Modern Vespa

Well I have put about 600 miles on my vespa. Charge all the gas to one credit card and just paid the bill of $43. Works out to be about 7cents per mile. Pretty cheap for fun and transportation. Maybe little more if I added in the oil change but still pretty damn good.

oops wrong forum

Moved to General Discussions.

24,000 miles in 4 years:

Scooter = $6000
Minor service x 2 = $250
Major service x 2 = $800
3 belts and rollers = $600
2 front tires = $200
4 rear tires = $400
400 gallons of gas @ $3.00 = $1200
Insurance = $1200

total if nothing ever goes wrong = $10,650 / 24,000 = 44.4 cents a mile.

Can be cheaper if you do all your own service, but not by much.

Not including taxes, licence, clothes, protective gear, accessories.

Let's be realistic, ok.

P.

Good thing I'm not buying a vehicle to save money, Paul

I agree Paul, running a scooter is expensive, though not as pricey as in the states. Oh wait, our fuel costs twice as much as yours, so that evens out. In London, it is much more convenient, as I hate public transport.

I got into this a couple of months ago and decided that Cost Per Mile was the metric to use and worked out a fun little spreadsheet, short version, a scooter is roughly equivalent to a small fuel efficient car likea Honda Fit, Smart FourTwo or VW Jetta in terms of cost per mile.


The Cost Equation - Metrics that Make Sense

The Spreadsheet Results

really, though ..if you're buying a scooter for high MPG and to save money, you would probably have bought a buddy 50 or something. Something with a lower initial cost, a lower maintenance cost, and a higher MPG rating.

You bought a vespa. It's like the BMW / Mercedes of the scooter world, now. They used to be some of the cheaper scooters you could buy back in the 50's and 60's ... ( which i think is part of the reason they are still a business today ) ... people aspired to own and drooled over the German bikes - the Bella's and Heinkels and such... but largely ended up with Vespas and to a much lesser extent, Lambrettas ...because it's what they could afford. They were cheaper, they had a larger dealer footprint in the states, etc.

Vespas now are a luxury item. Face it, you could have bought a much, much, much cheaper scooter. Discussions about how much money you're saving because you bought a luxury item generate some cognitive dissonance with me.

But what about Vespanomics?

True words, Eric.

It actually oddly fits though, with the general American tactic of buying your way out of fiscal insolvency.

Look how much I saved by buying this!

It's hard to fathom people actually listened to an bought the "Vespanomics" pitch while standing in a frickin' boutique.

Parking? 4 years of parking my car would cost $5,800. Parking the scooter costs me nothing.

Let's be honest. Saving $ is not the real reason that we own these.

does anyone own a scooter just to save money, that never crossed my mind, honestly.

It seems that fuel economy and financial savings cross people's mind CONSTANTLY from threads i read here. NEITHER of those things crossed my mind when i got into scooters.

your paying way to much for service you should ride to see Greasy

After 35 years of marriage come back and tell us if you don't need an occasional rationalization to convince the wife.... (MPG worked for me!)

I've been married like 4 months now...so i am beginning to understand this!

Economy? huh... My car gets better MPG than the scooter/seats 5/goes 4 times faster. It's fun to ride, that's enough justification 8) (fortunate that my wife loves it also)

I actually do ride for cost savings, but it isn't about MPG's for me. I save $1000's a year using my scooter as my primary transportation, but you have to understand that in order to save it has to be that. Primary transportation. Rain or shine, cold or hot. It has to replace, not supplement a car, and you have to put enough miles per year on the vehicle to allow the cost per mile savings to overcome increased costs of maintenance and gear.

That said, there is a hidden savings though that is much harder to quantify, and it is the origin of my $1000's:

Mental Health.

When I commute in a car, I am a grumpy SOB and it has been known to cause issues at home. Issues that lead to therapy and was headed for worse.

The (first) scooter for me was about MPG's and savings ( at the time gas prices were over 4.50 around here, and I still think that was a preview of what is to come ). I started with a cheap chinese 150, I got 90/mpg, and it served it's purpose well. I bought it knowing it was 'disposable', but I got 3k miles out of it before I disposed of it, and it convinced me of 2 things. 1. I was not only willing to commute on it, I enjoyed it, and 2. Good gear is worth every penny you spend in terms of comfort and safety.

In the 3.5 years that have followed, I am on my 3rd scooter. Scooter #2 was a Kymco People 250 that I put 15k miles on and replaced my Chrysler Pacifica with. Scooter #3 is a Piaggio BV500, that now has nearly 18k miles on it and it shares a garage bay with a Smart FourTwo that will be my daughter's car in another year (when it is paid off).


More importantly, I have spent $0 on therapy, and take no meds for depression. Those have been replaced by the 25-45 minute blasts in the fresh air morning and afternoon. I haven't had a blowout with an employee at the office in that same time.

A scooter (or motorcycle) as a primary transportation vehicle can be a lifestyle change that certainly CAN reduce costs, but in order to realize those, sometimes it takes a greater step back to see them. Adding a scooter to a car and putting 800 miles a year on it is a net loss EVERY time.

what car would that be? I want one.

Awesome post DRU_

Desi B.

Picking average costs, could be more, could be less--I do most of the service myself so I'm cheaper.

Point was cost of a vehicle is not just the gas.

P.

I've checked my Ford 4WD truck with fuelly and I always get 12.n miles to the gallon.

GTV is in the high 60's.

Drive the same number of miles per week if I use the truck or the scooter.

I've done the math.

Plus it's so much fun riding the scooter !!

thats true I drive my yaris mostly for this reason. but its not as fun

notice that the word fun came first I had to justify the purchase of the vespa with something. My other reason was buying it for my girlfriend to ride but she's only taken it out once so far.

Total Cost of Ownership. Learn the phrase and love it, people. Paul is right on the money, so to speak.

These things aren't cheap.

People should actually do themselves a favor and look up the term, and think about their incremental costs and how they affect their TCO on the vehicle. It's far less "cheap" than it seems.

And for those who consider the ecological cost, consider the Dust-to-Dust environmental impact. This is where a Hummer can be argued to beat a Prius.

In the end i think we've all justified something we've bought over the years. Then again it's money that you can't take with you when you die so why not enjoy it while you can

i'll never understand people's obsession with gas prices. they'll fret and try to hypermile the prius, then buy bottled water everyday at lunch that probably costs $10 a gallon.

The MPG was a nice justifier to the wife, the fact that it was her idea for me to get one... icing on the cake.

I bought a used scooter for $2200, another $600 in gear, I saved enough in cutting down the insurance miles for the truck to pay for 100% of the scoot's insurance. I fill-up the scoot for $5-7 each 200 KM, as opposed to $50-$100 every 300 Miles for the truck. When I drive my truck for commutes, I get about 13 miles per gallon. This year, I spent $700 on tires for the truck and another $125 getting the smog (emissions) fixed but then again I spend $200 on getting the rear scoot tire changed out.

When I am in the truck, I focus on the day's life concerns, the radio, how irritated I am sitting in traffic, the stuff sitting on the seat next to me and driving (when needed, driving becomes the highest priority). I have not had an accident in many years and no incidents in the 10,000 KM I have ridden in the past 15 months.

What I didn't know was how much fun and how therapeutic riding is. You focus more of your brain on the riding of the scoot and that pushes back most of your daily concerns. I focus on the ride and the weather and the cages around me.

It's nice that I spend less on fill-ups but overall I ride for the fun of it and the incredible views you can get while riding in the open air.

bloody hell paul ... you keep a note of every penny you spend on your scoot ... thats just sad .if not a little wierd ...

Only slightly more so than, say, saving all your urine in jars.

when the time comes, you'll regret making fun of him, since he will have it all at the ready, and you will have none.

you dont now me or what im thinking ........... my foil hat stops you

It's terrible, I know!!! I am a mass of neuroses--fortunately I'm functional and reasonably happy.

Well, it's time to hop on my GTS and take a pleasant, leisurely ride home on uncrowded country lanes. Maybe I'll stop for a nice bottle of wine to have with my dinner.

P.

LMFAO. Too true. Leave it to me to put off pee-storage until the last minute.

I tend to look at the value of the scooter experience, not the cost. I am not a penny pincher, but I try to find the best value for what I am spending my cash on. Many times, the true best value is the one with the higher price. My dear mother always said "poor people can't afford to buy junk." We were far from poor and I am sure her statement wasn't original, but it made sense.

So, I took the dollars out of my head after I bought the Vespa. It was reminiscent of the 150 I bought around 1965. I always regretted selling that scooter. My LX is a pleasant return to a time when I was much younger and more or less carefree.

The Vespa gets me outside. I am not an outdoor person, but there is just something absolutely therapeutic about riding in the wind and open air with no room to carry your life's burdens, whatever they may be. Much like hot dogs always taste best at a ball game or a state fair, exploring the outdoors on a scooter is second to none. Even familiar territory gives off a sense of exploration and detail that you just don't get in a car, or even on foot. The panorama passing you by is exhilarating, even old buildings and year weary homes. It is that way because of the noble beast beneath you that transports you so eloquently with just a simple, single cylinder obeying your twist of hand. No questions asked. It just does the work of taking you here, taking you there, taking you anywhere.

Can I put a price on it? No. Is it worth whatever the cost? Absolutely.

If you need any extra, let me know. I have had plenty today.

A few years ago our local group rode to a scoot in in Okeechobee. It was a great day, beautiful weather, fun people, good dogs and burgers.

On the way back we took a stop at the beach. One of the people in our group of 6 or 7 scooters started saying how responsible we were riding scooters and getting such excellent mileage...good for the environment!

I couldn't help but answer...."yeah...but we have just taken all these scooters on a totally unnecessary trip, lets face it..we're riding about 250 miles to eat a hot dog"

It got a little quiet after that!

Using my fancy dancy Modern Vespa mileage spreadsheet (with a few modifications to record all my Vespa related costs) as of today I've paid on average 4.3 cents per mile for gas alone and a total of 46 cents per mile including every drop of gas, piece of chrome, repair, oil change, jacket, helmet, decal.... including the price of the scoot (with tax). So with my companies reimbursement rate for mileage I'd actually be making a bit per mile!!! Once I sell/trade in the scoot that number should come down a bit! (and the helmets and jackets will/can be reused)

18,881 miles ridden, 272.18 gallons of gas, average MPG = 69.11

Yes, a geek of the 3rd order. I hope to record the same data on my next car and see how long it takes to get to the same $/mile. My guess is still that the Vespa might be cheaper than a car.

Didn't see where anyone else said it, but this model is flawed in that you're calculating cost per mile and assuming that you've used up all $6,000 of the initial purchase price. You haven't. Paul, to calculate your real cost per mile you'd need to deduct whatever your scooter is worth now. So if you could get $3k, take that off before you do the calculation of cost per mile. You'll come out cheaper (and more realistic) per mile.