Greetings from sunny San Diego!
I ride a BV400. It is a great scooter. I have logged more than 11,000 miles (18,000 km) and it has worked flawlessly. It has enough power for some serious touring and highway riding and handles the various east county twisty roads with aplomb.
I participated in this year's Vespa Club of America national event, which ran from June 1-4 in Flagstaff AZ. For those that have never attended I highly recommend adding it to your bucket list. The first day ride I undertook went from Flagstaff to the small town of Jerome, AZ. Upon my return, I pulled into the gas station next to the hotel I was staying at and when I went to press the button to open the hatch to access the gas cap, the hatch did not open. Somewhere between Flagstaff and Jerome I lost my key fob. You see this scooter uses a keyless ignition system. To make a long story short I got the master key FedEx to me, and I was able to get back on the road again.
The problem isn't that I lost the key, since getting a replacement should not have been a big deal, but it is. Here it is three months later, and Piaggio is unable to ship replacement keys. I have written directly to Piaggio in Italy in Italian and phoned Piaggio in New York to complain, and they have been unable to provide an answer as to when one will be delivered. Waiting so long for a new key is inexcusable and is poor customer service to say the least.
So, the purpose of this post is to warn you of this hassle and emphasize to be careful with your one and only keyless key since they are being used on all new Piaggio and Vespas. My wife was good enough to get me some air tags which I have attached one to my one master key. If lose this key, I will not be able to have the new key fob programmed when it arrives (I hope in my lifetime), and this master key can only be replaced by also replacing the onboard processor. What stupid Piaggio engineer came up with this?
Be safe all!