[pyfis]

So something interesting happened on a trip the other day. About an hour into it and while driving on the highway at about 65 mph actual in perfect weather, my instrument cluster went through what appeared to be 2 back-to-back power-on self-tests. You know, the ABS and FI lights went on, the speedo and tach did their full sweep, etc. It was exactly the same as if someone had turned the ignition on except that the engine never missed a beat and kept on running. When the self-test routines were finished, everything behaved normally except that the speedometer was off the scale. When I got to my destination, I shut the ignition off and noticed that the speedometer now reads 10 mph when the bike is stationary even when the ignition is off. The speedo still seems to function except that in addition to the "normal" error it is off by an additional 10 mph (so 65 actual is now something like 82 indicated).

Here's the weird part though...the ODO and MPG still reads as accurately as they did before the incident. This indicates to me that the sensor is still operating normally and it is just the speedo side of the cluster that is jacked up.

I've not done extensive troubleshooting on this yet. I have checked the connectors on both ends of the speedometer, disconnected and re-connected them. Unfortunately the problem persists.

Has anyone experienced or heard of anyone experiencing anything like this before?

 

[mikeyMarine]

once on a mercedes in Kuwait, the needle indicator got jacked on the pivot that moves it to indicate speed, one of the Kuwaiti nationals and I were monkeying with it , took it apart and moved it back to zero,

the flickering dash indications , I think I'd be checking for loose wires , ground wires or even a loose or very nasty battery connection but with battery you'd have starting problems too.
but tightening down a connetion is cheap and I like cheap fixes so it's worth a check

 

[mike1nw]

my speed sensor ($82) went south last fall. The speedo went from 0 to [correct speed] randomly, with corresponding goofy odo and mpg readings. Yours sounds like the speedo unit is bad, but I sure would look for a loose connector or ground first!

Guy I knew years ago, with a 6th gen. Corvette, well the car would quit running randomly, dealer spent hours on it, finally found loose connector at the CPU thingy. After all the computer and diagnostic time spent on it, someone checked the simple things. Ya never know.

 

[pyfis]

Well thanks to the two Mikes for your respective pieces of advice. I stopped by a dealer that I trust the other day and quizzed their service writer on the possible solution. He seconded Mikey's opinion that I should try to crack it open and manually move the needle on the post. So I'll be giving that a go in the near future.

The service writer then wondered what had caused it in the first place which is what Mike was saying. This may be tougher to figure out as the problem has not repeated itself in the subsequent 500 miles ridden. At least the scooter's electrical system isn't as complex as a car's electrical system. Hopefully re-seating the connectors fixed the problem.

Thanks for the advice, guys.