Modern Vespa

Took my Scarabeo to a Triumph dealership this afternoon for its annual inspection. It expired last month and my regular guy, an extremely local independent repair shop who stopped working on motorcycles but continues to inspect them out of a love for the machines, didn't get his shipment of stickers for March.

The Triumph inspector takes one look at my Beo and says the front fork seal is leaking, so it fails inspection. There is a small oily smudge below the tube that I suspect is simply grime, but if it's a leak it's a very slow one - the scoot has not been washed for over a thousand miles. Either way, I remind him that fork condition is not part of the NY state motorcycle inspection regimen.

He says it is, and surmises that oil could leak from the fork down onto the rotor and brake pad, creating a safety concern, and since it's a safety inspection, it fails.

I'm pretty sure the NY inspection is actually an equipment checklist, not an open-ended safety inspection intended to flag things that "could" happen, so I ask him one more time if his observation is a maintenance recommendation or an inspection requirement. He repeats that it's a requirement.

I repeat my assertion that fork condition is not an inspection item and leave, annoyed, because I think he's misrepresenting the inspection rules to drum up repair business, and the tactic probably works because an awful lot of motorcycle riders around here do not know one end of a wrench from another. There is nothing on the NY DMV website referring to motorcycle fork condition, and I've been referred to this document before as the basis for the inspection criteria:
https://dmv.ny.gov/forms/mv529b.pdf

Further Googling reveals:
* several shops claim fork seal leaks fail inspections
* lots of individuals claim these shops are wrong and deceitful; that the criteria for inspection is cut-and-dried and limited to valid registration; working lights for brakes, turn signals, license plate, and headlight; working horn; 2/32" of tire tread; and at least one rear-view mirror.

So, is the Triumph guy drumming up business because motorcycle inspections are only $6, or is my usual inspection guy a slacker?

Either way, the Triumph guy acted like a sphincter and offered no evidence when I questioned him, so I'm not going back even if I ever decide to buy a Triumph, and I've wiped down the area below the fork seal and will continue to observe it for signs of an actual leak.

A disclaimer - I don't know anything about NY regulations, but just got curious about the subject. As here in Finland we don't have any yearly inspections for motorcycles ..

Google brought me to the document attached... mentioning a 'defect' suspension being a reason to fail the inspection in NY.

How to interpret this is another matter... from a practical point of view one could think a leaking shock is a real safety risk because of how it impacts to performance of the shock, not so much because of the oil leak itself... in a typical case, where a leaking seal is mostly smearing the shock, not 'dripping' oil.

P.S. I just love reading badly formulated rules, one thing common all over the world
Like in the attachment, a reason to rejection:

'The handlebars or grips are higher than the
operator's shoulders.'

.. . so you're punished being a very short back rider? I'm one and give me a brand new, big adventure BMW with a lowered seat and I'm pretty close to be rejected according to this criteria...

It would fail Ma. inspection, I had to have my Burgman 650 done. I wasn't happy about it at the time but was glad after it was done, the difference was quite noticeable.

You've wiped it down. Watch it for a couple days and see if it leaks again. If it does, change both sides.

On a technical level, if it's not specifically called out in the inspection rules, it should be. Leaking seals are a definite safety issue. I would (and have) black flagged my own bike and would any of my friends, and I'm not an official inspector. The guy you dealt with doesn't have the advantage of monitoring the vehicle over time. He had to make an on the spot judgement call and did.

"hasn't been washed for over a 1000 miles" You must ride in a very sterile environment? Keeping the fork tubes clean will help extend the life of the seals by not dragging dirt and dried bugs back and forth.

Thanks for the find, RRider - I've never seen that document. The motorcycle inspection list starts on p. 92 and seem somewhat...open to interpretation, as you point out.

"Sterile environment," certainly not. I wipe parts down periodically, but how many northeasterners wash their daily drivers within 1000 miles in winter? (I've lived upstate and already know the answer to that one!) Hose faucets have been turned off since November. I've avoided riding in salt but have been commuting around 150 miles a week for most of the last year. Brake dust and grime on the struts and rims are inevitable, though the bugs have been in hibernation.

But again the crux of the question was not "is it a good idea to fix leaking seals" but "is it an inspection requirement." And I guess the answer is that it could be but that the reg is vague.

Could contacting a consumer association be a good idea?

My wife has a Silverwing scooter and the fork seal started leaking, the next thing I know the fork oil is getting on the brake rotor. I rebuilt both fork legs. The forks work much better and the rotor is now clean and dry. Fix the fork seals.

Sometimes the seals just need to be cleaned. Often they get crap under the lips that prevent them from sealing. Pull the tubes out, spray on some gentle degreaser, hit with low-pressure compressed air, re-assemble, and you might be good to go. Obviously, change the oil while you have them apart.

Seems like I read about somebody using a piece of thin flexible plastic to accomplish the same task, without disassembly, but that seemed to me a good way to tear a lip on the seal, which would require replacement.

And, yeah, I wipe down the tubes any time it appears crud is starting to accumulate, so it isn't getting pushed down into the seal.

Regarding inspections, back when we still had them, had a motorcycle shop try to tell me that I needed to replace my OEM mufflers because there was some rust around the moisture weep holes on them. Some shops will do anything for a buck.

They fail us out here for leaky forks too!

California never inspects a registered bike for anything. Even if it's been on non- operation status for years and years.

Just go somewhere else. My local place just checks blinkers horn headlights and brakes. And they know nothing about Vespas so they don't care enough to go anything more.

May not work in every instance, but I did the plastic hook - clean out the dirt trick on one bike and it seemed to work. Just had to cut out a piece of a plastic bottle and slip it in there carefully.

Weeping fork seals fails any bike over here in the UK. It's a safety thing.

Greetings:

Texas mandates tread on the tires, turn signals, brake lights, high/low beam and horn function. Period.

I changed the seals on my Reflex years ago. It took about a year to go from minimal weeping - enough to show a dirt ring at the top of travel - to visible oil sheen. I had some time so I just decided to order the parts and do it. It wasn't even close to dripping, and it was on the side away from the brake rotor. So it might have been a long while before your dealer's "concern" became a real hazard. Of course he was hiding behind "regulations" he made up to do it.

It's a pig of a job on any bike, and some require special tools. Once you have the plastics off, of course do both sides.

Closing this out:
* my regular guy's supply of inspection tags was delayed all this time but finally came in
* I managed to park in NYC most weekdays for three weeks without getting ticketed for an expired inspection
* the forks weren't/aren't leaking, not even a little bit, after several hundred miles of riding, but I will continue to observe them
* my Beo is lawfully inspected until next April, courtesy of my regular guy
* the Triumph dealer with the overreaching service department has been blocked in my email account after adding me to their spammy distribution lists

It's taken me several years to notice that the inspection sticker color is the same as the license plate sticker color. Grey, this year.