Does anybody know a good forum (In english) for The Vespa Scooter. I have one and it costed four thousand dollars and there is already stuff that is going wrong with it. I just need to talk to other people to see the cheapest way to fix my problems with it.
You should be able to find something to help you here.
that one would be great but I speak English can you help me
I feel like no who can speak English has anything to do with the Vespa.
Ummm…did you actually look at that page or did the sight of the Big Scary Foreign Word frighten you off? There are links there to tons of different sites, many of which are in English!
BTW, Target stores in my area are having a drawing for a free Vespa to be awarded April 12th, I was told by someone in chat that they are doing this as well on the E Coast! I’d love to get a Vespa for zipping around in the summer.
In english there is
http://moped2.org/main.htm
http://mitglied.lycos.de/Vesparino/
http://www.topsitelists.com/world/scootertrash/topsites.html
BTW. If you bought an Italian vehicle of any sort and you did not expect something to go wrong with it immediately then you only have yourself to blame (ex Moto Guzzi owner speaking here).
Doesn’t it have warranty coverage?
I used to match up generic motorcycle clutch cables. It saved a few bucks, but they didn’t last as long. This was on a '73 Rally 200.
What else is broken? There may be other Vespa riders here, and I’ll check back in the morning.
Anybody else having a hard time getting these two statements to add up? 
It did come with a warranty, but it supposedly does not cover the damn “variater” says Joe the mechanic guy at my local vespa dealer. And the warranties that come with vespas are a scam because the conditions that validate the accompanying warranties are very restricting. For instance you have to bring the scooter in every 2000 miles for a one hundred and ten dollar tune up maintenance service that takes barely an hour to do yourself(i’ve done it). and i live about forty five minutes away from the dealer and require my vespa with me almost everyday for necessary transportaion. When I do drop it off I get it back almost a week later and if I really have to use it the next day I could schedule it for an appointment so all I have to do is go there wait for it to get worked on and then drive it back, but I’m thinking if that is the most time efficient way to do it I end up spending way more time and money on it than if I just did it myself. SO what I am thinking of doing is breaking the damn odometer that causes so much hell and just bring it in when somehting breaks and just say I haven’t been riding it at all!!
!
It did come with a warranty, but it supposedly does not cover the damn “variater” says Joe the mechanic guy at my local vespa dealer. And the warranties that come with vespas are a scam because the conditions that validate the accompanying warranties are very restricting. For instance you have to bring the scooter in every 2000 miles for a one hundred and ten dollar tune up maintenance service that takes barely an hour to do yourself(i’ve done it). and i live about forty five minutes away from the dealer and require my vespa with me almost everyday for necessary transportaion. When I do drop it off I get it back almost a week later and if I really have to use it the next day I could schedule it for an appointment so all I have to do is go there wait for it to get worked on and then drive it back, but I’m thinking if that is the most time efficient way to do it I end up spending way more time and money on it than if I just did it myself. SO what I am thinking of doing is breaking the damn odometer that causes so much hell and just bring it in when somehting breaks and just say I haven’t been riding it at all!!
!
My mother bought a brand-new ET-4 last June (which is what the OP bought, judging from the price tag) and nothing’s gone wrong with it yet, knock on wood.
The Vespas that Target and Starbucks are giving away are ET-2’s, the weaker two-stroke engine version. Its top speed isn’t on the Vespa website, but if I recall arightly it’s about 40 mph, low enough that it doesn’t require a motorcycle license, whereas the ET-4 can reach freeway speeds and does require a motorcycle license.
What’s wrong with your Vespa? They are usually pretty reliable. I might could help. I speak Italian.
BTW - some websites can be translated (although very loosely) via Google.
things like the variater, which went bad really quick on mine, receive high amounts of wear the more you give it full throttle from a stop(which I do every single time the traffice light turns green). Older people and women, especially,take it easier off the line because that is just the nature of such people. Also, I take my vespa on the highway all of the time and draft semi trucks and get going almost 80 mph. This could explain why “the valves are tapping” says Joe the vespa mechanic. He says that the valves are doing this because of overrevving. I pay four thousand for something that lets itself overrev. BULLSHIT!!
my '94 formula firebird says babababababab when I try to take it up to six thousand rpm’s, why can’t the scooter do the same.
mipiace- i tried that, but engaging in deep discussion with people
about very intricate technical subjects requires precise wording.
Oh fuck, they’re putting Salisbury clutches in them?
I’m sorry, but I have nothing good to say about scooters with Salisbury clutches.* I used to work on Jap scooters that had these, and they were constantly overheating and burning up; the belts would turn into mung that filled the drive and they never worked right after you rebuilt them. It is possible that the summer heat helped kill the drives, but they could have made them run a little cooler!
All Vespas were four speed manuals when I rode them, but I do have experience with Japanese scooters and I’ll bet that the Vespa automatics are a lot like them. As I mentioned before, the drive belts burn up a lot (the 100-125cc models were the worst on the Jap scooters.) A quick Google search shows that there are aftermarket drive parts for Vespas, including Kevlar-based belts that are supposed to last longer. I wish that I could recommend a specific upgrade for that drive as I think it will keep failing until it is upgraded.
Beyond the drives, the exhaust pipes on the two-strokes would clog, and the carburetors gum up on on any vehicle that isn’t run, but scooters are simple machines and there really wasn’t anything else to go wrong on the bikes.
Regarding the dealer prices, it was my limited experience that Vespa dealerships know that they aren’t going to make their money through volume, so they charge accordingly for everything that they can. I’m pretty sure that US law states that Vespa can’t void your warranty if you have the regular service done by a non-Vespa shop. You won’t win any points with the local dealer by doing this, but it doesn’t sound like they’re doing that much for you anyway.
(Reading your last post on preview, I’ll agree that a bike that can go 80 should be able to take going 80. If I were in your shoes though, I wouldn’t worry about a warranty; I’d trade in for an old Rally or P-125/200E and hotrod it, but hey, that’s just me.)
*[sub]aka: snowmobile clutches, where centripetal force cause the sheaves of the drive pulley to spread, increasing the drive ratio and effecting an automatic transmission.[/sub]
**[sub]I worked on my own bike and didn’t need many dealer parts.[/sub]
cornflake-
how do you suppose i could get one of those Rally P-200E
What’s the big deal about valves tapping? Is that a real problem? If so, is that easy to fix? What exactly is tapping the valves, or are the valves themselves tapping something?
I’d suggest Ebay for a P-200E. Where are you located? I know a few scooter shops that sell them occasionally also.
Besides Gwen Stephani, is anyone else into ska/two-tone or mod anymore? That’s where I would start asking (though I’m probably just showing my age here.)
Hauss, you might try:
They are in Chicago, have some great tech guys, and the message boards topics run the gamut on Scoots, everything from 50’s P series to the new Pigage and Indian made Stella which is a sweet little retro model.
They talked me through a complete clutch rebuild on my 64 GL, and were great about all my neophyte questions.
yanceylebeef