Had to have my hyper towed from the freeway............ - Ducati.ms

Jeremy25056 · Nov 20th, 2009, 3:36 am

Was headin out to a nice Korean BBQ lunch today in Monterey Park. Taking the 10 Freeway out there. About 10 min on the freeway started to notice my bike was sputtering a little bit, kept on riding knowing i had a full tank and everything should be good. about a half mile later, bike went into some sort of error/limp mode.

bike died out, started, died out, started..... etc. finally it died out completely and the display was throwing up random codes.

Ended up in the middle of the 12 lane freeway on a 4ft wide strip next to the median. scared out of my mind with 80mph cars flying by, i frantically tried to get my bike to start.

After a few tries, it fired up. I got going trying to get out of the danger of traffic. Got up to about 45-50mph and it happened again.

At this point i had only made it across two of the 6 lanes. With a powerless bike i panicked trying to get over to the semi safe side of the freeway.

I finally made it to the triangle between where an on ramp met the freeway. I was able to push my bike back down the on ramp and to a gas station.

Called Ducati Road Side and had the bike towed. Currently the bike is over at Beverly Hills Ducati getting checked out.

Sorry for the rant, been a stressful day. Hope all is ok with my baby. Any ideas what it could be?

Thanks,
-Jeremy

MarksFriggin · Nov 20th, 2009, 6:21 am

Could be as simple as a loose battery cable. Happy to see you made it off the highway safely.

My Hyper stalled once as I was going through an intersection. That scared the crap out of me but it started right back up. My stalling issues were nothing like what you described though.

sick50ford · Nov 20th, 2009, 7:28 am

+1 for loose wiring here.
My hyper came to me new with a stripped grounding wire on the front of the ecu that would lose power intermittently.

NYSport · Nov 20th, 2009, 7:54 am

That sucks, glad you are all right.

CodeRed · Nov 20th, 2009, 9:33 am

Whew! Glad to hear that you got off the freeway in one piece. My office is in Santa Monica, so if you get stranded, I can try to help out next time. GL.

Revelstoker · Nov 20th, 2009, 10:13 am

Sorry to hear about the hyper and I understand your desire to get out of the middle but, based on your story, your damn lucky to be alive.

#1, I wasn't there but I might have tried to get the bike running and then ran the median to see if I could get it to freeway speed.

1a, if I could get it up to freeway speed, 80mph, I then would try to get off the road
2a, if I couldn't get it up to speed or at speed for long enough, I would have stayed in the middle.

#2, if stuck in the middle, i would have parked the bike and jumped the barrier so I could watch the oncoming traffic or just sat on the barrier. If it was a wide median, i would have walked away from the bike and traffic. Drivers love target fixation.

#3, call for help or try to find one of the boxes that sometimes are located on the median in urban areas. Police or tow truck can pick you up in the median

Anyway, I wasn't there but your story sounds like it could have been a lot, lot worse and it seemed very, very foolish to take a gimped bike across 6 lanes of freeway traffic.

The thought of stalling in Lane 4 is unimaginable!!!!!!

motocrimik · Nov 20th, 2009, 11:41 am

For sure you had a problem with the battery wires.
It happened to me as well when the bike had around 2.000 miles.
20% of the members of the italian Hypermotard forum (www.hypermotardclub.it) had the same problem (total members 1900).

minusone · Nov 20th, 2009, 12:35 pm

The symptoms you speak of could occur when power is cut from the fuel pump. An intermittent connection/plug would allow the pump to build up pressure which will keep you going for a bit until pressure is exhausted.

dave2riff · Nov 20th, 2009, 1:09 pm

Quote:

Originally Posted by motocrimik

For sure you had a problem with the battery wires.
It happened to me as well when the bike had around 2.000 miles.
20% of the members of the italian Hypermotard forum (www.hypermotardclub.it) had the same problem (total members 1900).

So I'm wondering why so many Hypers have had the battery cables come loose?
Is it because the battery itself vibrates around with the (afterthought) clamp
mechanism? I noticed that the battery on mine wasn't very secure about one
year ago, and messed with it a bit. I slid a piece of high density black foam
rubber under the battery and added some spacers in the top clamping bar
to "set" the battery firmly against the base. Seems to be OK. I think those
elastic rubber hold-down straps that are used on other bikes and watercraft
would be better/simpler, although they need replacement every so many years.

For guys with Power Commander units mounted to the side of the battery,
there is a risk of the PC III vibrating against the rear subframe if the the
battery is not really secured. Pounding on electronic devices is generally
not great for their service life...

GMP · Nov 20th, 2009, 2:30 pm

I cleaned everything up with contact cleaner and layed a bead of silicone in there, bonding the battery in place (temporarily). did the same with the clamp on the top of the battery. NO movement, NO road dirt/debris between the battery and tank to wear a hole in the tank, and it can be eaisly pulled free for tank removal.