Modern Vespa

Selling my BV 350 was really tough. I loved that scooter. I put 20k on her and she ran flawlessly. I only had to swap out the side stand, it snapped when I was putting it down unexpectedly luckily I was able to keep her upright. Aside from that it is one heck of a machine. I sold her before I left Florida for a year in Italy.

Upon my return from Italy to Florida I was lucky enough to be able to buy the new BV 400.
So familiar to the 350 there are some improvements that made me fall in love all over again.

So here are my thoughts so far. After 5 K the BV keeps getting smoother and is running like a Puma.

The Pluses :

The motor is way stronger and pulls like a bat out of hell. Its very linear and very predictable.

The suspension is much better than the 350. I just goes over the bumps , speed bumps and bad roads way better and feels "not as squirrley". Just feels more stable, prob a lot has to do with the larger tires.

The lighting actually works and is excellent compared to the 350.

The seat is also an improvement over the 350.

Controls also feel better and higher quality than previous models.

My dislikes...
# 1 and still bothers me is the ignition. Its complicated and I'm sure in the future this will be an issue. Just the way you start it up always pisses me off. If you don't do the sequence in order you can bust a knuckle .. its prob not that bad but to me its way to complicated.

Not 100% sure but I feel like the rear tire is going to burn out much earlier than the 350. This is not a real problem but will likely cause a bit more money to run.

Guys please go ahead and post your comments , obvervations and questions you may have. I would easily recommend the BV 400 as a daily driver.

Nice eMove Cruiser. My wife has one and I have an Apollo Pro!

Don't get me started .. I should have gone directly to a better model. I don't find the eMove that stable. I sold her and am looking for something where I feel the front end won't get away on me. The battery / range excellent.

I have a 2022 Apollo Ghost. Crazy fast but very stable. Dual motor is the way to go. As much as I'm tempted to get a BV I get reminded everyday that my Liberty still serves all my needs. And my only experience with keyless scooters is the Xmax 300. It's also annoying sometimes. But the BV400 is a nice ride!

Is that a BV 400 S "argento cometa"? Looks really nice for being a grey color.

I particularly find it interesting that you experience good progress in the suspension compared to your BV 350. I drive a 2012 BV 300 and the suspension on bad roads is indeed not the best.

I just passed the 4000 mile (6500 km) mark on my BV400 and agree with most of the comments. This scooter is a joy to ride. My gripes are fit and finish is poor. The gas cover door is not flat. The glove box is not flush and there are panel pieces that do not sit flush.

The keyless ignition system, once you get use to it is not bad, but is a little funky.

The miles to empty, air temp indicator, and estimated miles per gallon are very convenient to have.

This scooter handles well in the corners and rides well on both highways and twisty country roads. Piaggio has a winner here. All they need to do is add cruise control and heated grips and you have one nice light weight touring scooter.

I road my BV350's like scalded dogs. Add the variator and exhaust, I'd probably get 2,000 less miles on the rear tire of a 400

Yes I took a chance as I never saw the color. I did see the red color but had a feeling I would get sick of the color very quickly. The 400 suspension is really a nice upgrade. You may be able to increase the front tire size to give bit more rubber on the road.

I was getting about 6-8 k pending on how hard I rode the 350. I have about 4800 miles and the rear tire looks tired , front is still ok

I have 25.000km (15.500miles) with the rear tyre and it definitely needs replacing. But the front tyre is still very much OK. Front tyres just do not wear out that much.

I was getting 9,000 miles on my rear but 60% was highway miles. I was also getting 9,000 miles on my SH rear City Grip. Now that I'm doing Door Dash, more stop-n-go decreased the rear to 8,000 miles.

very jealous of bv400 owners; the new scoot seems like a great evolution of the bv350. hoping to reach 20K mi on my '18 so I'll have an excuse to finally upgrade like you.

I just finished a bunch of service items on my '13 BV350 - oil, antifreeze, brake fluid, air filter, re-greasing the center stand pivot, rear tire, and replacing a burnt out license plate light. At just about 32,000 miles it's running great. As long as it continues to run and perform well I can't justify the 400, nice as it may be. Right now I intend to get a lot more use out of it, because a 10 year old scooter with 32,000 miles isn't worth much to sell or trade anyway. May as well just keep riding it!

aww shucks! don't say that!!! I'm "restoring" my bro's '13 BV350 right now and just dropped $400(!!!) large on new tire, battery and full seat vinyl re-covering before putting it on the market. Are you saying we need to keep it in the family for my kids instead of selling it? It doesn't even have 7K miles...

7k isn't much mileage!

Mine was silver and ox blood red, which of course faded pretty bad. So I painted it and had Sargent seats do some seat work for me. Came out nice!

How many miles have you put on it so far?

I bought a BV 400 and I put about 1300 miles on it.
I found mine to be very wobbly on cornering. I took it back to the dealer they said some wobble is to be expected. The added bar end weights and still not good enough.
I upgraded from Vespa Sprint 150cc which is smooth like a butter in corners.

The wobble is not a vertical movement when going straight over potholes or over speed bumps. It has the shaky feeling like a fast countersteering. It doest this over 35 mph and makes me nervous and very cautious in curves. Leaning left or right it gives the same feeling.

Anyone else experience this?

Yes!

I just picked up BV400 w/2300 miles. The wobble is significant around 30-40 mph. It's not the usual one either. It feels like there is an up and down component to it. I feel my brain rattling around a bit and it kinda sucks.

I noticed that the rear tire wanders quite a bit from side to side. I suspect that it is also out of round. It's possible that the front one is doing something simlar.

Plan is to replace the tires, flush the fork oil and maybe play with the preload a bit. I think it's fixable. My 250 and my (former) 350 didn't have anything like this.

Here you go. By the way I had all my BV tires balanced at Cycle Gear and never had problems no matter what anyone say's and they can balance the rear without a special tool. the special tool was for my static balancer.

Can a BV350 rear wheel be spin balanced.

Before replacing the tyres I would first have the wheels balanced, dynamically balanced.

No amount of balancing is going to make a not round wheel become round.

https://youtu.be/i8iVLIgbkf4

Now show the wheel turning. If the tire is bad but the wheel is true, you are ASS-U-MEing. I can only lead you to the water. There are way's to check the wheel in the service manual(dial indicator). Or you can give up and sell it.

Good thing I'm not a horse then.

Changed the rear tire and the hop is gone. We're down to the expected wobble around 30 now. Ride is MUCH improved -- my eyeballs don't feel like they're going to rattle out of their sockets anymore.

I replaced the CG2 with an Angel. I've had good luck with them on my 250. Unfortunately they don't seem to make one for the fronts. I suspect the existing wobble will subside further when I swap out the front. For now it's tolerable and I'll just ride it into the ground and replace when the rear wears out.

Looking to maybe move up to a BV400 in a year or two from a Primavera 150. Too much of a jump? I'm hearing mixed reviews of the BV400. Thoughts?

purchase a cosmetically challenged bv couple years ago. 650 cheap. but came with new belt/malossi variator. spent a few days on cosmetics. added smaller tires. 140/60 rear, 90/80 front. I have eight different scooters and I call this one my F1 scooter. unbelievable quick nimble scooter with brakes to match. I am curious if anyone has yet converted a 330 into the 400cc . at minimum the crank and piston kit would be needed. but would like to know what else would be needed. if anyone has a link to such conversion post it up ,please.