Modern Vespa

I bought my 2011 Titanium Gray GTS 300 last December when it only had 620 miles on it and it was flawless. As you can see from the attached pictures, there is something wrong with the factory paint job and the paint comes off as soon as gas is spilled on it. You can see how I wiped some of the paint off when I tried to contain the spill with a rag.

The right before Christmas 2014 I dropped it off at the local Vespa Dealership for its first Scheduled Maintenance. Shortly after picking it up the Vespa showed what I now know to be signs of the faulty fuel pump and left me stranded 3 times.

In April I stopped by the Dealership explaining to them that I thought there was a problem with the fuel pump, and was told they needed to run tests to see what the possible cause was. After a brief research online and a call to Piaggio's Customer Service I found out about the Fuel Pump Recall that the dealership not only had failed to replace during the scheduled maintenance, but did not inform me about when I told them I had been having issues with the fuel pump or when on June 10 I called in because I needed to be towed. When I finally went in to ask for the fuel pump replacement, I was told that it was in back order and it would have taken months to receive it.

A couple of weeks later I called the other dealership in town an had the Fuel Pump replaced by them instead, yet, as of today I still have not heard back from the dealership. So I don't know how to approach them about the fact that I paid them almost $300 (including a month storage) and they should have replaced the pump instead of negligently handing me a safety hazard. Had they done their job I wouldn't have wasted the countless hours for getting stranded at a bridge toll booth and had to be towed off by the cops, or at a traffic light at 3 am 10 miles away from home, and what not.

Plus, the paint job has been ruined by the gas over spills when I topped off the tank because I thought it was out of gas. I have always been extra careful while refilling the tank. This is the second identical Gray Titanium Vespa GTS 300 I've owed, but I never experienced the same paint problem before. Even the Vespa mechanic told me he had never seen something like it and now I do not want to have to pay to repaint a bad OEM factory paint job ruined because of faulty OEM pump, that was not replace timely during maintenance by their own dealership.

Please advise?!

Hey, i have a 2013 LX 125 that is matte black, whenever i used to spill fuel on it that used to happen, as you can't really clean off gas/fuel stains because of the matte finish. also you should never polish or wax it!

Your Vespa looks matte gray so that's normal, one of the disadvantages of owning a matte color bike! that is fine it's happening from fuel spills! it does look better than metallic finishes most of the time but you have to be really careful.

Always fill the tank with the pump pointing to the back of the bike and this nearly always stops any overfilling.

I don't know why but this clip comes to mind

I'm so sorry. I would try and get the shop to pay for it (might not happen). The dealership will get reimbursed for the fuel pump. Somewhere on here there's a letter stating that. Maybe SDG on here (he's a dealer) can give you some tips on how to retrieve your monies owed. They should pay for a new paint job as well (not the whole bike but the area where the gas took the paint off). I would find a new dealer to get your bike fixed. Those guys sound like the village idiots.Hope this helps. While that color is beautiful it always seemed to me to be a PIA to keep it looking nice. They are great bikes tho so don't give up on it.

Thank you for your responses. . .as far as the proper way to refuel the tank, I've read and I have mastered the tutorial someone wrote on here about having the nozzle facing the back and directly over the under-seat storage. I even use the cap to prop the basket up to block any potential spills to wet what's in it. However, the big spill you see in the first picture happened when I used one of those plastic containers to refill the tank when I was left stranded and thought that I had run out of gas. That container says "the fuel stops automatically," but by that they mean when you lift it out of the tank it stops, but the spout doesn't stop automatically like the ones at a regular pump when it reaches the limit and since I thought the tank was empty I thought it needed more than one of those 1-gal tank full before it overflowed.

I know that the matte color gets ruined by the gas spills, by like I said even the mechanics at both dealerships told me they had never seen such damage to the paint. I know you can't "clean" it. . . when I mentioned trying to contain the spill with a rag, I mean I tried to stop the spill as it happened. I had a rag ready in my hand and as I dried off the overflow it is obvious I actually wiped the matte paint/top coat off. . .you can actually see the white primer come to surface. . .and I don't think that's meant to happen. The Vespa guy actually asked me, "what type of gas are you using to fill this?"

I guess I was hoping someone would agree with me about the liability the Dealership has when you bring a vehicle to get serviced by them. You pay them good money and expect they are keeping it in safe riding conditions and when they don't and they should be liable for the damage caused by their negligence. After all the fuel pump issue is a safety recall. I'm lucky mine stalled when I was slowing down waiting to pay at the toll booth and at a traffic light as opposed to when I was going full speed on a highway. The fact that for some reason (I guess because they didn't have a fuel pump available) they never told me about the recall and told me they needed to hook it up with their testing equipment and would have been costly just to determine the cause, was completely wrong of them and there's gotta be a law protecting the consumer from this type of manufacturer/dealer's negligence.

They told me they would need to repaint both sides and would cost over a $1000 to fix it. . .

I agree with you that they should cover it. Known fault and bad paint job by piaggio. I'd get a lawyer.

If the paint job is flawed it's a manufacturing defect like the fuel pump for which the manufacturer and the dealer are responsible. No paint job on a vehicle should be ruined by fuel spills which can be minimized with expert technique but are still almost inevitable.

As for the performance of that dealer it's quite poor. That said, I love my dealer but they're not perfect. I knew about the fuel pump issue before my dealer did, and when my fuel injector was dying it took them forever to diagnose and they flatly refused to swap out an injector from a bike in the showroom when the part was going to take weeks to come and I had a trip that was long planned of which my dealer was well aware. Another dealer in State College PA
(Kissel Motorsports) swapped out an injector for me well into my planned trip. That was stellar on their part.

I still fully support my Montreal dealer, but Vespa dealers aren't like car dealers. The support they get from Piaggio is nothing like a Ford dealer gets from Ford.

It's the nature of the beast, unfortunately.

Still, dealers have to take responsibility for the products they sell, that's just the way the law works. It sounds to me that you've got a good claim against the dealer. Small claims court might be the way to go. I tell people that seeking justice in small claims court is a good lesson in democracy and civics. Been wronged? Do something about it. It will help to keep people more honest.

Did you buy the Vespa from the dealer who did the first service on it?

I bought the Vespa from the first owner at the end of November 2014 when it had 605 miles on it. He told me he had already done the first inspection, but when I took it to the local dealer they told me they had no record of it and therefore I needed to do first inspection on it. Thinking back they probably lied about that as well. . .just so they could make the extra $180. I dropped it off before Christmas and picked it up on Feb 10 after paying for the maintenance and a month's storage.

They had the Vespa for over 6 weeks and although the official recall may not have started until Feb 13 they were well aware of the recall and not only they did not mention anything, but they lied to me when I showed up in April telling them I had some issues with the fuel pump as I had "run out of gas" or so I thought twice by then. I can't believe with what straight face the idiot told me, "yeah we would need to hook it up and test it, which is timely and costly." I left thinking, "alright, I guess I'm just gonna have to be more careful about not running out of gas."

I agree about them not receiving the same support from Piaggio as a regular car dealership would, but I am also pretty sure that they did not follow Piaggio's instructions which was to prioritize performing the update on the vehicles in circulation before those in stock. . . so even if they were short on spares, they kept them for themselves so they could sell those they had in stock instead of at least informing me about it.

Thank you for your response and I agree with you about Small Claims Court. Coming from Italy where there isn't anything like it I thought it was a great institution, but unfortunately both times I used it so far and won I wasn't able to collect the judgements, one for $5,600 ($5000 +interests) and one for $3800. However, those were against individuals who knew what they were doing and how to save their assets. I'm sure it would be different filing against a Business that is up and running with liquid assets at hand.

I have a 2012 300 in Titanium and despite my best efforts, have spilled some gas on it from time to time, without any adverse reaction of the paint.

The thought occurs to me that maybe the previous owner put some sort of clear coating or wax on it?

Wow! this is not normal. The paint should definitely be able to protect against gas and a lot of other chemicals.

My guess is the clear coat must have been applied very thinly in that area (or not at all). This should be covered by Piaggio for sure.

I hope some of the dealers can chyme in with some helpful advise here.

On a side note. The fuel pump and paint issued are unrelated and should be treated as separate issues imo.

Good luck! I hope you can get this resolved and go back to be a care-free vespa enthusiast.

No, you'd be able to tell if that was the case as it would have made the matte finish look shiny. . .and if anything it would have protected the paint from the gas spill.

I think, in fact I'm pretty sure Joe's right Yes, the recall and the paint are two separate issues. The fuel pump has been replaced by a different dealer and it's a done deal. The only reason why I presented them together is because the paint issue became evident when due to the faulty pump I thought I had run out of gas and topped it off overflowing the tank.