VSS Fault

[poli]

Went riding today on some muddy dirt roads (rained yesterday) and I noticed it suddenly seemed to lose power. Still ran but way down on power and about 50 mph top end. Think it went into limp mode. I think it happened earlier when I was in Rally mode in some mud and when I slowed down to look at something it seemed to have more trouble than normal getting back up to speed (only doing about 15 to 20 thru there). When I noticed the power/speed issue later after hitting the pavement, it started flashing "VSS Fault" across screen and yellow engine light on. Codes pulled were C006C and C0040. Guess I'll take her back to the dealer Tuesday but was just wondering if anyone else has had this issue?

[poli]

Update: Went out this morning to the garage to move my Ryker outside so I could wash off all the mud that was caked on it from playing yesterday. Started her up and there's the "VSS Fault" scrolling across the bottom of the screen. Took her out and washed her good. Got ready to put her back into the garage and when I started her … no message! Went out to the street and run up and down a few times and running better than ever! Only thing I can think of was there was some mud caked on something around the wheels (ABS, Traction Control, ?) that I happened to wash off and restored communication, which was the code I was getting (C006C). Anyway I'm a happy camper again.

[Peter Aawen]

Sure does sound like you had some mud stopping something from happenning!! I've had a similar 'power loss' event on my RT while ryding thru goopey mud, but )luckily for me) it didn't get as far as a VSS fault! As soon as I noticed the power loss I stopped to see what was happening, and I noticed there was a whole gloop of mud caking up most of the gaps in the rear ABS/Speed index wheel.... Cleared all that mud off & checked that there wasn't any mud stuck on the face of the speed sensor, and voila, power was immediately back up to where it was meant to be!

So maybe that's something to watch out for, mud or other crud filling those gaps in the index wheels &/or occluding the sensor's read face.... Hasn't happened to me often enough to be conclusive, but you might want to keep an eye on them.... altho I do suspect that anything gumming up the front index wheels/sensors will create code problems a whole lot sooner than a gummed up rear!

Cheers and glad you're Ryker's behaving again too! Now, where can I find the next lotta mud?!