Modern Vespa

I am the proud owner of a 2021 GTS HPE.

One of my fellow Vespiti with a similar vintage HPE had an oil light warning light come on during a ride and the engine cut. He pushed it to a service station and checked the oil. After he burned his hand on the hot exhaust the found the oil did not show on the dipstick. I assisted him in a recovery and we towed the scoot to the dealer.

Major damage to the head had occurred and a warranty claim is pending.

I took note of the experience and checked my HPE's oil...
It needed 300ml of 5W-40 oil before it got to the MAX mark.

Becky has done only 1 500kms since the 1 000km service.
Assuming that the dealer had filled it properly, it has used 100ml of oil for every 500kms travelled...!

I will be monitoring closely from now on to see if it really is using oil
or if the dealer service tech underfilled the sump.

My Vespa guru says check your tyres every fill-up and oil every second fill-up of the fuel tank.

oh, I see we're doing this again...

The owners manual says to check the oil before every ride - your friend probably didn't do that.

If it's shown to be damage due to lack of oil without an obvious reason, your friend is unlikely to succeed with a warranty claim.

Here's four pages on the subject:

2020 HPE Oil Consumption or Lack Of

John

When the my GTS 300 HPE was new I added 8oz (240ml) of oil every 1200 miles (1900 km). After 6000 miles (10,000 km) the oil consumption diminished where it will be down 8oz between oil changes. I am close to 18,000 miles (29 km) on the odometer and oil consumption is no longer an issue.

How often did you change your oil/filter?

It would appear so.

yes. they do. alot. i check it and top it off every 100-150 km. shes hungry, but shes worth it

Every 100-150km? That sounds like a leak. It's been more like every 1000km for me before i notice a drop

are you... uhhh... missing a zero there?

if not, out of sheer curiosity, how much are you topping up?

Man… this makes me a bit nervous… just ordered a new GTS through the Vespa USA website a couple weeks ago. Been wanting a GTS for a long time. I mean i have no problem checking the oil. But is the consensus most people aren't fans of the HPE?

most people are fans. unhappy people are always louder

From my reading, quite a few HPEs do use a lot of oil when new, but after a year or so it will hardly use any.

My wife has a 2018 GTS and I have a 2020 GTS HPE. I am definitely a fan of the HPE. I only have 2500 miles on the HPE and have been keeping a close eye on the oil usage. I have added about 8 ounces over the last 2000 miles. I expect it will get better with more miles. Not a big deal to me, and worth it for the noticeable performance gain.

My humble little Liberty 150 has never used any oil, yet I still check it. Just a habit from owning ratty sport bikes and a Can-Am Spyder. Gives me a reason to keep the dipstick area clean and look for any suspicious wet spots or damage. Other bad habits I have are checking tire air pressure weekly, shaking the wheels for hub play/tire damage and spinning the front wheel to check for caliper hang-up.

I'm driving out about 90 miles to pick up the bike, most of it I'd say about 60 miles of it has to be on the freeway. Would this be too much for a brand new bike during the break in period? I don't have a truck to bring it back home.

nah. just don't pin the throttle in the fast lane the whole way. modulate the speed and you should be fine and dandy. use as much side street or secondary road as you can, if you can.

What greasy said.

I had a 70 mile ride after pick up...Normally 50 on freeway. Got creative on Google maps and only did the last 15 miles on the highway. Didn't stop me from being nervous about break in. lol.

Enjoy the ride.

I had a 30 mile ride home when I picked up my 300 Super HPE. I avoided the highway and took the backroads. Tried to keep my speed under 50 mph whenever possible. Varied my speed throughout the ride.

I'm an old timer and part of me just doesn't get this. Back when we rode two strokes they used oil. Some oil tanks had sight glasses, some had dipsticks. If you didn't check it you trashed the engine. British bikes leaked and burned oil.....constantly. If you didn't check it you trashed the engine. Just about everything is water cooled. In the Summer my scooter sizzles away a few ounces of coolant. If I didn't check it once in a while I'm trashing the engine.

Let's go one grumpy step further. Older bikes had no gas gauges, even some newer ones don't. You either reset the trip meter or make note of the mileage of the last fill up if there's no trip meter.

Anyone who owns a two wheeled conveyance should be checking the oil in the first few miles periodically just to check if there is a problem.

Sorry. Don't blame the machine....blame the owners. Scooters and bikes aren't cars.

Okay, fellow boomer.
I miss the days of carrying a spare quart.

The consensus seems to be that the HPE engine is significantly stronger than the previous design. Out of curiosity, how and why did you order a GTS through the US Vespa/Piaggio website? Wouldn't you choose to purchase it through a local dealer?

True story. Triumph motorcycles used to have a rack on their gas tanks to carry stuff. One of Dad's customers brought his bike in when it stopped running. Dad opened the oil tank cap..empty. But there, strapped to the gas tank was a brand new can of Castrol oil. Lazy owners persist to this day.

I believe it. A friend mine crashed his Triumph and lost his left one on such a rack.

FTFY

I bought a 2020 HPE a couple of months ago with 179 miles on it. I got to 250 miles in a couple of days, then had to park it for the Ohio winter. This gives me the chance to add accessories and the first one I added is a new oil pan with a sight glass, so checking oil level takes about 3 seconds. It is actually an OEM part that is modified to add the sight glass, so the fit is perfect. It comes in raw aluminum, or powder coated black. Robot has a video on it.

https://www.scooterwest.com/sight-glass-engine-oil-pan-hpe-gts-300-2020-1a012834.html

2T don't "use" oil, they burn it mixed in with the fuel. You don't change it, you keep it from running empty. 4T aren't supposed to use oil. It's supposed to be a closed system, same with coolant. It's reasonable to expect to only have to check every 500 miles at most...not double digit intervals.
The few times I've had any vehicle lose fluid faster than a negligible trickle ended up being a failing gasket or, in my 2013 GTS's case, a bad clamp and seal.

As design progresses, one should expect the consumption to go down, not up. That's why Triumphs, for example, don't leak oil anymore...that and environmental issues.

Maybe in the four wheeled world. Scooters and bikes run at stratospheric rpm and even the slightest flaw in tolerances will suck the sump dry. That's why owners should be on top of oil usage in the first few hundred to a thousand miles. If it's excessive you can ride back to the dealer before the damage is terminal instead of trailering a seized fried motor.

Since when is 1500 - 7000 rpm "stratospheric"? I've never had a bike...motorcycle OR scooter...use oil enough to need topping up between service intervals as "normal" and my current Triumph's interval is 10k miles. My GTS didn't use any coolant once the clamp and seal was fixed, which was a known issue with that year.

A little blow-by when you're flogging it near redline? Okay. Beyond that and there's a problem.

At 6,000 rpm pistons are going up and down 100 times per second. The valves are opening and closing 50 times per second. 7,000 rpm, pistons 116 per second, valves 58. If it burned one drop of oil per revolution the sump would be sucked out in no time.

Think how close tolerances have to be for that not to happen. When I bored holes for aircraft we had to hold four place decimals tolerances. Plus or minus .0004 in many cases.

My car runs about 2,500 rpm at 60 in sixth gear.

1500 - 7000 rpm is idle to (roughly) redline for Vespas and motorcycles that aren't sports bikes. Most cars are 1000 - 6500 rpm.
Again...explain how scooter rpms are "stratospheric"?

...And first you say we're not talking cars, then you are talking cars. Pick one, please.

fyi the rpm limiter in an HPE is 9000rpm. 7000 is in round numbers approx 100kph/62mph GPS speed (which is 110/68 speedo). so i guess an hpe is designed to happily handle sitting on 7000-7500 or so.


edit: info is from 15,000km of recordings of my supertech

I just love these circular conversations where everybody gets their feathers all ruffled and anecdotal evidence is thrown about with willy-nilly technical factoids to back up dubious claims.

carry on

I once had my (noun) up to (number) RPM, and it (adverb)(curse word)(punctuation).

Jess won't admit it but this forum and most social media is actually owned by a popcorn company that encourages this behaviour

I missed that this is, apparently, somewhat common with the HPE engine. I stepped away when I traded bikes end of 2019. I just caught up via an earlier thread and Robot's video. Even Robot flat-out said "that's not reasonable." It may be common, but that ain't normal or right.
I still hold to what I said. Burning oil isn't part of the design, it's a flaw. These bikes aren't running at super-high rpms or ultra-fine tolerances, either. I know they're both Italian, but it's a Vespa, not a Ducati.

Sorry, still wrapping my head around this...aspect of the HPE. That ain't right....

or a design flaw.

I know a number of peeps would say it's dependant on how you ride but I'm not terribly convinced of this as an excuse as I rode my GTS in the same way and never needed to top it up.

when I had only had the bike for a little while I was caught out by this because I wasn't regularly checking after having had a GTS that didn't consume oil and when I checked the oil had reached the end of the stick - I don't mean the min line but the actual end.

anyway, bottom line is that I personally don't mind as it's only a small amount once or twice between services (less now then earlier). I feel this is not a big price to pay to get the increased performance.

Awesome this was my plan just wanted to make sure it was ok. I'll definitely just take it easy and enjoy the ride!

I'm in Southern California and called Motorsport since in years past when I had vintage bikes and have worked on bikes for friends they've been my go to for parts and I think they're great folks so I wanted to support them. They actually recommended I go through the website and order it through there as it will actually be faster to get the bike as opposed to waiting for their next shipment to come in. I wanted an Orange GTS and they were down to 3 when I called, 2 supers and a 75th anniversary. You can order scooters by hopping on the Vespa USA site and order through the store as if you were going to buy merch or whatever. When you order online you select the dealer you want to have the bike delivered to so Motorsport still gets my business as they will receive and prepare the bike. I pay Motorsport and not Vespa directly. I saw it as a win win . I do have another dealer that is closer to me but my past years of fantastic interactions and customer service ultimately led me to give my business to Motorsport and gives the wife and I a nice day out to San Diego and bitchin ride home!

My theory is that piaggio wanted owners to feel more connected to their bikes so intentionally designed in absurd oil consumption.
Hey look how manly I am, I added three ounces of oil. This must indeed be a High Performance Engine, it's not just a meaningless acronym dreamt up by the marketing department.

Sadly after 2 years of topping up the oil my guns haven't grown.