Modern Vespa

Thoughts on Salvage tile scooters? Seems Iowa can insure them-just not up to the normal amount. Cautions? Challanges?

nope

Thanks for the feedback! I plan to most or all of may maintenance and work. Full coverage on my Sprint as only $100 ish a year so that made sense on that scooter. On a salvage- probably not!

because of the monocoque frame-- the body is the frame-- the propensity for there to be frame damage ie, twisted or bent is very high. seemingly innocuous damage to the untrained eye could in actuality be a totally taco'd bike.

the immobilizer ignitions are an issue as well. if you don't have keys it's big money to get that sorted out.

so, stay away from wrecks-- especially front end wrecks, make sure you have keys, expect to pay a premium for parts, mainly color matched panels.

don't buy anything Aprilia

Do you have uninsured motorist? I use Progressive only because they offer a $5,000 medical payment. If you hit an animal or leave the road and crash, uninsured motorist won't pay. $5,000 will help a lot with health insurance out of pocket cost.

^^^^This^^^^

I recently did just that and fortunately it worked out. I knew what I was getting into repairing a wrecked Primavera. It got punched pretty hard in the nose. I also accepted the risk of the monocoque body being bent. The fact is I got lucky and could have easily ended up with a pile of parts. I'm going to ride the wheels off of it and will be all right in the long run. Having tip toed through that mine field was an eye opener. There is a reason that insurance companies write these things off so quickly. Uneconomically repairable...

Factor in hidden auction fees and the fine print that we tend to overlook. The project quickly approaches that of just buying a nice clean example that requires little or no work. Research the parts diagrams on AF1 with some of the suspect parts are going to cost. It quickly adds up, and that includes doing the work yourself.

If you have the skill set, time, tools and a work area that helps matters. If not, think hard about buying salvage scooters. Once branded they have this stigma and most potential "Vespa" shoppers don't want to deal with it. I've watched one in my area, theft recovery, just sit even though it was priced about half the value of clean title model.

Would I do it again? Probably not even though it worked out.

nope

nope

nope

no, just the scooters. I like their bikes.

on the scoots, a lot of Aprilia is just grab bag from Piaggio group- vespa, Derbi, Ducati, Gilera. so you never know what you're going to get parts wise. switches from this, levers from that, fasteners from something totally different-- well, that's not true, Aprilia uses a lot fasteners that are specific to only their bikes for the most part.

the love to do one year only bodywork/colors and are prone to mid year changes in those as well. almost all of their gauge clusters are proprietary to specific models. this makes parts expensive, time consuming to track down and difficult to obtain.

the same with motors. could be Piaggio, could be rotax, maybe morini, or even minarelli. and even within that, they'll spec different belts, rollers or clutches even though the motor is identical to another more popular Piaggio or vespa.

case in point. if you have a 2009 Scarabeo 200 it could be any of the following: 200 air cooled, 200 light, 200 liquid cooled, made in Italy, made in china, it could have a leader 200 motor, it could have a rotax motor, it could be injected, it could be carb'd. and NONE of that interchanges with each other.

they make some flat out amazing scooters, but that there? that's why I pass on Aprilia scooters.

thanks for coming to my ted talk. you can sign up for my sub stack and weekly news letter: old scooter mechanic yells at clouds in the comments.

$250 per year w/out comp/collision. That's some vague betting. Are you an insurance agent? I'm a machinist, I run the numbers on everything. That's 20 years to = $5,000. No, I don't think it's going to stay that price in this money grubbing world.
I offered this info as an option, not an argument.

nope

nope

Run!

Thanks for reminding me of my project '08 Scarabeo 200. I need to attempt to fix it before our November rally. Guess the cylinder has pickled long enough now...

Greasy's a cruel juror! All I can say is that I love my '09 Aprilia Scarabeo 500ie, and have been satisfied that the work I've had to do on it has been attributable to wear and tear rather than quality. 29k miles, half of which are mine. Parts have been findable. It is a PITA to disassemble. And it was an incredible value - bought weeks before the pandemic, by a seller about to relocate from upstate NY to Hawaii.

I agree with the general sentiment that the risks associated with a salvage title are probably not worth the discount. Patience is a better ingredient for a good deal in the scooter market, rather than pure cheapness.

Is that with the rotax engine?

Yep. Follow the razzing trail that ensues.

*shakes fist*

NOOOO you've cracked the door open to NSM for all the great unwashed masses to see our soft white underbelly! curses be onto ye and your tools forevermore! (or at least while working on the 'beo)

look, I didn't say they made bad bikes, or they made unreliable bikes. just that they make bikes that are a giant pain in all nine assholes to service and source parts for.

mojito 50 & 150, comfortable GREAT handling bike. you can kit the crap out of the 50 and the 150 is the tried and true leader 150. gargantuan pain in the ass to do anything on.

sport city 300/cube 300- GTS 300 motor with twin disc telescoping front fork and a flat floor board with big wheels? sign me the F up! oh you had a little slip in your drive way and wound up with a broken brake lever, a busted signal and punched out headlight? cool that'll be $600 and 4 months, enjoy.

anything DiTech? holy CRAP is this an amazingly fast 50. what's that? nobody can fix it because of the software and the code readers are nonexistent? well, let's just order new parts then! yes, I'll hold. hello? hello? did they just hang up on me?!??

the 400 & 500's are just like the BV's. big and heavy and perform like a tractor. that's not my style, but I'm not gonna knock it. just don't ask me to fix an electrical problem on any of those. KMAGYOYO with that. also don't complain that it's like two hours to do a rear tire.

Dude? Already cursed. You've seen the sort of crap I work on.

stop on by Kajiit's house of wares and I'll send ya along with another truck load of crap to work on!

but you are a true glutton for punishment with some of those projects!

nope

sometimes I err to the side of brevity when I just, like, can't get into it, man.

but all kidding aside, something I'd forgotten to bring up earlier is, if you buy a salvage bike do not have any expectation that somebody else will work on it just as if it's a regular ass job.

don't be rolling up to the mechanic with your fender flappin' junkyard refugee with some odd running problem, wacky steering or an electrical problem and think that it's just a run of the mill easy fix that you saw on youtube and anybody can fix it for ten bucks and a burrito. because dollars to donuts it ain't.

you buy salvage, expect to swing the wrenches yourself. and if you seek assistance, brace yourself to meet with the head of the bad news department or big dollar estimates.

Admittedly, I am having fun wrasslin' with the Velocipotato. Random electrical problems have kept it interesting. Been mapping out the entire wiring harness since no diagrams seem to exist out there. It really feels like the scooter equivalent of a kit car.

I have been working on learning plastic welding too so I can fix both scoots' fuel tanks, since availability is right up there with rocking horse turds.

Seriously folks, take a project bike on ONLY if you want to learn and you don't mind getting your hands dirty. No sane mechanic is going to take on a project that will haunt their lift for weeks on end and banish them to parts catalogs for hours, even if you have a big wallet.

Ha, ha, ha, all totally true, and you're exactly right, I'd have liquidated the beast if I had to pay shop rates to do the work. The surgery necessary for the rear tire or for engine access is ridiculous. Glad you think in terms of two hours for the rear wheel because it takes me that long too.

Had to look up KMAGYOYO and am glad I did.