So my bike is still in the break-in stage, just under 300 miles, and I decided to go out for a little joy ride tonight to relieve some stress and just get some more mileage on it. I was out on a country road, very little traffic thank goodness, and in 6th gear, when suddenly the engine just quit. I tried to re-crank it, and couldn't. I coasted off into a random parking lot, hit the engine cut-off switch, shifted down to first, then tried to crank it after turning the cut-off switch back on. Fortunately it re-cranked and life went on, but I'm a little curious as to what it may have been. My dad and brother told me it could have been vapor lock, and after looking at the symptoms, I think I may agree with them, but I always seek extra opinions and insight when possible.
Bike lost power tonight...need some insight.
- Thread starter Osoreru
- Start date
Call your dealership right away, told them to come and pick it up... something is seriously wrong! Better safe than sorry!
Thanks fellas, and yea I planned on calling the dealer in the morning anyway. I'll report back when I know more. Really sucks, though. This bike has been so amazing and then almost left me stranded in the middle of nowhere. It's kinda depressing. At least I made it back home with no more issues though.
I actually used it because I was still rolling, trying to get out of the way of an oncoming car, and about to be going down-hill onto a gravelly dirt road (the only safe place I could pull to). I had absolutely no idea what had happened, so I wanted to make absolutely sure the engine was off. Rather than take one of my hands off the handlebars to reach for the key, I decided to flip the kill switch instead.
Ha. I showed a buddy of mine the thread, and his quote after reading it:
"i have often wondered what sort of situation warrants the use of the kill switch
11:45 PM
obviously you found one"
Leave it to me to actually have to use something that's rarely ever needed.
rjohnson5481
New Member
I either use that or the kickstand kill switch to cut the bike off almost everytime... maybe i'm weird. the bike is always off when i pull the key..
One of my MSF instructors actually recommended that it be used every time just so you stay familiar with it's use, in case of emergencies.
Country road in 6th gear? Wow.. What speed/RPM?
Since it wasn't in neutral when you first tried to restart it, I'd blame the clutch switch for that - assuming it didn't crank over at all.
The stalling - maybe the kickstand switch has issues? If the bike is in gear and it thinks the kickstand is down, it shuts off.
both MSFC and advanced course said to use the cut off switch
I use it all the time. Every time I pull in the garage I shut it as I roll in... I live in an apartment and there's people over the garage... The Viper can is great but f&^% loud in a 1 car garage!
By the way, in case of emergency... slow down as much as you can then jump off the wagon!
Rode the bike to the dealer today. Got them to check it out, everything is fine. I'm starting to wonder if maybe I didn't accidentally hit the kill switch or something when I pulled the clutch in and throttled off. Truth is it's entirely possible that I did, since so much happened so quick that I can't exactly recall everything. They looked over everything pretty thoroughly and couldn't find anything wrong, and I haven't found anything to be concerned with either and the bike is running fine. I'm just going to assume for now that I must have done something stupid without realizing I did it.
Honestly I'm not sure how fast I was going. When the trouble started I had already pulled in the clutch, hit the brakes, and downshifted into 5th. When I realized that the engine was off is when I was letting the clutch back out and nothing happened. I looked down at the speedometer at that point and I was at ~45, so all things considered, I was probably up around 65-70 when I started braking.
Edit: went back and looked at my first post and realized that I didn't actually include this part of what happened. Should have been a little more detailed from the start. Sorry about that.
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redwing-2001
New Member
that is a good point. However, the real reason that we promote the use of the engine cut-off switch is safety. Since the key can be anywhere on a motorcycle, it is a good idea to take the clutch (with engine running) out of the equation by turning the engine off with both hands on the handle bar before searching for the key.
I don't know about anyone else, but I take the clutch out of the equation by putting the bike in neutral before I turn the bike off with the key. Seems safe enough to me. I've never used my kill switch, but I'm well aware of where it is.