The Hyper Curse

kuksul08 · Jun 30, 2018

Well I had an interesting day. Sold my hyper to a very enthusiastic rider who has had the lust for a Hyper, coming from a 250 supermoto. We negotiated price beforehand. Very straightforward compared to getting haggled in person. A fair bit less than I was asking, but I was tired of looking at it in the garage and feeling guilty.

Rode it to meet him in a public place, he test rode it about 15 minutes and liked it enough to say yes! Off he rode into the distance and I ended the Ducati chapter of my life, to move on to new and exciting things. Or so I thought.

About half an hour later I get a text "What are 'Errors'?".

Yep, the dash showed errors with a check engine light. Apparently the bike still runs fine - no limp mode or anything. I have NEVER seen this before, and always considered myself lucky never having an electrical problem on an Italian bike. Why now?

Anyone have any ideas? It's a very odd predicament. I rode it 15,000 miles without an issue and then it screws up the day I sell it? I swear this is some kind of curse. My only thought is maybe the throttle unit, even though I already had it swapped out when the recall came out. Anyone have one go bad twice? I am doing my best to help him diagnose it.

Tyjamo · Jul 1, 2018

Machines and engines build a memory. Regardless of any 'smart' tech, mechanical entities get used to you. You're paired so it's always the same. As soon as another vibrator gets on, the harmonic changes, and disrupts. The same thing happens when someone drives my '94 del Sol, always acts funny when getting re-normalized to my frequency. My Stihl chainsaw just did it yesterday too. Never have any issues with it until someone else puts their hands on it and poof, it's got issues.

gatdammit · Jul 1, 2018

That's effing deep, Ty.

Kuk, the only time I got that was very recently when my bad starter cycled so slow that it booted the ECU. Got the CEL, 'errors' and it reset my gear indicator. Had to be a bad voltage issue because once it finally turned over, it went away. I've also never had the disco ball recall issue.

Bummer man. Maybe it's some cross-dimensional force drawing you two back together. Kids lucky. Couldn't have done business with a more competent non-licensed mechanic.

appliance821 · Jul 1, 2018

Sad you're leaving the forum. The TCU thing never resulted in an error on the dash.

Did you do any new work to the bike?
Did the new owner do anything? Sounds unlikely given the time frame but... Maybe he took the seat off and when putting it back on pinched a wire or something like that. Could his boot have loosened a connection?
Did you get the canbus filter put in?

Best of luck on this.

kuksul08 · Jul 1, 2018

I did read that sometimes the tcu would cause a light. I did have the can filter installed. Didn't do any work to it in months and it was running great.

kuksul08 · Jul 1, 2018

So he says it runs fine. It will only get the error light after about 5 minutes of riding but it doesn't affect anything. Makes me think it's an emissions related fault code (TPS, O2 sensor, PAIR valve) and not a functional one. I think it might be worth unplugging and re-plugging some connectors and just giving every thing a visual check for something obvious. I wish I had a code reader - did we every come up with a good solution for that? He ran a few tanks of gas through it already, so that's a good sign lol.

Ty, that's a very interesting theory. It sounds superstitious, but I kinda have to agree. Ignoring modern vehicles that quite literally adapt to your riding/driving habits, I do think there's something off when someone else uses my thing. I can distinctly remember my car shifting better every time my dad would drive it. I could never explain this, and as an engineer its super strange to not have a logical reason behind it.

Anyway - thanks for the help guys! I will let you know the outcome.

Tyjamo · Jul 1, 2018

Yeah I'm a bit far over on the transcendental side, aka hypersensitive (forgive the Millennial Hotword, but it's quite accurate.). Hypermotard. Hyper this and that. The bike is so perfect for me and such a sensual mechanism developed by the Hyper passionate Italians. Any small nuance can throw it out. I've made a magnificent relationship with my bike and only one other person has ridden it, as I rode his white 959 Panigale. I've read a lot about the peculiarities of the bike but haven't found them to be negative but rather a bike to learn from and develop higher skill sets for riding.

Right, regarding your issue, you mention fuel. Maybe he put some bunk gas in. If you always ran the same high octane non-ethanol, and he pours in some Arco, well I can only imagine my bike would be thoroughly irate.

One thing is sure, it's not a coincidence. No such thing. Some thing he's done is different so I'd suggest going over what those things are and give it the old process of elimination.

dragoontwo · Jul 2, 2018

kuksul08 said:
I wish I had a code reader - did we every come up with a good solution for that?

There is a solution, and I only just recently got the cables to test instead of the hack job I was doing before.

Melcodiag is what I have found to work as a solution. You will need a connector to hook into the CANBUS port, and a good ELM327 adapter.

Unfortunately, finding a good US supplier for both is a bit tricky. I ended up using Lonelec out of the UK.

monocog007 · Jul 2, 2018

Any chance it's an O2 sensor? I had a seemingly useless CEL on the dash and the bike rode great, ended up being an 02 sensor.

kuksul08 · Jul 2, 2018

monocog007 said:
Any chance it's an O2 sensor? I had a seemingly useless CEL on the dash and the bike rode great, ended up being an 02 sensor.

That would be nice. The thing that confuses me is that the rapid bike is supposed to emulate the o2's. I'm wondering if it's related to that part. I haven't heard of a single one of those breaking but I guess it's not beyond possibility.

kuksul08 · Jul 2, 2018

The manual comes in handy! Looks like it could be a number of things. Thankfully most of them look to be pretty simple. Of these, only a few would allow the bike to operate normally still (redundant TPS sensor, O2 sensor, secondary air sensor).

Tyjamo · Jul 3, 2018

Throttle sensor perhaps. That's the only thing I got error codes for. Recalled then replaced and did it one more time, cleared them and has been flawless for three years. I believe it could be the bike learning the new input controller (the rider) and vice versa. Maybe once he sensitizes to it it will accept him. Maybe not. Maybe he'll demand his money back and it really will be your curse, to have the best Hyper ever.

appliance821 · Jul 4, 2018

N4teTheGreat · Jul 5, 2018

Funny enough this happened to me in the middle of the Utah dessert. I'd been making great time along route 95 maintaining a steady 95mph (no traffic, clear views, awesome) when the bike hesitated and went into limp mode. I pulled over and the throttle was stuck around 3500 and there was a giant exclamation point on the dash and a CEL. I shut it off, began contemplating just how much of an adventure it would be to get towed out of there and fired it back up. I started and idled fine so off I went. The CEL actually went away by the end of the day but I figured that since the bike was running fine it was a sensor and not actually anything wrong with the motor. Given the heat (it was 100+ in Utah) I suspect one of the O2 sensors gave a bad reading.

It'll go into the dealer when I get back (with another 1400 miles on the clock by then) to get the brake fixed and the error code checked. Hopefully it's still in memory by then.

kuksul08 · Jul 5, 2018

N4teTheGreat said:
Funny enough this happened to me in the middle of the Utah dessert. I'd been making great time along route 95 maintaining a steady 95mph (no traffic, clear views, awesome) when the bike hesitated and went into limp mode. I pulled over and the throttle was stuck around 3500 and there was a giant exclamation point on the dash and a CEL. I shut it off, began contemplating just how much of an adventure it would be to get towed out of there and fired it back up. I started and idled fine so off I went. The CEL actually went away by the end of the day but I figured that since the bike was running fine it was a sensor and not actually anything wrong with the motor. Given the heat (it was 100+ in Utah) I suspect one of the O2 sensors gave a bad reading.

It'll go into the dealer when I get back (with another 1400 miles on the clock by then) to get the brake fixed and the error code checked. Hopefully it's still in memory by then.

That's funny. I would freak out for a moment too... glad to hear you're on your way and the trip is going smoothly.

Hyp Noob · Jul 6, 2018

What about doing the simple things first?

I would suggest he disconnect the battery, wait 5 minutes, re-connect. See what happens.

I suspect the new owner, not knowing the complex menus, started pushing
buttons at random and created some sort of problem. Just a guess.

I'm thinking a Ducati dealer could plug in and diagnose and fix things in one hour labor. (about $120 around here)

You, of course are under no obligation to cover that cost but chipping in a bit might be nice. Hope it gets solved!

All the best, good luck!

kuksul08 · Jul 6, 2018

Hyp Noob said:
What about doing the simple things first?

I would suggest he disconnect the battery, wait 5 minutes, re-connect. See what happens.

I suspect the new owner, not knowing the complex menus, started pushing
buttons at random and created some sort of problem. Just a guess.

I'm thinking a Ducati dealer could plug in and diagnose and fix things in one hour labor. (about $120 around here)

You, of course are under no obligation to cover that cost but chipping in a bit might be nice. Hope it gets solved!

All the best, good luck!

He tried disconnecting the battery. The light went off but came back on after about 5 minutes of riding he says. He says he just filled up with gas, stalled the engine, and that's when it happened - who really knows? I suggested unplugging and replugging several connectors, namely the TPS and O2 sensors. Yes, a dealer could easily plug in to see what it is. It might come down to that if it doesn't resolve itself.

Thankfully - he said he's been riding it around without any issues and loves it. So there's that! He's also very mellow and is confident he will find a solution soon.

Sith Lord · Jul 10, 2018

Or the easiest way to fix the problem is to stop answering his calls or texts. His bike now, right?

Devinjc · Jul 21, 2018

I have a bad O2 sensor that still causes CEL with rapidbike, on off on off. It was annoying until one day I disconnected the power to the muffler while the bike was on and now the CEL comes on at power up and stays on. Much less annoying that way. Runs great so I stopped worrying about it

The Hyper Curse

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