Chinese Scooters By scoot12 (Read 1,235 times)

[scoot12]

Now Chinese scooters are considered cheaper than the average Japanese scooter. But Harley Davidson might start or has started having China build their parts. ;D Harley Davidson makes one of the more expensive bikes out there. Will this change peoples opinions of Chinese scooters after a while. What is your opinion?

[jct842]

People had the same thoughts about the japanese products right after the war and now look at them. As far as harley if any one don't think they have done business with china yet you better take a second look at the source of some of the smaller parts in their bikes today. Being born at the start of the ww2 I still hold with the ideas of many people of my parents age, I have never owned a jap car or consciously bought a german one. I did buy a new pinto wagon and later found it had a german engine and drive. With motor cycles or scooters there was little to chose from especially if you did not like a harley so I have had many jap scooters and bikes.

[kz1000st]

The problem with Chinese scooters, motorcycles or ATVs is not the build or design. It's in the prep work.
The Japanese (that survived) motorcycle companies first began to set up dealer networks and parts distributors. Except for CF Moto (off the top of my head) there is no real Chinese scooter dealer network. Johnny Pag and now Scott Colosimo's Cleveland Cyclewerks are building networks and their products aren't being panned as unreliable trash.

The perfect example of this is Jim at Rapid Repair. Jim stated years ago that he does a solid PDI on his Roketas and had no warranty headaches among his customers. It takes time and experience to flesh out the issues. I've had small issues with my 150cc scooter, all attributable to my unfamiliarity with prepping a bike out of the box. My 50cc Cub clone benefited from experience and has been trouble free. I'm hoping one day to snag a 110cc Cub replica or Cleveland Cyclewerks Ace.

[drifter]

Dec 18, 2012 19:30:35 GMT -6 kz1000st said:

The problem with Chinese scooters, motorcycles or ATVs is not the build or design. It's in the prep work.
The Japanese (that survived) motorcycle companies first began to set up dealer networks and parts distributors. Except for CF Moto (off the top of my head) there is no real Chinese scooter dealer network. Johnny Pag and now Scott Colosimo's Cleveland Cyclewerks are building networks and their products aren't being panned as unreliable trash.

The perfect example of this is Jim at Rapid Repair. Jim stated years ago that he does a solid PDI on his Roketas and had no warranty headaches among his customers. It takes time and experience to flesh out the issues. I've had small issues with my 150cc scooter, all attributable to my unfamiliarity with prepping a bike out of the box. My 50cc Cub clone benefited from experience and has been trouble free. I'm hoping one day to snag a 110cc Cub replica or Cleveland Cyclewerks Ace.

That rapid jims PDI's are the cats meow goes without saying, but the reverse gear issues, which are further more dwarfed by the soft metals issues of these bikes of all other china no names
that has had far reaching dis popularity across the future sales of these bikes is a real issue.

This is exacerbated by a many times awful customer service know how and bad end games for the consumers.

BMS just sent me wrong parts THREE TIMES IN A ROW.

In Short, the metals are junk, pride be dammed and the sellers often worse.

I think the remaining culture attracts low lives of every stripe, and when the real humans see what they have gotten into they run for there lives.

I think KZ almost had it right when he said many have moved on, what he got wrong was they have moved out.

The biggest see change is in bright happy people who just are not here anymore, "people people" who do other things then work on bikes have fled.

to some degree, bikes are like booze, its a sellers market, and the end user pays dearly.

What made these forums interesting was the wide spectrum differences between the many types who came here and shared there lives, that sharing was a real spark.

Any more, not all the time, but often, i feel i am addressing the same guy over and over again here, no matter what the name is, seems there is a type who has won out top position.

And this guy has decided to be a real sucker for punishment for any thing china delivers,
as long as the dam thing runs once in a while.

Thank god for guys like rapid Jim, who is a minority.

And i will say it agin, for 60 to 100 dollars more at the manufactures price, these bike would be the deal of a life time

[rapidjim]

Thank You for the kind words guys!

We worked on Chinese Scooters and ATVs long before we started selling them. I can't begin to tell you all the horror stories that we saw. The main contributor to issues was that the end customer was not aware of what they had bought and either did not have the knowledge needed to do a proper PDI and set up or just didn't care. There was, and still is, a lot of comparisions to Japanese products. I have heard and read a lot from folks saying, well I didn't have to PDI and Inspect my Honda when I bought it. Of course they didn't, the Dealer did that and the otherside is that Honda, Yamaha ect does not drop ship to the customer in a crate. I dare say if they did we would be hearing the same comments. Those that think that the Japanese don't have the same issues out of the crate needs to talk to an honest dealer that sees them and PDIs them.

As far as quality is concerned. The Chinese are getting better and better as time goes on. Not all manufactures are the same. Just like dealers. I can say from experience and seeing it first hand, that Ice Bear is continuing to update and modify their machines to give the customer a better product. One thing that I have not seen from any other Chinese distributor, is that Ice Bear sends a survey once a year to their dealers asking what they think and what needs to be changed. The nice thing is they listen.

I still believe that the main problems with Chinese Machines stems from lack of customer support from some of the so called dealers. These are the ones that once they make the sale they can't be bothered. Heck, some of these online folks have never seen a machine let alone worked on them and don't have a clue. They sit behind a web site and take your money. Some of them even charge more for the warranty that Ice Bear provides their dealers for free and calls it an extended warranty. If the dealers would take more time with their customers and offer support when needed, I think many of the complaints would not be there.

As far as the reverse gear issues go, this is one area of concern with Ice Bear. Even with the alledged "soft metal" use, the majority of the early issues with reverse stem from improper adjustment of the reverse cable and not checking it after several miles. The cable would stretch and result in the gears not being fully engaged. Ice Bear then went to a hard shfter mechanism, which helped if properly adjusted from day one, but there was still some issues. The issue was that there was not enough movement in the reverse/forward fork and this compounded the issue of stripping gears, esp if the rider did not come to a full stop before shifting gears. The latest design was to keep the shifter and add a neutral to the transmission. This provided more movement between the gears, hense firmer engagement. This seems to have taken care of the issue. Soft metal or not, if you fail to maintain it or shift gears without coming to a full stop something will break.

Jim/Owner
Rapid Repair

[kz1000st]

I think KZ almost had it right when he said many have moved on, what he got wrong was they have moved out.
The biggest see change is in bright happy people who just are not here anymore, "people people" who do other things then work on bikes have fled.

I have to disagree. If you look around at many of the people who aren't here anymore many had last words like "I just bought a Honda Rebel and love it" or "I bought a Honda Reflex and it rocks" Look no further than Snootdawg and Jim63, a raving fanatic of the greatness of SYM. Last I'd heard he bought a Kawasaki 1000 and seems to have disappeared. After buying a bike or scooter that needs little to no maintenance, or have a dealer available to fix the problems, people don't need a forum like this anymore.

As the great Randy Bynoe once said, "You don't need a bike, you do need a car." As people suck it up and pay at the pump scooters become like 1970s Japanese motorcycles. Dust collectors in the garage.

Personally I don't believe that Chinese metal is inferior. How it's used and abused is the problem. Once you get that scooter up and running Drifter, give up on the Boron and see if you don't get more than 14,000 miles out of the next engine. Regular oil and synthetic is great stuff.

[jct842]

Though out my life I have never needed a 2 wheel vehicle except to keep my own sanity. It has always been great to ride when ever I wanted to and even better to go to work when weather permitted.

And right with how the chinese metal is used. I had a valve cover crack, was way too thin of a casting or die casting. There are much better ways to make them but the importer chose the cheap way.

[kz1000st]

And right with how the chinese metal is used. I had a valve cover crack, was way too thin of a casting or die casting. There are much better ways to make them but the importer chose the cheap way.


I'm not ready to blame the importer for a non-stress bearing valve cover. I still say this little malfunction was an assembly line screw up, the same as your valve cover.



Same as this.



When you make a zillion machiines an hour, something is bound to happen.