Considering buying a new scooter locally

[battlefennec]

Hello, I am new here and I wanted to ask for guidance and opinions on finding a new scooter.

I live in Louisville, KY. For a while I've been running with old mopeds like the '85 Suzuki FA50, '65 Honda Cub C100, '91 Tomos Targa LX, '73 Tomos Sprint, '82 Honda Urban Express Deluxe, '11 Tomos Revival, and a bunch of other generic chinese except for the Keeway Goccia.

All the other bikes were left at a property I no longer live in or stolen, the last one being the Tomos Revival I acquired last year in November.

So now I am left with needing another transport. I have considered what I could find locally brand new under 50cc since these are the only ones available in the city:

Aprilia SR50 Motard

Piaggio Liberty 50

Honda Metropolitan

Vespa Sprint 50

Vespa Primavera 50 or Primavera 50 Touring

As well as Wolf brand scooters and Ice Bear soocters.

Honestly I'm looking for something reliable that won't end up breaking on me the first year I use it like the generic chinese, or that won't require much maintenance or parts scavenging like the old bikes I had. I'm growing partial to the Liberty and SR50 myself for features, tech and performance.

Anyone got any suggestions?

[aeroxbud]

Welcome to the forum.
I have a 2019 Piaggio Typhoon, which is the same as the SR50 Motard. Mine is a two stroke, but I believe yours will probably be a four stroke.
It's ok for the price. Not as good build quality as the older built in Italy scooters. You can see by the fittings it's built to a price. Then again it's a lot cheaper than the Vespa models.
The seat was very uncomfortable for the first 500 miles. But seems to be better now. Then again I ride it longer distances than most.
Handling seems not as good as I would like. The suspension is very soft. Makes it comfortable, but can get out of shape of cornered hard. And the front tyre seems to lose traction in the damp easily.

[90GTVert]

I would put Wolf and Ice Bear at the bottom of that list. They have a good reputation and much better support than your typical Chinese scooter, but I wouldn't expect them to be on the same level as the scoots from top tier brands. The main reason to move those up in the list IMO would be purchase price. According to their sites, you can get a Wolf scooter with a 1 year bumper to bumper warranty for $1200. That's roughly half or less of the MSRP of any of the rest. If you're thinking long term, I'd expect the other brands to be better scoots say 5 years later. With any of them, how well they hold up is going to depend on how much you ride and how well you maintain them.

Also, I'd check around at local dealers. Your market may be much better than it is here for scoots, but sometimes they don't seem to sell here and you can find models from previous years in dealer showrooms at discounted rates. The right deal on a good scoot could almost make the decision for you.

[battlefennec]

Nov 14, 2020 8:31:13 GMT -5 aeroxbud said:

Welcome to the forum.
I have a 2019 Piaggio Typhoon, which is the same as the SR50 Motard. Mine is a two stroke, but I believe yours will probably be a four stroke.
It's ok for the price. Not as good build quality as the older built in Italy scooters. You can see by the fittings it's built to a price. Then again it's a lot cheaper than the Vespa models.
The seat was very uncomfortable for the first 500 miles. But seems to be better now. Then again I ride it longer distances than most.
Handling seems not as good as I would like. The suspension is very soft. Makes it comfortable, but can get out of shape of cornered hard. And the front tyre seems to lose traction in the damp easily.

I had a feeling they looked similar. I'll keep this in mind, they're probably a little different at least performance/reliability wise.

[battlefennec]

Nov 14, 2020 9:40:56 GMT -5 90GTVert said:

I would put Wolf and Ice Bear at the bottom of that list. They have a good reputation and much better support than your typical Chinese scooter, but I wouldn't expect them to be on the same level as the scoots from top tier brands. The main reason to move those up in the list IMO would be purchase price. According to their sites, you can get a Wolf scooter with a 1 year bumper to bumper warranty for $1200. That's roughly half or less of the MSRP of any of the rest. If you're thinking long term, I'd expect the other brands to be better scoots say 5 years later. With any of them, how well they hold up is going to depend on how much you ride and how well you maintain them.

Also, I'd check around at local dealers. Your market may be much better than it is here for scoots, but sometimes they don't seem to sell here and you can find models from previous years in dealer showrooms at discounted rates. The right deal on a good scoot could almost make the decision for you.

I thought Wolf had 2 year warranties, not sure on Ice Bear though, but those are like my last resort if I can't acquire any of the ones I mentioned.

And these choices are from local dealers. Others are just generic chinese brand new bikes or used bikes from 10 years ago or so.

[CrankingWithCG]

Literally all of those are awesome scooters. Icebear, ehhh, my sis bought a Icebear vision 150 and im quite shocked with how good it is. Wolf from what ive experienced is better than Taotao, but still under Lance and such. Chinese definitely is bottom of the list, but all the others you listed are great scooters. Some 2 stroke, some 4, some hard to find parts for, namely probably the Aprilia and Piaggio (im not sure though). Namely, despite possibly being hard to find parts for, between your faves of the Aprilia and the Liberty, id take the Aprilia if it was a 2 stroke. Maybe even if its a 4. But the Liberty is great too. Those big tire scoots sit and ride soooo good. Thats just my 2 cents tho. Im glad we finally got someone from KY! Lexington is so boring man, the only group of scooter riders as far as i know is my group 😂

[badmotorscooter]

Though pricier, the Honda Met is top notch. Have you considered looking for used Honda or Yamaha 50cc scooter?
Often times people buy them new and use them very little. You might be able to find them in great condition for a real bargain price.

I bought a 2007 Yamaha C3 in 2010 with 700 miles for $1000. Earlier this year I bought a 2010 Sym Mio with 180 miles for $1000. Both were in almost brand new condition.

[milly]

For me if or when I buy new the liberty has good reviews and bigger wheels better handling. I have heard the Apilla can be a pain to work on. Just my two penny worth.
If you can get Peugeot over there forget them nothing but a pain, just seems you are paying for a brand name not very well made these days.

[battlefennec]

Nov 14, 2020 10:56:29 GMT -5 badmotorscooter said:

Though pricier, the Honda Met is top notch. Have you considered looking for used Honda or Yamaha 50cc scooter?
Often times people buy them new and use them very little. You might be able to find them in great condition for a real bargain price.

I bought a 2007 Yamaha C3 in 2010 with 700 miles for $1000. Earlier this year I bought a 2010 Sym Mio with 180 miles for $1000. Both were in almost brand new condition.

I'd have to look, but a lot of the Zuma's locally are older than 10 years, and the new ones are well outside of the city, 60+ miles out.

Only C3 I found was 240 miles away, via Facebook Market and no local Sym or Kymco markets here, at least not anymore.

And the few Metropolitans I saw were from also 10 years or older, even the Ruckus as well, but none of the newer ones were nearby.

Although I may have to check my search later next week to see if there's anything new.

[battlefennec]

Nov 14, 2020 10:40:14 GMT -5 CrankingWithCG said:

Literally all of those are awesome scooters. Icebear, ehhh, my sis bought a Icebear vision 150 and im quite shocked with how good it is. Wolf from what ive experienced is better than Taotao, but still under Lance and such. Chinese definitely is bottom of the list, but all the others you listed are great scooters. Some 2 stroke, some 4, some hard to find parts for, namely probably the Aprilia and Piaggio (im not sure though). Namely, despite possibly being hard to find parts for, between your faves of the Aprilia and the Liberty, id take the Aprilia if it was a 2 stroke. Maybe even if its a 4. But the Liberty is great too. Those big tire scoots sit and ride soooo good. Thats just my 2 cents tho. Im glad we finally got someone from KY! Lexington is so boring man, the only group of scooter riders as far as i know is my group 😂

I have some reservations about anything chinese tbh, and I even bought Keeway which was supposed to be a good brand, only to break down on me twice because of some throttle cable issues.

I think all the 2-Stroke bikes new aren't sold anymore, Yamaha Zuma and Aprilia was probably the last two I heard of besides the Genuine scooters that departed Louisville.

Honeslty I've owned Suzukis and Hondas from 40+ years ago and they feel much different between a '65 Cub and a '85 Express... it's like they've gotten worse in reliability and quality, even though their sheer age disparity.

And yeah it's nice to find locals riding mopeds and scoots lol, even if I only been here 6+ years.

[battlefennec]

Nov 14, 2020 11:20:50 GMT -5 milly said:

For me if or when I buy new the liberty has good reviews and bigger wheels better handling. I have heard the Apilla can be a pain to work on. Just my two penny worth.
If you can get Peugeot over there forget them nothing but a pain, just seems you are paying for a brand name not very well made these days.

Speaking from experience: the Tomos Revival I got had 16 x 3.75 rear and 17 x 2.50 front tires. It was so goooood and they felt incredibly stable especially in the rain.

The Liberty may not have that kind of tire width and size but it's close enough, so I know it's gonna be a very good ride.

Also lol I don't think they sell Peugeot here locally, but they probably did a long time ago.

[90GTVert]

Nov 14, 2020 9:56:59 GMT -5 battlefennec said:

I thought Wolf had 2 year warranties, not sure on Ice Bear though, but those are like my last resort if I can't acquire any of the ones I mentioned.

They do say it's a 2 year warranty. Year 1 is bumper to bumper. To me, it sounds like year 2 is just frame and battery. Any decent battery that is maintained should last 2 years so as long as the frame doesn't break in half, year 2 doesn't sound terribly useful IMO. I could be misunderstanding, and you could always get clarification from them or a dealer, but basically to me it sounds like you have a useful 1 year warranty.

Warranty info is right on their home page :
wolfbrandscooters.com/

Here is a pdf clearly laying out Ice Bear's warranty policies. The 1 year bumper to bumper warranty of Wolf sounds more appealing to me if I were choosing between the two based on that.
www.icebearatv.com/resource/Icebear_Warranty(B-claw)2020b.pdf


While we're talking about warranty; keep in mind that many mods (especially powertrain related) will void the warranty anyway so you can disregard that as a deciding factor if you plan to mod any new scoot.

[battlefennec]

Nov 14, 2020 12:32:59 GMT -5 90GTVert said:

Nov 14, 2020 9:56:59 GMT -5 battlefennec said:

I thought Wolf had 2 year warranties, not sure on Ice Bear though, but those are like my last resort if I can't acquire any of the ones I mentioned.

They do say it's a 2 year warranty. Year 1 is bumper to bumper. To me, it sounds like year 2 is just frame and battery. Any decent battery that is maintained should last 2 years so as long as the frame doesn't break in half, year 2 doesn't sound terribly useful IMO. I could be misunderstanding, and you could always get clarification from them or a dealer, but basically to me it sounds like you have a useful 1 year warranty.

Warranty info is right on their home page :
wolfbrandscooters.com/

Here is a pdf clearly laying out Ice Bear's warranty policies. The 1 year bumper to bumper warranty of Wolf sounds more appealing to me if I were choosing between the two based on that.
www.icebearatv.com/resource/Icebear_Warranty(B-claw)2020b.pdf


While we're talking about warranty; keep in mind that many mods (especially powertrain related) will void the warranty anyway so you can disregard that as a deciding factor if you plan to mod any new scoot.

Sounds like a bit of hit or miss, but definitely better than the 6 month limited warranty on the chinese generic scooters that I've been dealing with a few years back.

And nah no mods, not unless the ride is absolutely garbage, although a simple derestrictor mod for them would be more than enough. I only commute to work with them on 45mph roads at most, and it's only a 7.5 mile ride to work and back for the most part. I'm getting a custom made e-bike trike with a 3k engine anyways for my more future commutes and use the scoots for the weekend trips with friends, and I think the Aprilia or especially the Liberty looks like it can tour around long distances on the main roads as compared to the Honda Metropolitan. Not sure on the Vespa Sprint/Primavera though, or the Wolf/Icebear scoots.

[aeroxbud]

I did four hours riding in one day on the typhoon. Apart from the seat, it was fine. And that seems ok now.
It's got a nice riding position.

[battlefennec]

Nov 14, 2020 14:30:25 GMT -5 aeroxbud said:

I did four hours riding in one day on the typhoon. Apart from the seat, it was fine. And that seems ok now.
It's got a nice riding position.

Is the seat firm or is the shape awkward to be comfortable on? I think I can find some way to replace the seat if that's the case, I know some people who can customize a seat for any bike.