Modern Buddy

Glad Genuine offers emergency roadside. I've used it twice within two weeks.

Bought 2007 Rattler 110 to commute to work (also own '03 Zuma).

Commuting to work one morning bike stalled & died at ~50mph. Could not restart (full tank of gas, kill switch not flipped, 3/4 tank of oil). Pulled the plug & was not fouled (btw, the tool included with the bike is nearly impossible to maneuver into place due to limited clearance). After multiple kick & electric start attempts engine finally turned over. Idle was rough so I adjusted the idle screw.

Less than 2 miles down the road, same thing happened. Bike would absolutely not restart. Had it towed back to the dealer. Approx 280 miles on bike.

Five days later, back from the dealer. Dealer had no problem starting the bike and no problem with multiple test rides over a few days. Could not find anything wrong, but had cleaned the carb. Prior to riding home, I yanked on every wiring harness to check for shorts. Nothing found.

Following day, repeat of the same incident. Stalled and died at full throttle going about 50mph. Managed to restart after multiple attempts. Few miles later died at full throttle. Attempts to restart failed. Towed back to dealer. Approximately 340 miles on the bike. This time, dealer could not get the bike started.

In both cases bike was given adequate time to warm up. Suspect the bike is running too rich, but the sparkplug color did not indicate. Suspected humidity was mucking with the fuel mixture (Houston mornings can be swampy) but checked the weather records. One day was 85-90% humidity, the other day was 45-55% humidity.

I've already reviewed the other stalling threads on this site. Any thoughts?

Sounds like a possible short in the wiring, bad fuel or pinched fuel line. Somehow it is getting starved of fuel at WOT, good luck.

Take you gas cap off. Sounds silly but you've got vapor lock from gas getting in your vapor line after you filled up. Until the gas gets out, you'll get the lock up like that. Happened to me this week Your air/fuel mixture on the carb may be off a bit too making the problem even worse. I don't like riding with the gascap off, but it beats sitting on the side of the road

After each stall, I did take off the gas cap and try to restart. No luck there either. Will talk to shop today and check on status.

Mixture is off then. I hate tuning the carb for WOT. Without a dyno it's a PITA! It's flooding at WOT, not enough air in your mixture.

Bike back from shop. Replaced choke circuit.
Early morning ride (same route to work, same time of morning) on Saturday, no problems.
Sunday, ~25 miles, no problem.
Monday (going to work) will be the trial. So far so good.

Hopefully, this fixes it and I don't have to go down the Lemon Law route.

Lemon Law requires 3 attempts at the same issue with the same action taken or an extended period of time disabled at the shop to qualify... 1 shot at fixing it wouldn't qualify.

wow i had the EXACT same thing with a suzuki RGV250.

wonder if its a 2 stroke thing?.

ironic thing was that it got stolen and when it got returned to me did over 70 miles in 2 days, so it worked for the thieving scum

nissanman wrote:Lemon Law requires 3 attempts at the same issue with the same action taken or an extended period of time disabled at the shop to qualify... 1 shot at fixing it wouldn't qualify.

It's been in the shop twice for the same issue and is going back again. It died twice again on my ride to work.

ruh roh raggy. are you gonna take it back to them?

brimstone wrote:ruh roh raggy. are you gonna take it back to them?

Take it back to whom Shaggy? The Dealer or same Mechanic?

sorry, i meant the dealer. if it's a true lemon issue.

brimstone wrote:sorry, i meant the dealer. if it's a true lemon issue.

Ha ha after reading the other thread on this same issue I figured it out. My bad!

np...you're just making me second guess myself....your just like my mother.

brimstone wrote:np...you're just making me second guess myself....your just like my mother.

Ouch....lmao

i thought you might get a kick out of that. hehe

I really hope your not Soft Seizing.

Does the Scooter sputters and loose power.

Go up 4 sizes at least on your main jet then do a plug chop to figure out where you are.

This was covered at a Breakfast this morning and the info comes from L.B. on this site.

Plus their is a plug chop link on Modern Vespa from Greasy.

The bike continues to frustrate the dealer and myself.

Electrical problems are tentatively ruled out. I've pulled, pushed, yanked, twisted, dis- and reconnected all the wiring on the bike while running on the stand. Except for the obvious disconnect, I have not been able to replicated the stall and die.

I'm not ready to rejet yet, it doesn't quite make sense.

However, I did go back and review the dates I filled the tank and dates the bike died on my morning (always morning) commutes. Day after I filled, on all three occasions, the bike died. I do fill the tank to the top (never a problem with my zuma) at a station ~1 mi from the house. Leads me to think it's vapor lock (not from fuel vaporizing in the line, but a vacuum starving the fuel line).

After talking to a few other scooter and cycle riders, this would plausibly leave enough fuel in the line to get home without stalling but cause it to starve the following day outside a certain distance from home.

The shortest distance was ~2 miles, the longest ~5 miles.

Will continue to monitor and not fill the tank so full. Regardless, if this is the culprit, it seems like a poor design.

Stay tuned...

is there a vent hole in the cap?

Only if you drill one yourself. But you gotta be careful not to drill the lock

Since the third stall and die, I've been unable to reproduce the results (good thing).

This weekend, on two different days, I filled the tank as full as possible but did not have the bike stall on me. Maybe not a vapor lock issue that I thought.

more later

Sounds like good news to me hopefully it is a thing of the past.

with a full tank the carbon canister gets soaked and doesn't let air enter, messing with the vacuum. actually saw fuel dripping out of air inlet at one point. there's a diagram of the line under the seat. most likely take the canister out soon.