The most practical scooter for you?

Check out a SYM GTS200. Good size bike for a big guy. Don't worry so much about fuel economy. All decent bikes have decent economy - especially FI ones. When Jaitch sees this thread, he'll recommend a Kymco like his.

Hi!
Tks, I checked this gts200 - must be rare, and there s the hump on the middle between ur soles. Not practical: my legs get dirty in rain, and I cannot carry my guitar amplifier on that.
Yes, what about Kymco? That brand is also known in Europe, but I still donnow it.

Depends what you are using it for but if it is for around town only and no out of town trips the 110cc's are fine. Mind you I rode a 110cc Honda airblade from Nha Trang to Dalat with passenger and two bags up all the hills with no problems.

Given what you are after I would suggest the Honda lead as it has excellent under seat storage and flat space for legs. You may find the seat a little low though.

You can get around the feminine style of the Elizabeth by getting a dark blue one but I must admit they are for the ladies. But they are efi, with excellent under seat storage and a really good price. You can also add the rail guards to man it up a bit if you want. I see a few Vietnamese men riding the blue ones. They are the best value for money new scoot imo.

New Vespa's are too expensive.

One you could try is the Suzuki Hyatte, comes in a 125cc efi, and has flat leg space. Good price as well. A few places hire them so I would suggest hiring one for the day to try it out.

Another one that meets all your specs and is a cool scoot is the Suzuki Haojue 125cc, but they are pretty rare. But worth trying to hunt one down and giving it a whirl. Flat leg space (a lot) with really good under seat storage.

Another is a second hand Vespa PX which you can pick up for $800 to $1250 depending on the condition. Also the 150cc restored vintage vespas are pretty good and you can get some good prices. Only problem with these scoots is you need to put in a fuel additive each time you fill up which would be a pain I'd imagine.

Cheers

hi Panda,

tks, I also can see some kinda SYM Fiddle and I m investigating the Kymco ('Space')Jockey, 125cc and big storage. And finally the Yamaha Force is still okay. I m checking Excel II owners' answers, more of them complaining on huge fuel consumption.
I just dont like 110 cc when it can be 125, hix. And significantly weaker than the Force 125cc, I ran them all.   
cheers,
y

Suzuki Hayate:
I bought a new one 2 years ago. Strong but disappointingly narrow (a feeling of riding a tiny bike), plus big hump between legs.

Liquid coolers:
one of the ridiculous 'show off' to put liquid cooler on Lead/SCR, Honda Airblade etc at 110cc. It makes the system more complicated and more expensive. Bullshit.  I cant believe they "couldnt" construct it on an other way.

From my point of view the scooter market is also the part of the "show off and make bullshit" consumer philosophy

There was that nice Honda Click, now they changed the house and kept the whole technical/construction equipment inside. Instead of making a bigger storage, they just bulshitting. It is more visible on bikes than in the new car business.

yes, well when I was trying out scoots I tried out a second hand honda lead, actually wanted to buy it, it was very nice with lots of power,

shop owner: 15,000,000m
me: 10,000,000m
shop owner: 14,000,000m
me: 12,000,000
shop owner: ok ok 13,000,000
me: ok deal (all this was going back and forth on a piece of paper.) Thinking I got a good deal I get someone to tell him to hold the scoot and I'll be back the next day with the money and my Viet friend.

Anyway go back the next day with the money and he tells me $1300 US dollar not 13m VND lol. I think he made a genuine mistake. So I ended up not buying it for that price.

Anyway the reason I mention the Honda lead is I tried it out, lots of power even though it is a 110cc. Way more power than a 125cc Suzuki Hyatte.

So dont pay too much attention to 110cc vs 125cc. A lot depends on the total weight of the scoot etc, size of tyres, how it is put together, how old the scoot is.

Best thing to do is ride the ones you are interested in, try and hire for a day if possible. And buy the one that has plenty of pick up and feels comfortable to you.

Craigslist is the best place to find a second hand scoot also the second hand Viet stores are good but a little overpriced.

yes I had the exact same felling about the Hyatte so didn't buy one...I had real trouble finding a scoot I liked and had the same list as you.

Was thinking about the new Honda Vision, but they wouldn't let me test ride a new one and it looked a little small so left it.

I didnt get to ride the new SYM Elizabeth but it looks like a really nice scoot. That is the only scoot that you can see the designers have put a lot of thought into. The underseat storage is huge. Lots of room for a passenger etc etc. If you can put aside your manliness it might be worth checking out. Remember they get nice and dirty pretty quick...White ones look good.

Another one you could try which is a nice looking scoot is the Yamaha Beewee 125cc. Perfect for Vietnam, especially the tyres but they are US$3,000 new.

Your criteria are similar to mine except I needed easy access to the frame to attach a trailer hitch.

I have recently upgraded my machine, as my wife needed a new one she got my old one, and mine in FI fully automatic and 125cc.

I took it to a mod shop and they polished the ports and did other minor improvements and, substantially, removed a disc that allows the automatic gear unlimited speed. I also fitted an extra battery, alarm and battery charger, plus a few other electronic goodies.

The seat was short-legged VNese style but it was easily corrected. I bought an additional seat box, removed/cut the base out of it. I transferred the seat from the original seat box to the new, bottomless, one and inserted the bottomless box into the original and lifted the seat aproximately 10-12.5 centimetres/4-5 inches higher than the original. To me about 60 minutes to do it myself.



I had a seat guy in ChoLon make a padded surround for the seat extension. The seat lock, obviously, was moved to the new seat box and replaced, on the original, with an L-shaped bracket that holds it to the frame. The only mod was to extend the seat lock cable to the new box.

The mod shop tested the completed bike of a dynamometer and he said the torgue is almost the same as a 200cc standard engine.

And, yes, it was a Kymco, a Kymco Jockey.

I put about 60,000 kilometres on what is now my wife's set of wheels and had to change the battery (once) and the starter motor (once). Kymco is strange. I did a deal on the price, then they called me back and said there was VND4,000,000 to be refunded as between my order and the delivery (2 days) there was a price reduction!

Never had a car dealer do that to me in North America.

You also get free service for 2 years/24,000km.

Do they have the Kymco Bet and Win 150 in Vietnam?

I have the Kymco B&W 250 and it's seat height is almost 32 inch. I'm 160 cm and I can only tiptoe one foot with it so I imagine the leg space should not be that much different with the 150. Storage is reasonable though it's got a major hump in the middle.

I can attest to Kymco's outstanding service. Just today I received in the mail free thermal gloves from Kymco. Never had a problem with Kymco and that's with doing an 11,000 km round trip traversing my country on it.

khanh44 wrote:

Do they have the Kymco Bet and Win 150 in Vietnam?

Kymco renames it's products to match the culture in each marketing area.

khanh44 wrote:

Storage is reasonable though it's got a major hump in the middle.

The floor area for the driver is flat, the seat hump is about 2"/5cm.

khanh44 wrote:

I can attest to Kymco's outstanding service. ... Never had a problem with Kymco and that's with doing an 11,000 km round trip traversing my country on it.

Exactly my experience, tough little buggers. You have to know that the Jockey model is slightly larger than their smallest model but both are 125cc.

Does the Jockey use Honda sh50 engine?

Jaitch,

You put the bug into my ear. I also saw some Kymco on Sg streets and I remember it from Europe. Your argument is really close to my demands, I think I gonna investigate it. There are 2-3 Kymco dealers in Nha Trang where I stay.
Our luck that Vnese everyday philosophy (like others, hehe) is really snobbish so Kymco even can be better than SYM but they have no name and enough respect here, so their price is the closest to the realities.
I checked some Vnese sites, some guys say Kymco is better than SYM in general. A second hand "Space" Jockey made around 2010-11 costs 8-12 million VND on the Vnsese web.

Ja, Honda Lead/SCR:

Do you know guys that the SCR is the Chinese version of the Lead? And how strange, the SCR has bigger respect, somehow Vnese ppl think SCR is better than LEAD, even it is made in "Trung Quoc".

I tried it and I feel it is weaker than a 125cc engine. And I really got bored with its design.

Attila Elisabeth:
older ones: came with carburetor, from last (?) year there are FI versions.
But there are at least 2 versions at the dealers, the 110cc comes with FI, around 37 million, and the 125cc comes with carburetor, but it seems to be a bit smaller, and the storage is smaller than in the 110cc one. Both of them called Attila Elisabeth

Annoying in Attila: the gas handle bar is too thick -  and the girls hands are smaller than ours, i do not understand it.

So none of you tried the Excel II?

Khanh,

I can see Kymco has a 165cc scooter called "Solona" in the Vnese market. Seems cool. I can see the new Kymcos even have charger for the cellphones. Check their site, i dont wanna add their link here.

I'm thinking of getting the Suzuki GN 125 when I move to Vietnam for the long treks. I already have one here and I like it. For inner city I'll just use my fiance's motorbike.

I was surprised Kymco was not that popular in Vietnam considering the quality of their machines and 2 year warranty when most other scooters offer 1 year warranty. Kymco also makes good ATVs.

Sym seems to be more popular in Vietnam. Maybe it's the styling design but quality wise from speaking with other Sym and Kymco owners and owning some myself I'd say Kymco is better in that area.

khanh44 wrote:

I... I was surprised Kymco was not that popular in Vietnam considering the quality of their machines and 2 year warranty when most other scooters offer 1 year warranty. Kymco also makes good ATVs.

Sym seems to be more popular in Vietnam. Maybe it's the styling design but quality wise from speaking with other Sym and Kymco owners and owning some myself I'd say Kymco is better in that area.

It's all to do where the machines are made at how much is done in VN.

Kymco was part owned by Honda and they share technology. Kymco makes it's own engines.

Ymel wrote:

I can see Kymco has a 165cc scooter called "Solona" in the Vnese market. Seems cool. I can see the new Kymcos even have charger for the cellphones.

Kymco owned dealership is:
23B Quang Trung
TP. Nha Trang
Tỉnh Khánh Hòa
ĐT : +84-(0)-58-382-1898

Kymco web site: < http://kymco.com.vn >

the new Kymco Like looks good...