Modern Vespa

I replaced the air filter on my low miles 2005 GT 200 a few days ago with a friend who is an experienced gear head / race car driver. I bought this Vespa at 2800 miles from a fastidious owner and it only has about 4600 on it now. I'm a newbie and trying to learn to care for my scoot and this question is super basic.

When we took the bulbs out at the bottom , a lot of oil drained out - about 1/3 cup. The old filter didn't look too good either. There was a patch at the top where the foam had disintegrated and was missing. And it looked like the filter was wicking oil in from the bottom. When we went to install the new filter, my friend tucked the edges of the filter down into the inner "tray" so it was somewhat dome shaped instead of setting the filter flat and laying across the small 1/4" channel between the outer edge of the air filter box and the inner tray.

When we had tried to put the cover back on without tucking it in, the foam was preventing the box from closing and even with 1 of us holding the lid tight against the body of the air box we couldn't get the two halves to snug up. He said that the box may have warped from heat and that in any case, it didn't make sense to have the filter go to the edge of the air box because the outer channel serves as the reservoir where the excess oil accumulates and it just wicks the oil into the filter and subjects the engine to it. We used a premium filter from a Vespa dealership for the GT so we know it was right size.

My question is, should I take the air box cover off and try again without tucking the edge of the filter down or just leave it? We looked at how the air flowed thru the box and thought tucking the edges down inside the inner tray still served the purpose of filtering the air. Vespa ran fine after installation.

Thanks in advance for your thoughts...

I have a 2006 GT200 and love it. So simple compared to later models. I replaced my air filter a few months ago when I did the 12000 mile service. First of all, the condition of the old filter and the amount of oil that drained out are normal. It was probably the original filter, and the oil had never been drained before. That oil (which also contains a few other things like gas and water) came from the crankcase vent. The new filter should have already been oiled if it was a genuine Vespa filter. The new filter does not go into the grooves in the filter box cover. The filter needs to be tucked in around the inside edges of the cover. IMO, this is not the best design I've ever seen, but it works. The grooves in the cover are intended to go over the edges of the airbox.

Did you also change the CVT filter at the front of the CVT case?

Thanks for your reply and good to hear that you like the GT model. I've been reading about its quirks and its reputation of being unreliable got me worried.

The pic was of the original filter. The bulbs were drained at 2800 miles (but the filter was not changed) so the oil, gas etc from the crank case that we drained off had accumulated over 1800 miles of normal driving - some highway but mostly country backroads.

See how the old filter - factory installed - has a 1/4" "seam" around the edges where the inner tray pinched it when it was closed up against the body of the air box? That's what we didn't do. We tucked the filter into the inner tray so no foam was pinched when we screwed the air box "lid" back on the body of the air box. So we did it differently from the factory install and that had me wondering if we'd made a mistake. If I understand you right, you think what we did was OK. Yes the filter was pre-oiled. Didn't change the other (CVT) filter yet.

Many people seem to think that newer vehicles are more reliable than older ones. My experience has almost always been the exact opposite. The simpler something is, the more reliable it usually is. I bought my '06 GT200 when it was 10 years old, with 1800 miles on it. I had two problems. The vacuum petcock failed a couple hundred miles later, and the water pump started leaking. Both issues were probably caused by it having sat for a long time. Both were easily repaired. I now have over 14,000 miles on it, and have not had a single issue since replacing the water pump.

I may have misunderstood how you did the air filter. There will be grooves in the filter after it has been installed for awhile. Here is a video showing how the air filter is supposed to fit. If you put it in this way, and there is some resistance when you put the cover back on, just push on it a little. Those ribs on the inside of the cover and in the airbox are designed to hold the filter in place. I was talking about the groove around the outer edge of the cover.

It was a few months ago when I replaced mine, and didn't remember how it went exactly, other than it didn't go between the airbox and airbox cover.

Well...yes...the issue was we did push a little and that didn't work. Then we squeezed the air box halves together with our hands as tightly as we could while the other tried to screw it down, and the halves wouldn't come together snugly. Maybe this replacement filter was thicker than the original?

In any case, we couldn't get the cover back on without tucking the filter into the inner grove / tray. Hmmmm....is all I can say. It was a real pain and the screws did not nest easily in their housings so lots of turning the screw driver with no grab of the screw. I have a magnetic phillips screw driver now but reluctant to take cover off and potentially run into difficulty re-attaching it by myself and miss a day of riding. I watched 4-5 videos before attempting and it looked so straight forward.

Did you compare the thickness of the old filter and the new filter? It may have been the wrong filter, or maybe they changed the filter.

I believe this is the filter I used but not positive.

https://www.scooterwest.com/premium-piaggio-air-filter-element-vespa-gt-gts-mp3-250-300-hpe.html

I did get everything from www.scooterwest.com

I did notice in the video the red Malossi filter was quite a bit thinner than the oem Vespa filter. There are plastic spikes in the airbox cover, you may need to push the filter down around them until they poke holes in it. That will not cause any air leaks, the filter will fit tightly around them.

I used the same filter from the same source. I think the original might have been a little thinner, more like the Malossi. In any case, I feel a little more confident about trying to refit it. Thanks for your feedback.

I'm not sure about that tucking move. You really want to have your air filter in its proper position for long engine life. I suggest you watch Robot change a filter and notice it's mostly flat, not tucked in this video. Then redo yours similarly.