Modern Vespa

PLEASE DONT RECOMMEND KOSO or HOT-GRIPS brands to me because the shipping makes them impractical in Australia. also hotgrips.com website is broken so I wouldn't buy them anyway. I would be tempted by the koso if they were readily available here.

I'm trying to workout which to choose.

Firstly these say they are 22/25mm yet googling tells me that the GTS is 22/24? do I stick on a 25 and rely on glue or tape or something? And what about length, have seen talk of 120,125,130mm? cuttign the length seems crude especially if I could jsut choose a different model.


OF698 or OF772 seem to be the best choices but I don't know the difference. yes some of the high temp / amp would also fit but the 'scooter' and 'commuter' models should be good enough for me.

there is also the OF771 but that has a horrible switch control thing? doesn't look like it would mount well on the knee pad.


Note: I am also probably going to use 'muffs' so please no need to detour the thread onto them

PS why does everyone have such an aversion to mentioning part numbers when discussing things like this? makes it really hard to google things or search this forum. aarrgghh

Afraid I can't help on this much: sorry to hear of the Koso grips being off-limits shipping-cost-wise. As far as Oxford grips go, they've got a good-enough rep to know they'll work, but I don't think they make a version with an "in-grip" control like Koso does…the best I think you'll do with Oxford is mounting the control pod on one of the kneepads?

Here's an old Scooterwest video with Robot installing an older version of Koso grips with separate control pod:

I'm in Australia and have the Koso / Apollo / whatever heated grips on my July 2020 300 HPE - fitted in delivery by my dealer in Canberra.

A web search finds them marketed in a few spots ...
https://www.whitesmoto.com.au/search?type=product&q=whites+heated+grips
https://netrider.net.au/reviews/whites-heated-grips.1424/reviews

These are neater than the Oxford heated grips I had on my 2010 GTS - and feel more effective. They are certainly easier to use.

Damn. I just ordered the oxfords a couple of hours ago

I like the look of these and available in Oz.
https://sydneymotorcycleaccessories.com.au/product/whites-heated-grips/

Yep...all those look like the Koso Apollo grips I have.

Bought and installed the Oxford Adventure OF690 grips.

Wiring them direct to the battery and them being intelligent enough to turn themselves of when i stop the engine is cool (although this takes a bit longer than I would have thought).

Getting the old grips off was a pain. And of course making up my mind how I wanted to route the cable from the grips into the handlebar cover, ended up cutting a small hole at the join of the front and rear plastic handle bar covers, near the holes where the screen brackets go in.

The voltage drop is significant


Once the bike has warmed up and the idle speed then drops to a healthy 1700 the voltage is normally 14.2-14.3.

But if i turn on the grips to max while idling then the voltage drops to 13.1. medium heat results in 13.6

Not an issue while moving as the voltage is then 14.5 regardless of the grips.

I installed some Oxford grips on a Malaguti Madison 400. Toasty once up to speed (and voltage). 👍

Ended up wiring via a relay though - which meant they only switched on when the alternator was running (independent of key position and battery voltage).

One could wire in a voltage cut-off, so that they're only active when the alternator is pumping a decent voltage? Unlikely to get cold hands at traffic lights or creeping in traffic. Just a thought.

A few milliamp-hours saved (here and there) makes a happy battery.

that would suck in practice as I'm pretty sure that they wont switch themselves back on again. my older oxford 'scooter' grips on my old gts would have been fine with this idea as they have a simple off/hi/lo switch not the fancy electronics of these grips.

It doesn't seem to be an actual problem as the bike does idle fine but I do currently feel a little nervous with them set to max.

but I am curious as to what others find their voltage does with their grips on high

I'm not familiar with your bike. Is there anything left on it you can switch to LED to save some power?

On my Vespa S between headlight, tail light, and running lights, switches to LED I've saved enough power to put on heated grips and still only draw the bike used to do stock from factory.

Food for thought.

It's a Supertech. The running lights and head light and tail light are all LED. I don't know how much the bluetooth module or the TFT dash draw more than a regular GTS HPE.

A little update on the voltage comments:. Not consistent. I hear some of you say "it's the battery" but that's only a couple of months old. Hmm ... watching watching

update after a long ride yesterday in the snow (so plenty of grips on mid/high)

it's all about the rpm of the idle which wanders between 1650 and 1750 (this is normal). if the grips are on mid or high then while the rpm is 1700-1750 it stays a bit above 14V. if it's mostly 1650-1700 then it drop to 13-14V (low 13 when grips high and high 13 when grips low). 2000 rpm seems to be enough to give for 14.5V

note 1: with grips off it's always 14.2-14.4V and with grips on or off it's 14.5V when cruising.

note 2: the above voltages are the volts displayed on the dash which has a lot of smoothing on it's display. this I believe is measured by either the bluetooth module or the dashboard. there is also a voltage that the ecu reports which is pretty consistently 0.2V lower, this one has a lot of wiggling in it's numbers. is one more accurate measure than the other or is it that they are on separate circuits - don't know. (can post a graph showing this difference if anyone cares)

a little update:

watch out if you have a lithium battery and have the above grips directly wired to the battery and are trusting the control module to turn your grips off.

it does with lead acid but not with lithium due to the higher voltage. I don't know what threshold the control module switches itself off at

maybe I'll stick a relay in there (triggered by either the ignition or maybe the high beam ...)

my koso's work perfectly with the antigravity battery I have been using for the last 3 years.

But are you using a relay or what to turn them off? How are they wired?