Modern Vespa

I posted the following previously on another topic.

I visited the Corbin facility last Monday and discovered that nothing had been done to the scooter. They sat on the bike for 7 weeks and then told me they will not make a base pan and seat for the bike as they cannot source the sensors from a 3rd party and Piaggio has been unresponsive. Needless to say I am very disappointed.

What they were willing to do was to remodel my existing base pan. They took off the seat, removed the sensor, removed the foam and then reapplied their closed cell foam (firmer) to design a new seat. Unfortunately the stock base pan is designed to allow maximum room in the storage area and has a rounded hump in it. This hump is placed exactly where the stock seat begins to rise. My goal was to have a seat where I could sit further back. In order to accomplish this, they needed to build up the height of the seat so they could overcome the limitations of the hump in the base pan. The result is a significant increase in seat height.

They reattached the sensor, covered the seat in leather and remounted. It is much better but not ideal. To make matters worse, they must have left the seat open as the battery died and developed a dead short. Luckily the dealer replaced the battery under warranty.

So, a 7 week wait, no response from Mike Corbin at all, and a compromised new seat without any commitment from Corbin to produce a seat for the rest of the MP3 community.

I am selling my MP3 (around 700 miles). I will place an order for the new 500 due in February.

Live and learn.................pictures to follow

It looks pretty good. That seat is now very thick though... Just to think how much larger the storage area could have been if they had built it right away like this (with taller base pan and maybe one third of the padding height as in the picture).

I've had issues with Corbin too. It's been a couple of months since I bought the seat for my GTS, and after having to pay to get it reworked due to the fact it was really uncomfortable, it's finally on the way back to me. I won't know if it's better until it gets here. Better be good after all the money I've paid. I'd try Pirate Upholstery if I could do it over.

PS wanna trade a GTS for your MP3? (I like my GTS lots, but see three wheels in my future...)

Your local auto upholstery shop should be able to raise the front end of the seat and recover it for you. You should be o.k., if you can get them to understand where the butt sensor has to go. Of course, it helps if you can speak some Spanish.

Too high and flat for my tastes.
I'm a 6'er.
I don't want to be any higher in the saddle than I already am.
I like to keep the COG low and stay out of the wind.

Wiiiind baaaad!

Pretty rad looking, thanks for posting pics.
Good luck with Corbin, looks like they do good work.
Dave