recommended scooter

[paulnumbers]

hi,

Can anyone recommend a scooter. I just want something cheap, that will sit outside in the rain (no garage), and will be used for short journeys - upto 10 miles. 2nd hand only.

In the past I've ridden a vespa ET4 and a honda cbf 600.

Any thoughts appreciated.

[paulnumbers]

Hi

Kymco Downtown 300i

http://boards.fool.co.uk/sold-old-13351780.aspx

In for its MOT this month. I must do a 1 year review.

I've ridden it all through this winter, so it seems quite durable. Kawasaki also sell it as the J300.

Looks like a nice scooter, but I was thinking more around the £1k mark. Quite keen on low petrol usage too, so 50cc or 125cc would be quite enough. I'm assuming a smaller engine would be more fuel efficient?

[PrincessB]

My Yamaha Xmax 250 is approaching its fourth birthday. They have been making the Xmax for ages so mine is possibly worth £2k and you might find a seven year old one for £1000 - I'm not sure if they did the 250 that far back though there is always the 125 option which seems to small an engine for a fairly large bike.

The Xmax looks sharp, has huge underseat storage and comparatively larger wheels than many other scooters. Fuel economy is around 75 MPG and acceleration is quick enough to keep up with most cars unless they try to be faster and also have a reasonable performance level.

The biggest wheels (should help with stability) on any scooter I've spotted are on the Honda SH125 (They also do a 300) unlike the Yamaha, there is little styling (Reason for me not having one) The Honda it is simply a device to move you about and the new prices are a bit on the high side.

Kymco appear to have an excellent reputation and I'm very tempted to chop the Xmax in for the Xciting 400i which has very positive reviews. They are not Chinese (Taiwan from memory) and accordingly spares are available and they are reported to be reliable.

Still staying away from the Chinese, South Korean manufacturer Hyosung used to sell scooters in the UK, their current website only shows a smallish selection of bikes so perhaps they are in the process of pulling out of the UK market, I had a Hyosung GT250 (bike) for a while after I passed my test with the 33HP power curfew for two years. It was fun, but when the exhaust rotted the cost of a replacement was more than I'd paid for the bike.

Regards,

B.

[BarrenFluffit]

Honda also do a 110cc scooter called "Lead" or "NHX". It particularly illustrates the issue Snorvey was talking about. It's top speed is 50mph and consequently you tend to use full throttle a lot. Despite fuel injection this makes it thirsty too; sometimes as much as a car. So the net effect is not fast enough to keep up with traffic and expensive to run... Reliable though.

Ok thrashing a 4-stroke engine isn't clever but centrifugal clutches also get less efficient with higher revs.Scooter's seem to be slower per engine size than bikes; getting more performance than you intend to use should put you more in the sweet spot of running costs.