Modern Vespa

I bought a low mile 2013 GTS (approx 2000 miles) a few months ago. I brought it to the local dealer and explained that I didn't know anything about the history of the scooter (I have not owned a scooter before). Please do a complete service, check the bike for anything and everything, etc, yada, yada.

So for the past few months I have spent time riding and learning about the bike. I have been hanging out on this forum and watching some maintenance videos. So I recently became aware of the problems with not regularly changing your coolant. I check my service invoice and I see that they "checked" the coolant level and did not change it. Grrrrrrrrrrrrrr.

So I order up the parts for a coolant change which I performed yesterday. I had a lot of rust. I flushed the system many times with water. I ended up getting some radiator flush cleaner and running the bike with that for 10 minutes. I think I got most of the rust out, flushed a final time with water, and refilled the system with coolant.

I am thinking that this scooter went five years without coolant being changed. I am now concerned about reliability. I am wondering if too much corrosion associated with the freeze plug happened and this thing will fail. Or it may be fine for tens of thousands of miles. What risk am I taking? Does it cost less to change out the plug before it fails? Or is the cost the same after a failure?

Thoughts???

bleech. If there is rust its because air has either been getting in or was never completely removed. I would pressure test the system first.
I would not use those stupid chemicals to flush. Use 50/50 with white vinegar and tap water. You dont actually flush anything... you simply get the system up to temp with this mixture and circulate it through. Then drain... fill back with water mixed with some baking soda, reheat the cooling system, then drain, refill with plain or distilled water, reheat then drain & refill with coolant.
It usually takes a few hours to do this.

JP, hi and well done for tackling the job!

It sounds as if you've done a good job. You don't need to do anymore. Just run the bike with the new coolant in it and it will be fine. It's not uncommon to get rust form in a GTS bikes system if the coolant change has been neglected. The OAT based coolant that the factory puts in simply runs out of anti rust inhibitors around the 2.5 year mark (although it will still act as an antifreeze) and then rust slowly starts to form on the cast iron components in the engine. There is always some very small amount of air in any cooling system, it's very difficult to remove all of it. any water, tap, distilled or deionized has oxygen dissolved in it, that's why there are rust inhibitors in the coolant. OAT based coolants have a 5 year life span but not when used in a bike or car that has a cast iron component such as the cylinder barrel or cylinder block. Therefore the coolant must be changed at the 2 year mark to be sure that rust does not form. The core plug you are referring to is the one in the cylinder head. This is normally ok for years and years even with rust in the system. I've not had to replace one and in all honesty it's best to replace the cylinder head at that point as core plug replacement on the head is very difficult to get right and nearly always leaks. Cylinder heads don't cost that much on our GTS's so don't worry about it. Of course the labour is quite a bit to do the job unless you can spanner it yourself. It's an easy job though. Because of the very low miles on the scooter I don't think there is any need to be concerned about anything in particular. Water pump seals wear when the coolant is very rusty but again the miles are low and most of the bikes miles have probably been done with good coolant in the system. Just enjoy the bike and post often about your exploits! Bye for now....

About all I might add to those good suggestions would be to put as many miles on it as you can then after about a year change it again ans see what it looks like. I have a feeling it's more of a problem from lack of use than anything else.

Not sure what type of coolant you used but I prefer to us "pre-diluted" to avoid problems caused by the water you may have in your area. Our well water is so hard you can break a knife trying to cut off a slice! Oh wait! that was last winter so maybe it was frozen, but it will kill a hot water heater element in a few months time.

I actually did my wife's 2013 GTV a little over a year ago with about 16,000 miles on it and that coolant looked as nice as the new stuff I put in! It looked so nice I put it in a jug to use in my Farmall tractor

Wise words indeed kshasen! And oh...the GTV, what a bike and they look so cool!