Modern Vespa

Hello everyone I have a Vespa S150, 2009 model. I have owned this vehicle since new and i have realized that you MUST ride it 5-10 miles weekly or else YOUR Starter will be messed up and your battery will drain, causing electrical problems. Please make sure to ride your scooter on LONG rides weekly or else you may face the consequence, i had to replace several batteries and starters before realizing my mistakes. PLEASE do this!!!! -- ZAMboniMAN




Posted July 12, 2014 9:56 AM Pacific Time

No you don't.

You can just leave it on a motorcycle-specific trickle charger as I do year round...

Certainly batteries require care - especially in areas where riding during the winter is severely curtailed. But I don't understand your experience with starters. I have owned 10 scooters over my riding career (as well as a number of motorcycles). All of them have been in my possession for a minimum of several years. One was kept in Florida where I only rode it for 1 -2 months during the winter (I live in western Oregon). Others have been stored for significant amounts of time. Yes, I made use of battery tenders on all of them. No, I have never replaced a starter on any of them.

Batteries do drain with disuse. However, your starter is unlikely to be affected by not being used. If you'd like to offer any theories about why your starter might be affected by disuse, then please feel free to state them.

Good luck with that...

My 250 has been retired since 2014. Still fires up once a year. On trickle charger year round.
Going to tell me I'm one in a million, make me feel special?

So, has the starter on your 250 failed?

That's an amazing trickle-charger that hasn't dried out your battery. Unless you actually have a current limited constant voltage supply at the right voltage and current for your battery chemistry and size...

Hint, the two are very much not the same.

I've replaced I don't know how many batteries for folk who've kept them on a battery tender for ages - even an Optimate 4 will kill a battery in a few months, regardless of their claims that it can be left on continuously.

Feels like everything but the battery and starter have failed lol. Starter is fine. Hey man, if you think you know best, you know best. I've had the same Ctek desulphating chargers on it, other than a handful of days here and there, for the last 6 years. All peachy over here.

It gets cold and my scooters don't have heated storage unless they move into the house…it's not big enough for me, a large cage with a small parrot, furniture and 4 scooters… so if you don't move in, your battery is up the stairs on the edge of that landing/opening to the attic expansion, near an outlet and the scooter battery charger, the car/big 12 V charger seems to live on a wooden bar stool in the kitchen, it's moving to the shed which has breaker box and will have working outlets when I get in gear and play electrical dwarf again. Pal up the block starts his bikes and just sits on them and grins when it's too cold to ride but think he has the bigger 1 stored with another friend that has garage space he could use…he probably goes there to start it and sit and grin…

If my Liberty 150 sits for about a week or longer I have to hold the throttle wide open when pressing the starter button for it to start, and it has EFI. Seems strange to me but I can always get it started with this method. I also leave it on a Battery Tender if it sits for longer than a week.

Edit to my above post. My Liberty has been sitting for close to 3 weeks, on a Tender but not touched the whole time. I can't get it to start. Might try the old starter fluid trick. I ride it less and less nowadays. Might be time for a new home? Anyways, I'll try and follow this up with a update once I get around to messing with it.

I'm in the group that just leaves the battery tender jr plugged in full time. I've done it that way for years on my Vespa, Harley, and SUV. My batteries last much longer than they used to without the tender.

Possibly the fact that I drive them at least every 2 weeks (or monthly for the SUV) gives the battery a necessary break from constant float charging. YMMV.

Bill

Float charging isn't constant charging though. I run a winter storage program. One tender per battery. I check on the bikes a few times a month, for almost 6 months. Very rarely will I ever catch any of the 20+ chargers charging. They're usually all just floating.

Like you though, I keep my babies on the tender all the time and the batteries last forever. Have not seen any negative side-effects.