Well, something happened. Don't know what, yet. I was chasing my wife on her Helix from Cottonwood up the 5 mile road to Jerome, when suddenly my Buddy just 'up and quit'. I tried restarting to no avail. I coasted it down the hill about a mile or so to a gas station. Took the underseat bucket out. Checked to make sure everything was hooked up correctly. It was. I pulled the carb to make sure it was getting gas. It was. I tried to kick-start it to see if it has compression. It does. That leaves only spark. I'm thinking the CDI took a dump on me. I have 2075 miles on it and have ridden the heck out of it, but nevertheless, the CDI shouldn't be bad already! Won't know until I talk to someone about it on Tuesday.
Sidebar...I got my roadside assistance card in the mail YESTERDAY! Had to use it for a tow company to take the scooter home. Works just like it's supposed to. FYI; the roadside assistance covers incidences that cost up to $150.00. More than that is YOUR responsibility. Fortunately I was less than 5 miles from home, so it was easily covered.
I'm assuming you already checked to make sure you didn't bump the kill switch into the off mode. I'm sure you would notice it, but then again, people haven't before.
Oh yeah, I checked that first. One thing about the kill switch on a Buddy, if you have 'bumped' it off, the engine will not turn over using the electric start. My engine turns over fine...just won't start. When I have a few minutes, I'll disassemble the carburetor to make sure the jets aren't plugged, but since it doesn't even attempt to catch when I'm trying to start it, I don't suspect anything there. When I was first messing with it, I unclamped the carb and pulled it away from the intake manifold. When I turned it upside-down, gas came out of the bowl. With gas in the bowl, there would be not reason it wouldn't start...provided there were also compression and spark. Pushing the kick-started through and feeling resistance tells me there is still compression. That just leaves spark. This is why I suspect the CDI unit.
Keys wrote:That just leaves spark. This is why I suspect the CDI unit.
I can't remember if it was this thread, but did you say that you had checked the fuses? I agree that it sounds electrical, I'm just running down the list of quickie electrical stuff. Bryce got the Kill Switch. I've been caught out by that one myself. Fuses next. Let's see, with Vespas, we've seen more than a couple cases where the spark plug wire was the problem. Assuming you've double checked that the cap is on the plug, you might want to make certain that the wire is actually correctly seated in the plug cap so that it's making contact. Again, this was with Vespas, but I'd check it anyway just to make sure. After that, the CDI is a logical next place to look.
Sorry for your trouble. Hope you've back on the road soon!
I pulled her apart again this morning. There is power out of the ignition switch. Good. There is power at the starter relay. Good. There is nothing at the coil. Bad. This was checked with the switch 'on' and the engine turning over in 'start' mode. I don't know which module is the CDI unit, so I can't check it...but I'm about 80% sure that is the issue.
One thing that happened to my friends Zuma was that he has carbon build up do to running it to rich. He just cleaned it out and it was fine. I think he put in new spark plugs as well. Don't konw if that is it, but its worth a look see.
Evil will always prevail, cause Good is just dumb!
What I was trying to get across, Germ, is that I DID have power. All power was NOT cut off. I could turn the key on, squeeze the brake and depress the starter button. The starter would activate and the engine would turn over jes' fine. It just wouldn't catch.
I contacted my dealer, Scoot Over in Tucson (250 miles away), and spoke to Ron, the mechanic who walked me through the testing process. The coil tested good. The next step was to check the two main parts of the stator; the source coil and the pulse coil. The source coil sends power to the CDI (which is nothing but a big capacitor...an electrical storage unit) and pulse coil sends a signal to the CDI telling it to release it's stored power to the coil (which fires your spark plug). The source coil tested positive...meaning it sent power to the CDI when I used the starter and turned the engine over. The pulse coil tested negative. It is NOT sending the release impulse to the CDI, so it just sits on the power and won't let it go to the coil.
Hence, my dear friends, my stator is bad an will need to be replaced. Scoot Over (as we speak) is faxing the parts request to Genuine. I hope it doesn't take "two weeks".
Wow that’s no good sorry to hear of your troubles but thanx for sharing them with us.
Noticed you live in the warm country so when you do get your scoot back, it will still be warm to ride.
You mentioned that you need to replace the Stator, is that part of the generator assembly?
And is the part home repairable, or do you need to have an authorized person to repair it?
As a matter of fact, I hijacked my wife's Honda Helix, so I'm still riding.
As for the stator...it IS in fact the operative part of the alternator (not generator...a generator is DC current, an alternator is AC current). There are a total of 3 coils on the stator; the charging coil (to keep your battery charged) and the source coil and pulse coil (described in my prevous post).
The stator IS marginally replacable at home. You would need a flywheel puller to remove the flywheel and various other specialized tools. I recommend having it done by an authorized person. In fact, you MAY be required to have a dealer replace it to keep your warranty...I don't know. I DO know, however, rather than buy the tools, I'm having an authorized mechanic do the work
UPDATE: I called Wade at The Flying Dorffini (the shop in Flagstaff where my Buddy is awaiting repair) to find out what's going on. He didn't know. Hadn't heard from Genuine and hadn't received the parts yet (it has been 9 days). He called several times and finally got a response yesterday. Apparently, Genuine didn't have the parts available, but didn't tell anyone. They told Wade they were on a ship headed this way from Taiwan. ETA; 2 to 3 weeks!
Wade told them this is my primary transportation and they said they had a Buddy sitting around the warehouse that had been damaged in shipping that they would remove the stator from and send it to Wade. We'll see. Two weeks again? So far, I'm not too impressed with Genuine's customer service...if they didn't have the parts, they should have at least had the decency to call the shop and let them know!
Yeah Keys, Genuine is not making themselves look good with the Buddy roll-out.
The Buddy is a great scoot, but Genuine was not properly prepared to support the scooter.
Considering that both Genuine & PGO are established compaines with good reputations, I'm guessing that this was a premature product roll-out. I think what happened is that Genuine was going to release the Buddy later this year, or even early next year. However they were caught by sursprise by the loss of Genuine's "flagship model" the Stella, & then reacted by prematurely releasing the Buddy.
That's just what I'm guessing. The other possibility(that makes sense to me) is that either PGO, Genuine, or both are just plain incompetent. I hope that's not the case.
Good Luck
If its just the pulse generator that is bad you could replace it with one from just about any Chinese or Taiwanese scooter. You do not have to pull the flywheel to replace it, it just won't look as neat. The pulse generator is the little black box on the outside of the flywheel. Just swap it with a known good one and either splice the wire or run a seperate wire to the harness that eventually goes to the CDI. The P.G. is not wired to the stator although the wire (probably blue/white) runs through it.
You could do this temporarily until the correct stator arrives. Just check the the ignition with a timing light to be on the safe side.
I called Shelby today at Scoot Over, and she said she had just gotten off the phone with Genuine and they had pulled the parts and shipped them yesterday (Thursday, the 19th). I hope UPS doesn't have the same "two week" rule...
Anyway, may have my Urban Assault Vehicle back next weekend!!
dude, that's the best news i have heard in like 22 minutes, keys.... ... i cant wait to have a "buddy" at a scarab ride... you have a gig on the 11th though, right?
That's great to hear Keys!
Isaac you & Keys won't be the only Buddy's at Scarab rides. Me & Sammy are going to start doing rides w/ them. She'll be doing the South Mt. ride,& then we'll both doing Tortilla Flats & the Tucson ride in Nov.
... i cant wait to have a "buddy" at a scarab ride... you have a gig on the 11th though, right? 
