Here's what I've seen with my own eyes: Crank shafts needing welded at 1,000 miles. Odometers stop working at 15 miles. Electrical nightmares under 500 miles...etc.
A gentleman came to my shop last week looking for parts to his Chinese scooter. In his mind, all scooters are the same, which is a shame, because if he'd spent about $800 more than he did, he could have gotten a Japanese scooter that will last for YEARS.
Here's what he said...
Him: "Well, I've had zero problems with my scooter"
Me: "So why do you need parts?"
Him: "Well, the starter went out on it"
Me: "And that's a problem."
Him: "Oh no, we've had this scooter for 5 years now."
Me: "You mean you've driven it in the summers for 5 seasons"
Him: "Yes, we drive it to Safeway."
Me: "How many miles are on it?"
Him: "Oh, less than 1,000"
Me: "And you haven't had any more trouble than the starter?"
Him: "No.... except when I first got it, I tried to lock the steering column, but wires inside were too short by 3 inches. They pulled out, and I had to rewire the whole thing."
Me: "Oh yeah? So, less than 1,000 miles on it, and you've had to re-wire it, and change the starter?"
Him: "Yeah, but that's it."
How does re-wiring a scooter, and having to get a new starter for it constitute "NO PROBLEMS?"
Look, in the 4 seasons that I've been running my scooters... and most of them are way past 7,000 miles... I've only had to CHANGE OIL, REPLACE AIR FILTERS, AND CHANGE SPARK PLUGS. That's it.
A quality scooter will not give you problems. A quality scooter will last for years and years. Why does a used Honda Elite Scooter from the 80s sell for as much as a brand new Chinese Scooter???? COME ON! It's a HONDA! Hondas run forever!!
Friend in Austin, despite the warnings from myself and other scooterists, bought a cheap ROCKETA scooter. I was in Austin for 6 months over the winter, and he had that thing in the shop 5 times! 5 times in 6 months. Then, he just gave up and sold it. Every time the "group" would go for a ride, he had problems.
The savings of $600 - $800 dollars is not worth the hassles of these bikes.
Don't buy CHINESE SCOOTERS.
And if you do, please do not bring it to me to fix. I won't touch them.
We know their toys are painted with lead.
We know their baby formula is tainted.
We know they export toxic Dog food.
We know they export jewelry with lead in it. etc...
We know these products from China SUCK! Why get a scooter from the same place??
4 comments:
This artical is so true, I am living in China at the moment for work, I bought a scooter to see the city easier while I'm here, I have had it for less than a year and done just over 2000km on it, in that time it has been in the shop at least 6 times, I can't really complain as it only cost about 300pound and the cost of fixing it here is around 35rmb = 3 pound 50 but I would never buy one in England, way too much trouble and far to expensive to fix, I'd go Japanese everytime with bikes and scooters
i think your wrong because my mp150tr has over 1000 miles on it and all i had to do was change the oil and put gas in
ZootScoot, you are so right on with that. I work for the Snake Oil Man, so I will post this anonymously, but you know who I am! We are not in the business of scooters, however we sell a lot of Chinese stuff. I see soo many problems with what we sell. The electrical units we do sell brand new, have so many more problems than the ones that we fix ourselves, and re-sell as refurbished. How does that work?? Problem is, they have the technology to make good items, they just dont use it, they would rather sell crap and try to keep people oppressed. Thank you to our American govt for opening the trade market with China....NOT! Buy American or Japanese, or anything non Chinese....you will be a much happier consumer!!!
My friend and I were recently discussing about how technology has become so integrated in our day to day lives. Reading this post makes me think back to that discussion we had, and just how inseparable from electronics we have all become.
I don't mean this in a bad way, of course! Ethical concerns aside... I just hope that as technology further advances, the possibility of uploading our brains onto a digital medium becomes a true reality. It's a fantasy that I daydream about all the time.
(Posted on Nintendo DS running [url=http://knol.google.com/k/anonymous/-/9v7ff0hnkzef/1]r4i ds[/url] DS SeKu)
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