Tuesday, October 7, 2008

Rev Limiter? or something else?

This morning I changed the oil in my Kymco People 150. It was past 1000 klms on the odometer, and was acting a little sluggish. After the oil change, the sluggishness seemed to be greatly reduced. There was still some hesitation past 40 mph, but I was heading to the dealer to try to find out what the issue was with the rev limiter, if that was indeed what had caused my scooter to splutter and die on by trip north on Friday.

The technician at the dealer told me that there are two types of rev limiters. The first type cuts the ignition, which will cause the vehicle to stutter a little, but not die. The second type actually cuts the gas, and gives some kind of warning, much like what happened to me on Friday. The mechanic also wondered if the issue might not be due to bad gas. I tried to tell him I've been laying off the beans, but he wouldn't listen. *insert riotous laughter here*

He wasn't aware that the People 150 had a limiter like the second type mentioned, but said he'd do some research and give me a call. He did suggest that I try to avoid ethanol (which I already try to do, but that's almost impossible). He also suggested some fuel system cleaner.

I put some fuel cleaner in the tank and ran around for about 20 minutes. between the oil change and the fuel cleaner, it feels like the scooter is running a lot more smoothly, but I doubt that had anything to do with the sudden shutoff that occurred on Friday.

Well, at least for now I know not to try to run the scooter above 60 mph. That's alright though. I bought the scoot for safer navigation of 40 - 45 mph roads, and it is far more than adequate for that job.

1 comment:

Steve C. said...

Funny, I just went in to my local scooter shop with a similar issue this past weekend. My scoot used to die (sputter and drop to 35mph) when I hit 50mph. Is was so drastic that I thought I had a limiter of some type and kept the speed under 50 all summer.

After chatting with the scooter tech for a while and having him search my engine (no, that is not an euphemism) he informed me that there was no limiter on my ride. We did come up with a theory (but no real way to test it) that excess oil may be pushing its way past the reed valve which acts like a PCV valve on a car and may have temporarily starved the engine of oil.

There is a tube which runs from the cylinder head and into the airbox with another tube leading out directly underneath it and they both did have oil in them.

Keep in mind this is all theory and nothing definitive. It may, however, give you a place to start looking and possibly spark something in the memories of your other readers which may lead you closer to finding the true cause.

Good Luck.