Modern Vespa

http://www.kymcopartsmonster.com is liquidating - and will no longer fill orders for Kymco parts.

This was the #1 parts house for OEM Kymco parts in the USA, for years. Their prices were competitive at worst, or better - and they never failed to have a part I ordered for the past 6 years.
Lots of folks advertise parts which might fit a Kymco - but partsmonster sold only OEM parts in Kymco packaging. OEM Kymco parts are all of the best quality.
Kymco USA suggested these dealers for parts:
http://www.Solanocycle.com (FL)
http://www.Leesonsarcticcat.com (WV)
http://www.Varsitycycle.net (WV)


2-wheel ownership in N.America continues a sad trend.

O.S.

Thanks for the heads up. I still have a couple of Kymcos to maintain. 8)

So, the importer (Kymco USA) does not sell parts? Or, only to the dealers? That seems odd. Like the old days in the 1960's, where there was the bike importer, and someone else sold the parts. Surely, scooterpartsco here can enlighten us.

I've always had to get my Kymco parts from my local Kymco dealer.

Kymcopartsmonster filled a couple of part orders for me and came through quickly. Not as quickly as the Chinese parts I get from Florida but not bad. Of course the prices were breathtaking, at least to me. That's sad that a company can't get by profitably selling parts for a major brand.

I wonder if the brand will step in like they did in the UK ?

Bill x

Bummer. They were a great source. My second choice was my local dealer, but when they discontinued the Kymco offerings I was forced to go strictly with Kymcopartsmonster. That was until I traded it in. I hope another supplier can be found.

Be careful people, you know what happens to you if you talk about Kymco products in a Vespa Forum.

Ask rider for details.

Bill x

It's winter here in the states. We are in need of some shack nasties.

Oh come on Bill. You're supposed to tell us that they went out of business because nobody ever needs parts for a super reliable Kymco.

Years ago one could onlybuy bmw parts from the dealer. We survived.

I'm saying nothing.

I can't argue with you though.

Bill x

solano has 4 dealerships in my psrt of florida. Have had good vibes from them. They work on our aprilias.

I can relate. I've received grief here just because my BMW dares to have a CVT engine designed and made by Kymco....

LOL. You beat me to it.

Oh, it's OK to post this somewhat negative Kymco news. You get in trouble when you post positive news....

I rode mine today.

It was brilliant.

Bill x

Kymco operates in the US like Honda, Yamaha, etc, in that they own the US distributor and sell parts through that distributor to dealers, who then sell to the public.
Lately we've been selling a lot of parts for the bigger bikes, mostly common maintenance items like belts, rollers, brake pads, to a couple of Kymco distributors (they buy directly from Kymco in Taiwan) in countries located south of us. Based on what they are willing to pay, the quantities they are buying and how quickly they want the stuff, I assume they are having trouble getting these parts directly.
They are now asking if we can get things like air filters and oil filters.
I have noticed that many aftermarket suppliers in Europe are starting to carry more electrical and electronic parts for the bigger Kymco models. We have also been expanding the number of parts we carry for Kymco's larger models.

It did quickly cross my mind that - because my dumb Kymco seems reluctant to break anything, or wear out anything - I have done very little to keep partsmonster in business these past 6 years!
The normal consumables which I purchased from them several years ago are gathering dust in my warm closet.
Brake pads, belts, rollers, clutch & bell assembly, bulbs, air filters, coil, injector, plug cap & lead....require yearly dusting....waiting.
The Kymco runs so well with so little looking after that I change the fluids embarrassingly often just to feel I'm not neglecting it.


I did replace a bearing in the rear fork because I had both in hand when taking the new Michelin and rear wheel to the Vespa dealer to mount. He pressed the old out & new in for 0$. Nothing the matter with the old bearing - just took the opportunity to renew it.

He gave me such good service - I went back and bought my Liberty150i there. Then they went out of business.

O.S.

How many thousands of miles did you put on it in six years?

Not quite 6 years.. (May '13)..but just under 17,000. For the last 5 years the Kymco has always split riding time with one other scoot. First a Forza, then Burg400, now Liberty150i.
Forgot to mention - did replace 9amp stock battery with 14amp YUASA due to my OCD when 35 miles from home on 25°F mornings. (daybreak coffee runs)
O.S.

Every belt I've ever taken out of a Kymco looked almost brand new.
I think one of the issues Kymco is having is that they brought everything over, and then were surprised that nothing sold well. They were under the impression Americans don't ride scooters because Honda and Yamaha don't offer many choices. They soon found out Honda and Yamaha don't offer many models because Americans don't ride scooters. Meanwhile, they had to provide parts for all the different Bet and Win, Cobra, People, Grand Vista, Agility, Vitality, Xciting, that motorcycle thing, etc, models they sold a few of. Then came 2008 and the economy tanked. Gas got cheap again, and it got more expensive to do business here, compared to the revenues they generated. Unfortunately, their enthusiasm for the US market waned before they figured out the USA is one big ATV loving machine. Had they come in with the ATVs as strong as they did with the scooters from the beginning, and gradually added different Scooter models people would buy, Kymco would probably have a much better US presence now.
People might criticize SYM for not distributing their own products here (I do), but it keeps them from being legally bound to provide parts for old models long after they stopped selling them.

The Bintelli business model appears to be a good compromise . . dealer only Jiajue scooter sales with online parts support.

I had a feeling that Bintelli parting with Znen was over quality but this was the first time I saw that thread. I was pretty busy then and missed it.
I knew from conversations with Matt Many and Justin that PFS was recommended as a source for parts to Bintelli dealers.

It would very interesting to know how Wolf is getting along with Znen. Maybe the People at Znen are getting sensitive to the bad Press.

Lol, again with the Bintelli. Have you had any conversations with the people at Znen or Jaijue or Amstar? Most dealers who have sold Wolf, Tao Tao, Bintelli and the other low quality Chinese brands will tell you there is no real difference, except that whatever they are selling at the time is better. If Jaijue is a better supplier, why aren't other companies bringing in their scooters?
I think a lot of people get interested in scooters and come onto forums like this one for information. They see the name Bintelli, which is easily confused with Benelli and sounds vaguely Italian, and the links to their hype in threads about scooters they have heard are pretty good, then the ownership experience turns them off of scooters. All the stories are good, the guys selling them say great things, and they end up with Chinese crap. For the price they get for some of this junk, you can buy a much better quality scooter, from a reputable manufacturer.
If you want to know what the Bintelli stuff is really like, talk to some of the dealers who have quit selling it, not the guys trying to get you to buy it. A guy I know who sells a lot of Chinese scooters says the Honda metropolitan knockoff Bintelli brought in was the biggest POS he's ever carried. Or talk to people who bought them and then try to get warranty work done.
What is now different about Bintelli's business model is that they have dealers build the brand then open their own store in direct competition with their own dealers. That's a company you can trust. And why are they recommending a third company as a source of parts for their own scooters? Shouldn't they be supplying those too?
Sticking yet another plug for crap Chinese scooters in a thread about Kymco is like wandering through a grocery store telling people they should eat recycled newspaper. Seems a little crazy.

i also think that one of the biggest problems that kymco faced was that as they were flailing about for market share they basically dumped all the mid-sized stuff.

i remember being at the dealer and the model line up was like 6 50cc variants, a single 150 in limited colors, and then everything else was 250cc and up and comparably priced to a new vespa or lightly used better machine.

that being said, people rode the ever-loving shit out of some of them and they never quit.

but back to the more important topic at hand. parts supply. granted there's at least a reasonable amount of aftermarket consumables (finally) but as an independent service outfit getting those proprietary bits is gonna be a pain in all nine of my assholes. the dealer closest to me only cares about dirtbikes and ATV/SXS stuff and the only other one in the city only wants to sell new bikes and if you order anything from them it would be 2X the cost from monster.

so yeah. this is gonna suck big time for a lot of kymco riders. especially those with machines that are only a few model years old.

-g

Apologies. I was addressing Tortoise, not the forum at large. I didn't intend to plug anyone.

No worries. Our first bikes were a Kymco Vitality 50 and a Yamaha Zuma 50. My wife rode the Vitality for about 22,000 miles, with no mechanical issues, taking trips of 40-80 miles at a time, and was never stranded, and I did just about everything you could do to a Yamaha Zuma to make it faster.
If we started with a Taotao and a Bintelli, I would probably hate scooters. I do know that owning a Genuine Stella pretty much put me off manual scooters.
There are some very good Chinese domestic brands out there, that rival the Taiwanese in build quality and reliability, but we don't get them in the US. You have to sell a lot of small scooters to pay for a well run distribution network, and the market just isn't here.

In the context of parts support . . is the Genuine-Scooterworks affiliation not similar?