Great highway ride...J/K

[Mikethesloan]

 Made my first attempt of a highway ride I'm about 30 miles.  At the 25 mile mark I experienced a loss of power overheating and when I stopped I saw that I had leaked oil.  At this point I got a tow back to homebase. $225 later and I'm home safe. Have any of you experience this sort of issue? If so please let me know, or if you have any ideas what could've caused this also let me know! Thanks and happy scootering!

[MJR]

If you lost all the oil it could happen but what is leaking I don't know as you would have to see unless someone else has has the same issue. Reminds me of reading a post on a blog where a shop had put the wrong oil filter on. After a ride it came loose and puked out all the oil. It would have fallen completely off had it not been for the center stand. Hope the engine is still ok. You didn't say anything about the coolant, maybe the cooling fan didn't come on?

[willembop]

Sorry to hear about your experience. I think we need more info to provide any advice for you. Like which symptoms occurred first? High temperature indication on gauge? Where does the oil appear to be leaking from, and how much? When you say overheating and loss of power, I think of a stuck thermostat or lost coolant, but that usually doesn't involve leaking oil. Minor or major oil leak? What is your oil level now? Is your cooling system full? If a catastrophic oil leak occurred first, the engine can get hot and seize, or slow dramatically (I had that happen on a car when the oil drain plug fell out). That's just some of the things that occur to me. Any further details you could provide might be helpful.

[Mikethesloan]

So, my heat gauge was halfway the whole trip.  I first experienced a loss of power, like the engine wasn't revving all the way through it's power band.  I pulled off to the ide of the road, threw it on the center stand, and it revved fine.  No visible smoke or oil.  Got back on, rode maybe 1/2 mile, and I experienced a loss of power again.  I looked in my rear view, and there was a good amount of smoke trailing me, I looked down at my heat gauge, and it was still at the half way marker, so at this point I'm thinking it's an issue with my clutch/belt.  I pull over, and put the scoot on the center stand, and pulled the key out.  This is the weird part...Once I stopped, there was smoke definitely coming from the front portion of the engine, and not the crank case.  Once I noticed this, I put the key back in the ignition, and turned the instrument cluster on.  Immediately I was greeted by the sound of a fan of some sort, I didn't notice that before, ever, as well as my heating gauge being buried in the red.  At this point, I noticed some oil under the scooter.  A 2 half dollar sized spot below.  I rubbed my finger in it, and it was most definitely oil.  At this point I was worried the engine would seize, and I called it quits.  Called a tow truck, and I got towed back.  This is 2+ hours later.  Once in the garage, I checked the dip stick and there is definitely oil in the engine.  Without screwing the dipstick in after whipping, there was an 1/4 inch of oil on the filled indicator.  Screwed in, it was all the way up. I put the key in to try to start it up, and it fired right up (YAY NO SEIZE!!!)  and I turned it off.  I just got this machine from a dealer on a trade in for my 2013 super 8.  I'm going to see if I can get some sort of fix in place at no cost to me, because I have had it for less than 40 days, and the odo has less than 50 from when I got it.  As for the coolant, I know there's a little slot on the left side, and it looked to be in good form.  2/3 of the way full from the looks of it.  One thing I will say, is the fan I heard initially, I think is having issues.  I'm about ready to bite the bullet and buy a motorcycle.  I couldn't see where the oil was coming from.  The center stand brackets were covered in it.  I haven't been into the guts of this scoot yet, so I don't know where anything is, very frustrating.  Thanks for reading!

[gwdoiron]

The loss of power is certainly due to over heating.  The smoke is probably caused by oil hitting the exhaust pipe.  The good news is, that you made the correct call and stopped riding the bike, before all of the oil was lost - this means that you might not need a new motor.  The bad news is, the bike should never overheat, and should never spray/drip oil onto the exhaust pipe.  There certainly is a problem.  The motor noise you heard when you turned on the ignition engine is the radiator fan; it usually only turns on when the bike isn't moving and pushing air through the radiator.  If you think that there's something wrong with the fan... well, there probably is, since you should only hear an electric motor whine and the sound of rushing air, and you probably heard additional noises.  It takes a good 5 minutes of driving the bike before it gets up to temperature and the fan could kick on during a stop, so it being a new bike to you, it wouldn't surprise me that you hadn't heard it yet.

1. You have a serious cooling system problem, which needs to be addressed before taking the bike out on a trip again.  This is NOT a known problem on the XC500.  I've taken mine out on a 240 mile each way day trip (2x 4 hour trip legs, stopping only for gas), running at up to 80mph, and have never had the temperature gauge move above the middle point. 

2. If the oil leak was not cause by something silly (i.e. loose oil filter or drain cap, which I'm personally doubting is your case), then the oil leak has to be found and fixed, which will probably involve stripping off the plastics.  The Xciting is overall a very easy scooter to work on; the only items that typically require you to take off all the bike plastics are front fork issues or control cable replacements (which pass along the rear side of the fork).  Unfortunately, I don't believe that it was coincidence that the oil leak happened at the same time the bike overheated.

If you plan on fixing the bike yourself, do yourself a favor and get a hardcopy of the service manual from Cyclepedia.  The service manual is good, and loaded with pictures, which pretty much eliminates the need to take photographs of things as you disassemble them.