Modern Buddy

I have a 2007 Genuine Buddy 125 and it has always ran great. I went on a camping trip a year ago with a friend and he had a Stella. We got rained on and the scooters got wet. the next day they ran a bit rough but after a bit of riding they went back to normal. The rest of the trip went by great. Getting back to town and riding around and going to rallies my buddy would stop running when i would come to complete stops. Sometimes it would start back up giving it a bit of gas. We addressed the issue and did a carb clean and the buddy worked fine for about a week or so and then it did the same thing. there was hardly any fuel on the fuel line, so we went ahead and got a new petcock and same issue. decided to get rid of the fuel filter and that worked for also a week but it still wasn't pouring enough fuel, i would have to get off the bike and pump it myself with my fingers. After a while of searching, we decided to install a manual petcock with the "off, on, reserve" settings. It ran great even longer than a week now, there is plenty of fuel on the line now and recently it started acting the same way, took the carb off to clean it and added a fuel filter again and instead of making it better, it would start dying on me mid ride as if it was starving for fuel, once it would die, it would start after a couple of tries and idle but once i would go and give it gas, it would die after rolling a feet or two. The bike seems to start once its been sitting its cold and will run down the block but once it starts to get anywhere to getting hot, it acts the same way. Has anyone encountered this issue? Every thing happened right after it got wet on the rain. we have checked electrical, spark is there, battery is good replaced the air filter, gas lines, spark plug, have asked at some places and they say its fuel related. Any ideas or help would be appreciated.

Drill a vent hole in the gas cap.

That has already been done

Very strange problem. Not sure if replacing all of the stock fuel components was necessary though. These scooters are designed pretty well so rain should do them no harm. The only thing I can think of is somehow, water got into the fuel tank. Or maybe an electrical problem caused by water getting into the kill switch or somewhere else critical causing electrical corrosion.

I've seen (and been in) monsoon rains in Taiwan where the majority of the scooters are sitting outside with no ill affects. I've even watched people riding their scooters in monsoon rains where they look like little boats running around a lake. Can't see the wheels and there is a wake coming off the front fairing. With a guy water skiing behind. Ok, maybe not the water skier...

Babblefish we have taken the kill switch apart and everything looked and worked fine. After reading this to my roommate he said that the only thing we haven't looked at is the stator. We have drained the tank. There was one night spark plug had a moment where is would skip spark but that only lasted that night after we found that one of the coil cables had been a bit loose. Once we fixed that it didn't skip. But that hasn't resolved anything with it dying and now I can't really drive it far anymore cause it dies mid ride will start back up but once I go and give it gas it dies. Just imagine the waves the little skiers could catch on those waves. Insanity haha

I feel it has to be related to the rain. I think you did enough to rule out a fuel problem. Have you changed the spark plug cap and wire? Keep going on the electrical and spark troubleshooting route.

in the past when the weather was cooler and damp I occasionally had running issues (cooler air is denser and the higher humidity adds moisture to the air going into the engine); I would take longer routes to get where I wanted to so that the engine would warm up and it would run better for the rest of the day on subsequent startups...

last year I ended up with a fuel related issue and couldn't get the bike to stay lit...ended up at the shop to have the fuel drained, refilled with fresh fuel, and ran a few days to make sure it wasn't something else (forgot to stabilize the fuel and let the bike sit untouched for 3 weeks)...

you might want to consider a new fuel filter (if you haven't done it yet) and a carburetor cleaning to eliminate those as culprits; might also behoove you to run a good fuel treatment (cleaner/stabilizer) for a few tankfuls to break up any crud in the fuel system...

Float condition and height? Proper adjustment of fuel mixture screw? Proper valve adjustment?

That sure sounds like a fuel problem. Since you've done everything else, I'd go ahead and remove the petcock from the bottom of the fuel tank and dig the fuel filter out. It's pretty rare but the filter and petcock can get gummed up and cause problems exactly like that. It's cheap - replace it.

You may think you're getting fuel since it runs a little, but you may actually be getting not much at all. With a full carburetor (from fuel trickling down) you can make it a little way down the road before it'll die even with no fuel flow.

Depending on how long it runs (and I haven't tested this on my scoot), I wonder if you've got a good vacuum in the hose from the intake manifold (downstream of carb) back to the petcock. If that's compromised, it'll shut off the fuel, then as soon as you exhaust the fuel in the carb bowl, motor stops.

You can pull the hose off the manifold (plug the fitting with something safe - nothing that might get sucked into the intake), then use a syringe or suck on the hose (or use a vacuum pump to be fancy). You should be able to hear the petcock cycle open and closed. Pull a vacuum, clamp it with a vicegrips, a potato-chip-clip (or a hemostat if you're fancy), and see if the bike starts and stays running.

I had a similar problem with my Buddy which I swore was a fuel issue. This continued for months until the Stator went completely out. After changing that, no problems. As an ex-Harley Mechanic turned scooterist that had never worked with the ignition system scooters use I just couldn't believe the stator would be so intermittently bad, but it was true in this case.

poxleo, anything new to report?

misplacedyank wrote:I had a similar problem with my Buddy which I swore was a fuel issue. This continued for months until the Stator went completely out. After changing that, no problems. As an ex-Harley Mechanic turned scooterist that had never worked with the ignition system scooters use I just couldn't believe the stator would be so intermittently bad, but it was true in this case.

I've gone thru three stators on my 2009: the original and two replacements. Each time, it matched the symptoms you are describing. Each has been completely intermittent with its performance... just like a fuel issue.

While this may not be the case for you... I would seriously have it looked at as they don't fail completely... and you can tear your hair out trying to track it all down.

Sounds like a valve adjustment is needed...