Modern Vespa

I have wrenched on motorcycles and cars all my life, but am new to variators. My 300 GTS runs great and am very happy with it. But in slow speed maneuvers (1-3 mph) I am having some issues. With the M/C, one just slips the clutch. With the Vespa, it is a little difficult to blip the twist grip to get the right amount of RPM to slightly power the rear wheel. With medium to full throttle, the variator does great. I am also noticing some rattling/clanking by the variator at times when I am mildly accelerating. These are nits, but I am curious if they are possible indicators of problems to come?

BTW: It's 2019 model with nearly 30k miles. The previous owner maintained it very well, but I have no idea what has been done to it over its lifetime. Since it runs well now, I wasn't intending to do any major maintenance until about February, or wait until something comes up.

TIA
Randy

There is some rattly noise at slow speeds, but should go away quick as you accelerate.. If the rollers and belt have not been changed out in a while, say, 4-5k miles, you should remove the CVT cover and take a look at it. Unless you have records of work done, you may as well go thru the whole scoot anyway.

drag the rear brake lever ever so slightly as it will act like slipping the clutch

^^^^

This! Keep a constant throttle, and use the rear brake to modulate speed.

Thanks for the brake tip. It worked brilliantly!

There is a roller between the variator and clutch, sitting between the top and bottom of the belt.

I had that roller wear out, got the rattle when starting from certain stops, or making a slow tight turn. Easy fix.

I had this same issue coming from a Vespa elettrica to a 125cc Sprint. The elettrica was a brushless motor, so I could feather the throttle and easily travel at 2-3mph if I needed to.

The brake tip does help, but I've ended up leaving a little bit of gain build up and going start, stop when in heavy traffic.