2018 RTL traction control limp mode.

[Snoking1127]

We were on a ride yesterday with two Spyder and two 2 wheelers. Coming South on Pima Rd from Care Free, I made it through a light and the others did not. I could see them in the right hand lane at the red light.

So I looked for a place to pull over and wait until I saw them coming again. I found a small paved side road and looped around to watch for them coming. Then a vehicle pull up behind me, so I moved over onto the grave along the side of the road, to allow the vehicle to enter Pima.

When the traffic showed up coming South the cycles where behind cars and now in the left lane. I saw a break in the right lane and hit it, throwing gravel with the rear tire, got out in the lane and NO POWER aka limp mode!

Pulled back off the busy road and shut the Spyder down and waiting 10-15 seconds and fired it back up and waited for a good break in the traffic and carefully got on the pavement crossing fingers and toes, and gave it some power and was really happy that it had come back to life.

Lesson learned!

[billybovine]

Not sure what lesson you learned. When traction control kicks in it will back off the throttle to regain traction. That should not bring on Limp Home Mode. If it did display Limp Home Mode on your screen. Then something went wrong. It would be interesting to see what codes are stored to get a clue on what went wrong.

[Snoking1127]

Not sure what lesson you learned. When traction control kicks in it will back off the throttle to regain traction. That should not bring on Limp Home Mode. If it did display Limp Home Mode on your screen. Then something went wrong. It would be interesting to see what codes are stored to get a clue on what went wrong.

I will check for codes in the morning. All I know is that once on the pavement I got on and off the throttle a couple times and had greatly reduced power.

[Peter Aawen]

Not sure exactly what happened in your instance Sno, but the Nanny will cut engine power if the rear wheel spins up some % past the turning speed of the front wheels, and she'll only cease that power restriction once all three wheels get back to turning at about the same speed again. It's a safety feature! :rolleyes: . However, she WILL cut in somewhat harder if you also have anything more than just a few degrees of steering dialed in - the F3's Nannies will permit 'more degrees' than the RT's Nannies do, but in either case it's not a heap of steering; maybe only 10° or so on the RT's, 15° or so on the F3's, +/- maybe 3°-ish in both instances? :dontknow: . This is because if you've got too much steering dialed in AND that rear wheel is spinning, the Nanny 'thinks' you might be hanging the tail a bit too much and risking a tail slide/spinout, so she shuts you down until you're back under control. And if you've SUDDENLY applied steering with the rear wheel still spinning, she'll even brake the front wheel on the 'inside' of the 'evasive turn' she 'thinks' you're taking in order to avoid an accident! :p

I just may have been known to start out doing pretty much the same thing you described above on the odd occasion, only without the complete shut down, and I know from experience that the Nanny does certainly cut in suddenly like that at times (have you ever lifted one front wheel in a sharp, high speed turn? :rolleyes: ) but in my experience, it's usually only a Nanny initiated power loss for a moment or two while I back off the throttle a touch until the wheel speeds match up again &/or I straighten out the steering input a touch; then as the power starts coming on again I can gently feed more power in and take off pretty rapidly without any further issues. :ohyea: . You don't even need gravel for this to happen, altho it does tend to occur more often when taking off on gravel because of the lower traction & the ease with which you can get the rear wheel to break away & spin up; but you can experience the same thing on the pavement if you are aggressive enough on the throttle & don't have too much weight/load on the rear wheel! :shocked:

That said, I'd surmise that you probably cut the throttle fairly suddenly once the Nanny cut the power, then feeling the pressure of the rapidly approaching/oncoming traffic, you likely twisted the throttle back on juuust a bit too hard/too much in order to try and power off & outta the way - normally a fully justified feeling/desire.... only the Nanny sees all that on & off the throttle again while the rear wheel is spun up as indicating that you are really out of control & need her help, so she mainained or re-instated the power cut even after the wheel speeds matched up again. :banghead: . I've had much the same thing occur (only without the 'impending crunch' of rapidly approaching traffic!) and so have learnt that when the rear wheel spins up, GENTLY ease off the throttle (& degrees of steering) until the rear wheel slows it's spin enough to hook up again so that the Nanny lets the power come back on; and only then GENTLY & SMOOTHLY feed in more throttle!! You can actually keep the rear wheel JUUUST spinning a touch faster than the front wheels for some distance like that, altho you also need to make sure you don't have too many degrees of steering dialed in too, or she gets pissed off pretty quick & shuts you down completely!! :shocked:

Smooth & Gentle throttle and steering applications are the trick here! :clap: . It really doesn't take too much practice to learn her limits and how to 'ride the edge' of the Nanny's intervention; and by doing so, greatly reduce the real upset moments where she catches you by surprise and makes you think 'Oh Crap!' as the grille on that Peterbilt approaching at terminal velocity causes you to suddenly add 'jet propulsion' stains to your shorts! :yikes: Just sayin'... :rolleyes:

[Snoking1127]

Not sure exactly what happened in your instance Sno, but the Nanny will cut engine power if the rear wheel spins up some % past the turning speed of the front wheels, and she'll only cease that power restriction once all three wheels get back to turning at about the same speed again. It's a safety feature! :rolleyes: . However, she WILL cut in somewhat harder if you also have anything more than just a few degrees of steering dialed in - the F3's Nannies will permit 'more degrees' than the RT's Nannies do, but in either case it's not a heap of steering; maybe only 10° or so on the RT's, 15° or so on the F3's, +/- maybe 3°-ish in both instances? :dontknow: . This is because if you've got too much steering dialed in AND that rear wheel is spinning, the Nanny 'thinks' you might be hanging the tail a bit too much and risking a tail slide/spinout, so she shuts you down until you're back under control. And if you've SUDDENLY applied steering with the rear wheel still spinning, she'll even brake the front wheel on the 'inside' of the 'evasive turn' she 'thinks' you're taking in order to avoid an accident! :p

I just may have been known to start out doing pretty much the same thing you described above on the odd occasion, only without the complete shut down, and I know from experience that the Nanny does certainly cut in suddenly like that at times (have you ever lifted one front wheel in a sharp, high speed turn? :rolleyes: ) but in my experience, it's usually only a Nanny initiated power loss for a moment or two while I back off the throttle a touch until the wheel speeds match up again &/or I straighten out the steering input a touch; then as the power starts coming on again I can gently feed more power in and take off pretty rapidly without any further issues. :ohyea: . You don't even need gravel for this to happen, altho it does tend to occur more often when taking off on gravel because of the lower traction & the ease with which you can get the rear wheel to break away & spin up; but you can experience the same thing on the pavement if you are aggressive enough on the throttle & don't have too much weight/load on the rear wheel! :shocked:

That said, I'd surmise that you probably cut the throttle fairly suddenly once the Nanny cut the power, then feeling the pressure of the rapidly approaching/oncoming traffic, you likely twisted the throttle back on juuust a bit too hard/too much in order to try and power off & outta the way - normally a fully justified feeling/desire.... only the Nanny sees all that on & off the throttle again while the rear wheel is spun up as indicating that you are really out of control & need her help, so she mainained or re-instated the power cut even after the wheel speeds matched up again. :banghead: . I've had much the same thing occur (only without the 'impending crunch' of rapidly approaching traffic!) and so have learnt that when the rear wheel spins up, GENTLY ease off the throttle (& degrees of steering) until the rear wheel slows it's spin enough to hook up again so that the Nanny lets the power come back on; and only then GENTLY & SMOOTHLY feed in more throttle!! You can actually keep the rear wheel JUUUST spinning a touch faster than the front wheels for some distance like that, altho you also need to make sure you don't have too many degrees of steering dialed in too, or she gets pissed off pretty quick & shuts you down completely!! :shocked:

Smooth & Gentle throttle and steering applications are the trick here! :clap: . It really doesn't take too much practice to learn her limits and how to 'ride the edge' of the Nanny's intervention; and by doing so, greatly reduce the real upset moments where she catches you by surprise and makes you think 'Oh Crap!' as the grille on that Peterbilt approaching at terminal velocity causes you to suddenly add 'jet propulsion' stains to your shorts! :yikes: Just sayin'... :rolleyes:

Yes is was a bit unnerving with traffic coming. Maybe it did not need to be shutdown and restarted. But under the circumstances I decided that was the thing to do. I have a friend here with a 2014 RTL and he got in a corner to hard and the nanny kicked in and another friend on the ride told me that it would not go again until he shut it off and restarted. With that a bit burnt in my brain, I did that same thing.

[BLUEKNIGHT911]

Not sure what lesson you learned. When traction control kicks in it will back off the throttle to regain traction. That should not bring on Limp Home Mode. If it did display Limp Home Mode on your screen. Then something went wrong. It would be interesting to see what codes are stored to get a clue on what went wrong.

:agree: .......... I have had " VSS " flash 100's of times .... but never had " limp mode " after that event ..... Mike :thumbup:

[Snoking1127]

No codes displayed.

[JayBros]

You have to remember that only active codes will reappear after you've turned off the ignition. All codes will be stored but you have to have B.U.D.S. to read and clear the stored ones.