, and does your dealer have a diagnostic unit?

7800 and it has had all its regular service

Sounds like it could be the Kill Switch. When it's running try pressing the switch lighty to the Run position, and se if it cuts out. Mine used to do this, a quick strip and clean of the switch cured this.

What confused me a first tho, is that you don't get the dash light telling you the Kill Switch has been activated.

Mine did it twice on possible bumps, did not realize that at the time. Then 8x riding home one night. Posted and the kill switch was mentioned. Sure enough said, drove down the street, wiggle very slight top of switch and it died. Flipped switch about 6x back and fouth, no issues since. Now thinking back, the road I was on had good bumps at road seams. Think the hard bumps were enough to vibrate the button enough.

This happened to me again today. 2nd time (in very high temps >95F). I pulled over, hit the started and it started back up. I also noticed my fan came on a lot today while riding, it never does this.

I just had the Leo Vince exhaust added last week... Could there be a relationship?

Something to worry about? Or should I take it in?

Thanks,
-Steve

Have you had the ECU mapping tweaked to take account of the LV? Thought not...

This is NOT a carb'ed bike you can easily tweak yourself, and please don't listen to those who say you can do this and that to anything to do with fuel, ECU or exhaust.

The only performance mods you can do with no ramifications are transmission mods. If you are canny enough to hack the ECU settings - well fair game, send me your phone number, we'll make a fortune.

I don't know. The install was done by the Vespa dealer. Should they know how to do this?

Thanks,
-Steve

After reading all of the post about faulty cut-off switches, I now wiggle mine before I take off. Can those of you who have pulled them about please give us details on how to do it safely. Do you think an occasional shot of contact cleaner is a good idea?

Steve.

I think Jim was saying that you can not tweak the ECU... There is no map for any aftermarket exhaust. The ECU can only have the parameters reset with the scan tool and nothing else from what my dealer told me. Also you might want to have the throttle body cleaned. This can cause the stepper motor (idle by pass) to become stuck. I had this done on my GTS before and it worked.


Jon

Thank-you for the translation.

So I am not sure wat you are saying... I know he reset the computer by killing the battery for 60 seconds before starting it up.

I am concerned because I feel like every time I am coming to a stop I am going to stall. It just doesn't feel right. Is this just break in behavior?

I have had it backfire on me now about 3 times. My brand new 500 did that with the stock exhaust until I hit about 600miles. So am I basically retraining the computer all over again and have to put up with it for a few hundred more miles?

Thanks,
-Steve

Steve

It is common for a lean pop on decel on the MP3's. This is normal. also disconnecting the ECU does not reset the ECU only the scan tool can do this. Most vehicles will learn to work in the environment they are in such as at sea level or high elevation unplugging it does not do anything and I hope you are unplugging it with the battery disconnected first. ECU's tend to hate being pulled from their power source this tends to damage them. I would say the dealer is your best bet on looking into the issue as none of us can actually see your vehicle nor do you have the tools to see what is going on with the ECU.

Good luck

Jon

Actually disconnecting the battery for 10 minutes or so does reset the ECU. The on board memory in only good for a few minutes with no power. It has to learn everything all over again. It will erase any codes and reset to default parameters. This is true for any vehicle I know of with a computer.

Wayne B

I have just confirmed with my local tech that the ECU will not reset itself or erase errors if the battery is disconnected for 10, 20, 30 up to 40 minutes. It only cost me buying him lunch. Just thought I'd let you know.

Jon

That's what I thought. My understanding is that there are two sections of eeprom memory - one holding the 'master' parameters (which can only be altered using the diagnostic unit) and one holding the 'learned' parameters. It's flash memory - why should it lose stuff when volts are removed?

I do wish there was a method of resetting the parameters back to 'master' that didn't require the diagnostic tool - but AFAIK there isn't one.