Modern Vespa

So it's saturday, and my husband and I decide to meet a friend at the local deli about 5 miles away. As I'm riding along I notice the faint smell of gas. I figured it was just due to some spillage from my fill up the day before. I don't normally over fill but this time I did, and some of the gas dripped through the little holes by the gas cap (on a BV250 the gas cap is in the middle of the step thru).

So we arrive at the deli and we park. Then I notice a little bit of fresh fluid under my bike, at first I thought it was there before I parked. So I moved my bike over a little and put it up on the centerstand. Then I see a clear fluid dripping from under my bike. It rained last night so at first I thought It may have been some water... The dripping stopped after a minute or so and we went inside to eat.

After we were done eating I go to start the bike and it starts dripping again much more than before, this time I touched the fluid on the ground and of course it smells like gas. I look under the bike and I can kind of see the fuel filter and It looks ok... the fuel lines looks ok.... the clamps look fine.... but I was a little hesitant to try to ride home. So I took the footrest panel off to get a better look at the filter. Sure enough there's a crack in the fuel filter and I'm 5 miles from any auto parts shop. Luckily our friend used to ride motorcycles and decided to stick around when he saw the bike leaking.... He ended up driving my husband to the auto parts store to get a generic filter and hose clamps, while I waited with my partially disassembled bike in the 90º F heat. They came back about 15 mins later with the new filter and some hose clamps and it took less than 3 minutes to stick the new filter in, not including the time it took to take the panel off and put it back on.

I'm soooooo glad I keep a portable tool kit in my pet carrier. It really saved the day!

I don't understand why the bike was fine for a 120 mile ride yesterday, but starts leaking fuel 2 miles into a ride today. Guess it just finally gave way. She's 3 years old and has about 3.5k miles on it.

The replacement filter they brought back to me is made by Luber-finer model FF2314 or G6529. Will this filter work for long term use, or should I order one from Piaggio? Will this filter run ok until the "official" part comes in? Have I violated my warranty in anyway? This is my first problem with this scoot. Though she does seem to have more pep with this new filter and the engine seems to run stronger, less of a rumble when at a stop light. Maybe there has been a small crack in the filter for a while....... For some time now I've felt a bit of a rumble when at a stop light, I just thought that was the bike finally fully breaking in after 2k mi. This is my first "real" scooter...

When I changed the filter I noticed quite a bit of rust on the frame near the filter hook thing. I'll have to take the panel back off and get a picture. Is this going to be a problem? Should I have it re painted?

Here's a pic of the cracked filter.

Yeesh, that looks pretty bad. You're not voiding any warranty, for the most part, a filter is a filter. As far as performance goes, you certainly could have had a little vacuum leak because of that crack.

As far as the rust, is it surface rust or is it pretty bad?

It's surface rust which has made some of the black paint on the frame bubble up. I couldn't help but knock off some of the bubbled up paint when replacing the filter. It doesn't look like it's rusted into the metal yet, but I store my scooter out doors all year - I don't have a garage yet. I don't want it to turn into a bigger problem further down the line.

Is there some type of rattle can spray paint I can use to help protect the frame?