Modern Vespa

Actually the design flaw is more about quality of the bearings and of the duff original factory settings and workshop manual instructions than any grease. I've had three sets of bearings fail (we did experiments, don't worry about that, and it cost me nothing) going by the original instructions and later suggestions from Piaggio. All but the first set were Very Well Greased.

I humbly submit greasing isn't the problem except for the first set from the factory - and even that situation may now have changed.

If those front wheels have been over any 'hammering' surface, the OEM bearing races will very quickly become compromised. If your MP3 is the one I think it might be, it did loads of rough roads, so not surprised they've pegged out.

Yep, that is exactyly why Piaggio came out with the bolt to add grease.

Agreed, Jim! Evidently the greasing is just a bit of a stop-gap.
I'd venture the bumps are more of a local phenomenon, travel up North certainly registered serious impact from the elements.
The state of pavement is flat-out atrocious here. I full-on shattered a rear wheel (plus additional damage) on my previous scoot thanks to a sloppy pavement seam by Caltrans (left a tire width hole between concrete freeway and blacktop offramp...). Just the bumps from my place to the freeway, a mere four blocks, ruin any alignment on any vehicle.
I wonder what I'm in for in terms of repairs with the MP3?

I should start a separate thread describing what I am looking at.
Thank you for the valuable (and ever so prompt!) input, greatly appreciated!

Luckily we have very few concrete surface roads (fast ones that is) this side of the pond - they're OK for cars (to an extent) but ghastly for any other vehicle.

You need earplugs inside a Rolls-Royce (I've ridden in one on this bit) on the M25 between Leatherhead and Reading.

They saved a small amount using concrete - they've cost the nation a fortune in hearing aids.

Rumour has it that that small section will be replaced with Tarmac by 2020 I understand - can't find a link to that.

Did I mention that concrete as a road surface sucks big time? Clueless solution, which leads to rain grooves...

...which thanks to someone who forwarded me the original report, states that the only people in cars to have a mishap in rain (before grooves) were those who had bald or severely worn tyres. But apparently rain-grooves were implemented because there was no way to determine who had good tyres...

So get an annual inspection to get Joe-Six-pack to replace his worn tyres FFS.

And chew up all concrete, replace with tarmac - of the appropriate type to withstand the local temperature variations.

If they can do it in Saudi Arabia (huge temp variations every 24 hrs) you can do it in the good old US of A.

Fucking concrete. Hate it.

In support I would recommend intentionally setting the specified torque at maybe 50%, then tighten bolts, then adjust torque setting to 75% and tighten again, then lastly adjust setting to 100% specification and do a final tighten.

Just possibly, folks not too comfortable with this tool, will upon completion at the 100% setting have a lot more confidence that they have done it correctly. IMHO.


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just am update after changing my bearings twice I had the mod done about a year after seeing this I kept the bolts in and have never had a problem since. but I use yacht grease which is waterproof and stays in place better than High melting point grease.

So been in more than 10 years.

What is "yacht grease"

I'm gonna venture to say it implies heavy duty non water soluble grease.

no grease is water soluble. any grease will do.