I have gone to the other side By hairymonkyman (Read 468 times)

[hairymonkyman]

I sold my Taotao Lancer 150 and bought a Vespa GTS 300. I wanted Fuel injection there is no ethanol free gas within 50 miles of my home. I hate dealing with the dealership. On the Vespa people ( mostly women) seem very interested in my ride now. I am thankful I had the Taotao because it introduced me to CVT. I took my GTS in for the first service besides being 300$ poorer they over inflated my tires. I have read the manual I don't think the Stealership's technician has. Wish me luck and please pray for my wallet.

[kz1000st]

You're going to find a sympathetic support group at www.modernvespa.com

Enjoy.

[hairymonkyman]

I am back! I still have the Vespa but most of the people on modern Vespa and all the riders of Vespas that I have met are not really mechanically inclined. They hope their over priced vehicles will not need repair. The people in my local club take their Vespas and Piaggios to the dealer for any required maintenance no matter how minor. I am looking forward to doing my 6,000 mile myself. I hate to stereotype but most Vespa riders are like what my Harley friends called credit card riders. When Harley sales were way up people bought them who never rode before and didn’t do there own wrenching. To be a Chinese scooter rider is acquainted with your machine.

[kz1000st]

It's not just Harley and Vespa owners. Years ago when machines were simple we all dug in to our bikes. Now there are ECU's, ABS and traction control in addition to sensors by the herd. I saw a YouTube video recently where the owner of a 250 Chinese motorcycle bought online explained how fuel injection system suffered from a damaged TMap sensor "O" ring causing the bike to stall and run erratically. Fuel injection sensor on an online motorcycle??? Think about sport bikes with lean sensitive ABS and traction control to come? Not to mention Dual clutch transmission. I'm not making excuses for Modern Vespa fanatics, some of them are pompous jerks, but some of their issues are beyond a layman's skill level. Chinese scooters aren't there.....yet...but some of the new 200cc versions online are coming with EFI. Stay tuned.

[hairymonkyman]

I had a friend in the 90s who rode his shovel head so as not to be confused with credit card riders. Machines are more complicated now but with the Euro 5 we can read failure codes so at least the bike will tell us what it thinks is wrong. But when a new machine stops running you probably won’t be able to get it running without replacing parts. Also some people are attracted to scooters because most of the mechanical bits are hidden. I had to give up motorcycles due to an illness I used to have a Honda cb1000c. Similar to the kz1000