Scooterotica

Hi all,

My dad still rides a scooter but decided a few years ago to go from a PX Disc to a modern, lighter Vespa auto. He is now on his second one of these and still enjoys whizzing around, enjoying that he's still riding a Vespa, rather than anything non-Italian. His days of PX 200 Disc, P2, PX125, V90 and 90 Racer are well behind him (I wish I still had some of them).

Right, the current LX150 auto has recently refused to start and I'm wondering if there are any known issues that might quickly identify what the problem is likely to be. The battery reads over 12V of power and the lights come on strong as soon as the key is turned to the ON position. However, trying to start the bike results in ZERO happening to the engine (I also note that the horn doesn't work and the fuel gauge does not move, which it always did prior to this problem). BTW this was an issue that started to happen after my dad had ridden into town and came back to the bike to ride home. The bike has plenty of fuel and the battery has plenty of power but trying to start the bike results in ZERO happening, with the battery/starter motor not even trying to spin, no 'click', no sound, no nothing!

I can start to strip the bike down to look for a wiring problem, faulty switch, immobilizer still cutting ignition when lever pulled in, etc. but I really don't want to waste lots of time looking for a fault if there are likely known causes that I don't know of. Anyone have any experience of similar issues with the Vespa LX models?

Thanks in advance.

Adam

Hi, not an expert on these, however the LED on the dash should provide you with information regarding the state of the immobilisor system. If the user manual doesn't provide the flash sequences the manual will be available to download somewhere for free. I'd start with this so it can be either eliminated or direct you to the problem

Good luck.

Do they have a diagnostic plug?

Thanks for the feedback so far.

I've got the manual for a bit of bedtime reading, which might just give me an idea.

Thanks

Adam

Not as simple as the red kill switch in the OFF is it
Not that I have ever done that of course

Does it work with the brown key?

UPDATE: So, after lots and lots of web searching on the topic I come across a thread on a Vespa forum where a girl is asking the same question for her LX150. After all of the, replace the battery, clone new keys, strip the carb, serious work or expense replies, she comes back with an update saying that it is fixed and was as simple as swapping out a fuse in the 2nd fusebox (one under saddle) under the horncasting! For such a simple fix, this really should be all over Vespa LX150 web pages and common knowledge, yet it took lots of searching for me to find her thread and it took her a lot of time/effort to resolve her same issue.

This info might help someone else too.

Thanks all.

Adam

That sounds like a good five or six hours' worth of labour charges at the dealer, for a five minute fix.

^... that's the story that I kept reading over and over again on other website, with people paying all sorts of horrendous dealership bills, key cloning followed by complete ignition system and management system replacement, etc! I wonder how many of those were, as you say, a simple case of wasting a lot of time and customer's money before swapping out a fuse?!

It does show the power of forums though and the good they can do

Ta

Adam_Winstone wrote:^... that's the story that I kept reading over and over again on other website, with people paying all sorts of horrendous dealership bills, key cloning followed by complete ignition system and management system replacement, etc! I wonder how many of those were, as you say, a simple case of wasting a lot of time and customer's money before swapping out a fuse?!

It does show the power of forums though and the good they can do

Ta

It also shows just how many crooked dealers there are. I bet a good few know all about the fuse issue and see it as an easy money maker.