Well, that that then.

After almost 2 years of trouble free fun, it finally came to a sudden pause. Popped out for a spin with the memsahib, stopped off at the mother in law's for coffee, and afterwards the Downtown wouldn't start. Tried all the obvious stuff, but nothing. Not a light.

Fortunately I'm with Carol Nash and AA cover is included so rang them up.
Within an hour a man in a yellow van appear, and we whipped the seat off to survey the damage.
Also fortunately, I happened to have the workshop manual with me, and even though he was baffled by how the electrics worked, he managed to bypass the starter solenoid and then rebuild the bike with the engine running. It seems it's connected with the brake lights, as they don't work either, which makes some sort of sense because, common to most bikes these days, you have to pull in a brake to start it.

Anyway, it's now parked outside the dealer, chained to a commercial wheelie bin ready for Monday morning.
I have a sneaking feeling the ECU has blown, but fortunately it's still under warranty for another couple of weeks, so it should be OK. It just might take a bit if time to get it back.

Time will tell........

Brake light bulb has gone?

SpikeOne wrote: it's now parked outside the dealer, chained to a commercial wheelie bin ready for Monday morning.

I think you actually have to put it in the bin or they won't take it

Sorry to hear that, hope it is something simple....and cheap
Sounds like circuitry - brake light and starter both need your brake light switch to be working on some models (tried shorting it out?) and the stand might be linked into the same circuit

Hope it's not too expensive for you sort out.

it may be some thing very simple hopefully

Better for it to break down now while there's still some warranty left on it than to break down in a couple of weeks time.

Steve_D wrote:Better for it to break down now while there's still some warranty left on it than to break down in a couple of weeks time.

Ditto.


TA-pa-TA-pa-taPAtalk

Taipan wrote:Brake light bulb has gone?

Funnily enough the AA man said that! I can't believe that that'll stop it though - that's absurd!

When I looked at the circuitry it has a series of safeguards in there.
Either of the brakes must be on, but I can't believe that BOTH of the microswitches would have gone at the same time, the side stand should be up, but we checked that, and that is working OK. There's also a kill switch and a tilt switch, both of which the AA man tested.
It can only be the ECU from what I can see, (although it could be something as simple as a wire fallen off instead).
I'm not expecting it to cost me anything

I think these absurd sidestand and brake switches are an utterly pointless pain in the arse.
Just something extra to go wrong and what's worse they don't even do anything useful.
A handlebar mounted kill switch is actually useful but does my scooter have one?
Nope, just the annoying pull the brake to start the scooter nonsense.