Modern Vespa

Has anyone done the math to determine how many miles it takes to start saving money?

I was just punching numbers in here:

http://www.fueleconomy.gov/Feg/savemoney.shtml

It looks like it would take me 35,000 miles in one year, of not driving my 24mpg car @ $4.79/gallon and drive my 60mpg scooter to save the approximate purchase price of the scooter? I have to drive the car pretty often, so the payback is even longer.

I think you'd have do drive a lot of miles, or replace a vehicle that gets really crappy mileage to make a scooter cost effective.

Yeah I know it may be more fun, but are the savings really there?

How about after buying proper riding gear and all those expensive bling bling modifications. Especially if the car is just sitting there, and you need to have it for weekends or other uses; as long as the car is paid for.


As an aside, anyone have this book yet:
http://www.chrisbalish.com/

A PTW of any sort probably won't save any money because of the higher service costs. What it will do is save emissions (a cage stuck in traffic is doing infinite mpg) if you care about that, but more importantly it'll be fun. Even on a daily commute - look forward to going to work, take the long way home.

Those who buy a PTW to 'save gas' are probaly deluding themselves over the real savings. And missing the real point.

Unless you compare it with a fancy new car which depreciates ferociously, or unless car parking is expensive and scooter parking cheap, the scooter won't really save money. It will just be a lot more fun.

A new Honda Element will go at least 36,000 miles with nothing but oil changes. Mine has passed 125,000 with little other maintenance.

The Vespa goes through a rear tire every 4,000 miles. The car tire is the same price and will last 40,000 miles.

Expect a belt change every 8,000 miles, rollers maybe more often. Both of my Vespa 250s needed a valve adjustment at 10,000 miles or so. My 2006 with 17,000 miles came out of the shop today for $500.

......ahhh ritch....... ... WTF is this guy buying gas for $2.76 whatever.......talk about wantin to piss you off even more .....funny thing is i have an ongoing insurance claim over the last 2 years and it is SCARY how much Petrol has gone up....

ahhh the Good Old days of 2002 :
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w0L6dNd-W3U

godoggo ~

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I could have bought an MSRP $25,000 car that got 15 mpg, but instead spent MSRP $8899 for a scooter that gets 60 mpg. See? I saved money right off the bat, but not as much as I would save if I rode the bus or a bicycle.

ROI, LMAO, I bought mine for fun, I dont think I will live long enough to do 35K miles.

Since I can replace 90% or more of my miles with a vespa, and my car gets 12-15 mpg, a vespa would pay for itself in 2-6 years depending on what model I get. That is including insurance, gear, and maintenance.

geez, ROI on a scooter?

WTF man, you sound like you're delivering a full end-to-end solution to mid sized to enterprise customers

I'm not sure I'm having that much more fun getting hit by bugs and spray off the dirty pavement while breathing unfiltered bus exhaust worried about the mental state and sobriety of every yay-hoo behind the wheel. Compare that to sitting in leather, temperature controlled luxury listening to a Bose stereo system in my SUV and breathing filtered air.

My GTS has saved me the cost of buying a second car and it is fun when the weather is right and the traffic light. Remember that when you do ROI you have to consider that a car or SUV is capable of carrying more passengers and the cost has to be pro-rated over all those passengers ie, a 20 MPG vehicle carrying 5 people is really a 100 MPG vehicle when compared to a 1 person scooter.

It really comes down to what fits your needs and wants and whether you can afford your own tastes.

Funny you should ask. I did this before I bought and for the last 6 months. I'm from Indianapolis, IN and I've been spending about $300/month in gas. My with my Vespa payment and the insurance I'm saving over $100 a month, now.

I love my Vespa. What I hate is that there's no one to go riding with. I keep telling myself that I'm looking in the wrong place. Where is a riding companion?

When I'm done preparing ROI's for my clients and prospective clients all day long, I like to jump on one-a-my scooters and I call that therapy....it's not an investment. It's a neccesity.

I have family in Indiana, so I can definitely see how you could save that much in gas. They are in a rural area, so they drive 30 minutes just to get to a shopping center!

My ROI is the effing big smile on my face every time I twist'n'go astride my GT.
Three years + and my face still lights up every time.
The added bonus is watching cagers fill up at the pumps. I don't care about the maths. Simply geeting one $20 note out instead of five of them is good enough for me!!!!

The math gets better when you sell your car... or sell your partners car
Actually the $ from the car barely covered my new jacket and helmet

The math gets worse when you realise you do extra fun miles on the scoot.

I live in downtown Indianapolis, but I am from rural Indiana. It did suck, we did have to drive and a Vespa would be a chore there. As a matter of fact, my dad fought me tooth and nail against getting one. He wanted me to get a real bike. He's old.

I thought about the math too. The gas and any upkeep I save from not driving my car, I've spent that, plus more on the scooter stuff, some required, some not, including; messenger bag, insurance, MSF class, license, shoes, helmet, gloves, pants, Cerazzo jacket, cool key chain, water bottle holder, top case, windshield, etc.

BUT so far, the biggest item that has cut into any savings riding my scooter is food and coffee while hanging out at the cafes and coffee shops with other scooterist and bikers.

You're lucky. I can't find anyone remotely normal to hang out with. Everyone I talk to is really odd, or has some sort of driving infraction that keeps them from being able to ride at speeds over 4 mph. Ug.

well, that's a bummer. You need to find a club or group of riders in your area, I bet there are some. Better yet, start your own here, or on craigslist. Good Luck!

I appreciate living in the SF bay area with the nice weather, love of good food, coffee, being active and hopefully environmentally responsible. We have our downsides too, like the cost of living, but the positive outweigh the negatives, until I retire.

Again, it's Indiana. But I'm hopeful!

Let's face it, Vespas are sexy.

Selling Tundra for 28K and keeping 4 cyl Camry and adding a GTS for 7K definitely saved huge regardless of maintenance costs. Tundra cost me 1K in insurance and GTS is $138. Errands so far this week would have cost $80 in Tundra and instead ran $17. I guess it depends more on lifestyle and location...

I too have ran the numbers...
I know the hidden maintenance fees will add up to even things out but......
Everyday I drive the Vespa I don't spend $16 in gas...
I drove the cage once in two weeks now and that was only 40 miles...
So when I add up this, multipy by something, carry the 2.....
Here we go. the total is...
Lot's of fun..
I have found at least 10 ways home from work now and I take different ways depending on my mood..
With the cage I always just wanted to go home and take a nap...
Scoot was/is worth every dime I put in it...
I need another one...

I played with the numbers and payback is anywhere from 3-6yrs.
Deciding to ride should be based on several factors. The $'s should be considered but for most they do not add up in the short term and the long term is too long to make it a "financially" correct choice with 1yr payback.
I based my decision on:
Entrance cost (must be able to buy with cash... from motorcycle sale years ago)
Fun Factor.
Gas savings (environmental and monthly $)
Convenience (vs. motorcycle...I have a short commute and will ride for as many errands as I can.)
Others I can't think of.....
I have had it for a few weeks and only drove the car once to work. If I can get there dry I'm riding. Getting home doesn't need to be dry it only needs to be safe. My payback will change as add accessories (windshield, top case/basket), but I will also ride it more.

My ROI was about 1 year.

How do I figure?

Sold the car for $4,000 and I'm saving $150 a month on insurance, $50 a month on parking, and maybe another $50 on gas.

Balance that with spending an additional $500 each winter for a Transit pass, and $100 a month for Autoshare when I really need a cage for a few hours.

The Cafe expenses should definitely be added to the spreadsheet!

Don't forget Beer/Liquor. Scooterists always hang out at pubs after rides.

Come down to the Broadripple Brewpub around 7:00pm on Tuesdays. There are usually about 20 or so of us that ride every week. About a month ago we threw a rally (GasolineRally.com) that drew about 150+ riders.

Broadripple Scooter Club
http://profile.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=user.viewprofile&friendid=181610145

Black Market Scooter Club
http://profile.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=user.viewprofile&friendid=10162161

I ride everyday.

Broad Ripple! Naptown, USA! Must be Indianapolis. I worked in Broad Ripple as a teen at Lobraico's Broad Ripple Pharmacy on Westfield Blvd, right across from the fire station. I left Indy in 1968. I have only been back three times since, twice for funerals and once 4 years ago for vacation. The pharmacy is now a gift shop of sorts. I did visit and spoke to the owner. She asked if I ever wrote my name on the wall in the basement stairway. I had forgotten, but I looked and, sure enough, my name was there, along with a note about a chicky who I had the hots for.

I have not. I don't care how cheap or expensive gas is, I just want to use less.

My SUV will last longer now that I use it less frequently. There are days I'll have to carry passengers, so the car must remain. My hope is that I won't need to replace the car as soon as I would have with daily driving. That should be a plus in the ROI equation for the Vespa. The scoot is an absolute joy for solo journeys. I was always miserable driving the SUV back and forth on those days when it wasn't necessary and I was the only one in the cage. So, now I get the pleasure of the Vespa and the gas/emissions reductions. I've got an immediate ROI on the pleasure side and a few years to go on the economic investment. The fact that the Vespa could have a positive ROI is wonderful. How many people expect a car to give them any return at all?

I think that's a good point!

My original idea on getting the scoot was to maybe save some money. Two cars already paid for, short commute that kills your gas mileage, longer periods between car services, reduction in insurance for less miles driven etc. etc.

Got the scoot with no debt load, insurance with Progressive is low and gas mileage is unbeatable. Funny thing is now I ride it not only to work but to anywhere I can. Most of the time for no reason at all... "Hey I'm off to Blockbuster to see what's in" "Just running to Starbucks for a coffee" "Won't be long sweetie, I'm just going for a ride". I see more when I'm riding and appreciate now what everyone on two wheels has to put up with.

ROI? Not too much I guess unless you count the more smiles per mile thing. I believe ROI stands for Rate Of Increase (of my enjoyment).

Cool. Just when you least expect it, nostalgia kicks you in the pants! Love Broad Ripple.

The reduced driving you do in your car will keep the odometer lower therefore making your car a better proposition as a used vehicle so you should get more for it. I save around $30 a week in fuel which isn't much but I haven't serviced my car now for 2 years as it hasn't clocked up the k's. I plan on doubling the service intervals on the Vespa except for oil changes that I do myself to further cut costs but at the end of the day It would be cheaper for me to just drive the car and not own a scooter.
I must add that I can save time getting to and from work and as such I work an extra 30 minutes overtime a day so I make money as well as save it.
If you want to save money you'd buy the cheapest Chinese 50cc you could get and ride it everywhere.

Who are you? What are you talking about? Is this sarcasm? I'm saving over $300 a month in gas. Factor in the payment for my Vespa and the service and the gas and the insurance and I'm still $75 ahead at the end of the month.

$300 saving must mean you do alot of driving. If that was my GTS then it would cost me a fortune in tyres but not fuel. My car is on it's original tyres after 70,000km and they are cheaper (individually) than a fitted scooter tyre anyway but it uses more fuel. The depreciation of my Vespa in the first year would run my car for a year based on my mileage so it costs me money to own it.
If you run 2 vehicles then there is still the cost of owning the one you aren't using. It's not all about fuel.
The best way to save is to ditch the car but then I couldn't tow my boat and that is a mini fuel crisis in itself.

My first reaction is "WHO CARES"?

But let's be reasonable.

If I use my Vespa 2/3 of the time (very reasonable estimate), it pays for itself on a monthly basis. Got that? Including insurance and maintenance I GET A FREE VESPA!!!

Yay.

Besides, I am personally concerned with my carbon footprint--I know others aren't, but I am.

I love to ride. When I'm not riding, I am thinking about riding (that's how I end up on this board so much).

And of course, everybody knows about the fuel economy so I don't have to explain myself--even though my riding a Vespa is only partially about the fuel economy.

Oh, look at the time--gotta go to work. On my Vespa.

Yay.

P.

Nobody's mentioned the most important element in the equation to me yet: TIME.

My first scooter I bought new, and a top-of-the-line Vespa to boot: a 2005 Vespa GT. With a couple of add-ons (rear rack and flyscreen) It cost me over $6,000 after taxes, prep, registration, etc., and about $150/year to insure. I then added over $1,000 of add-ons to it in the form of crash bars, dyeing the seat a custom color, adding heated hand grips, and more. I owned it for 3 years but really only rode it for 2-1/4 years, as for the last 8 months or so it was eye candy in garage after I added a BV500. (So beautiful though.)

Assuming servicing and maintenance costs are a wash between the Vespa and a car, let's call it $7,500 in total cost (probably an underestimate). I put about 7,800 miles on it over 2-1/4 years. And let's further assume my average mileage on the Vespa was 60 MPG (which is about right), compared to 17 MPG on a car (since 95% my travel was in city). That's a difference of 43 MPG.

Even using the present (not historical) price of premium gasoline, which is at an all-time high, 7800 miles / 43 MPG * $4.50 = $816.28 over 2.25 years, or $362.79 per year. At that rate, it would take 20 years for the Vespa to "pay for itself" purely on gasoline savings.

But of course, that's NOT the only factor! TIME is what I get back most with my scooter. That and the fact that I would never drive all the way in to work, because then I'd be paying over $20/day to park in Midtown Manhattan.

My scooter is used primarily as a commuter vehicle to work. If I was out to save myself money as the foremost concern, I'd be taking the bus to the subway to work every day, which would cost me about $3.20 a day round trip (factoring in a monthly pass discount). This commute, which I have done for more than a quarter of my life, truly sucks. The bus comes an average of once every 10 minutes and takes 15-25 minutes just to get me to the subway (an average of 25 minutes, including the wait). I then spend another 30-40 minutes taking the subways (involving two transfers) if there are no delays -- and there are significant (10+ minute) delays of some kind about 10% of the time. A completely trouble-free commute gets me in to work, door to door, in about 50 minutes. One hour is the norm. 90+ minutes will happen about once a month, especially in bad weather.

Just to avoid the bus, I often drive my car to a park-and-ride and pay $3 to park when taking the train in. I lose the free bus transfer, but cut out the variability of waiting for the bus, plus I can also go shopping for groceries on the way home. This brings my commute down to a consistent 10-15 minutes to get to the subway, and to a slightly closer (to the city) station, so that my usual end-to-end time comes down to about 45 minutes (stretched to an hour if there are significant subway delays). But that raises the cost to $6.20 a day, plus about a third of a gallon of gas -- call it $7.50 a day.

Now, on my scooter, I get in to work in 30-35 minutes nearly every day. Very rarely does it take as long as 40 minutes, which happens if it rains unexpectedly and I take it very easy. Thanks to lane splitting, traffic congestion and gridlock is mostly something that Happens To Other People. Thanks to the top case, I still get to buy groceries on the way home, and I get away with parking for free. My commute is about 12 miles each way, so at 55 MPG, I'm paying about $10/week for gas.

So the real worksheet for me looks like this:

100% Mass Transit - $3.20 + 120 minutes/day = $16.00 & 600 minutes/week
Park and Ride - $7.50 + 90 minutes/day = $37.50 & 450 minutes/week
Scootering In - $2.00 + 60 minutes/day = $10.00 & 300 minutes/week

Compared to the bus-and-train routine, that's six dollars and FIVE HOURS OF MY LIFE I get back every week. Considering that I spend on average more than 10 hours a day in the office, that's worth a lot. And compared to the park-and-ride, I'm saving $27.50 a week or over $110 a month, which is also worth a lot, plus another 2-1/2 hours a week.

When you add in the further intangibles -- that I actually enjoy and look forward to my commute instead of suffering it, the lower volatility in the commuting time, and the value of the "embedded option" I have to run errands on the way home that I don't have when taking the bus -- and it's a clear, clear winner to me to ride to work.

Robardin, what kind of insurance do you have? I'm spending about $500 a year on insurance and I don't like it. What kind of coverage do you have, as well?

$500, Wow! And I thought my $400/year for full coverage was high. In another thread that discussed insurance costs alone, it appears to be typical that MVers are paying around $200 for full coverage, but I don't know how. I checked several companies providing MC insurance here & they were all within $10 of each other. Must be our drunk & uninsured drivers that take our rates up, but $500...

Since my Fly is purely a pleasure vehicle, I can't claim any savings. All of the miles I drive it are merely added to my total transportation budget.