Scooter help

Nikkisun

My 16 year old son is looking to buy a 50cc moped (he was saving for a car until he found out the insurance would be £5k!!).

He was looking at second hand ones for around £600 but then found these:

http://www.thescooterwarehouse.co.uk/scooters/product/ht50qt-16/

The company is about 40 miles away from us so we can go and see before we buy rather than buy online but it seems cheap to me for a brand new scooter!

Am I missing something or are these ok?

Rolandtheroadie

There has been questionable reliability and spares avaliability for some of the cheap scooters and motorbikes. Not all, but you need to be careful. Google the brand and see what faults (if any) come up.
Speak to them at the shop about spares and servicing too.
Finally, check over on the insurance board and find a company that will give you a 1 years NCB against a car if you've had motorbike/scooter insurance for a year.

petrolhead89

I would STRONGLY advise against the purchase of one of those, I have known 3 people who have had them and have had endless problems with the poor build quality. Stick to the well known makes like Honda.

You really will get what you pay for with those...CRAP

whatmichaelsays

The general consensus amongst enthusiasts tends to be to steer clear of these cheap Chinese machines. Some are fine but whilst they have to pass the same safety standards, there still remains question marks over the reliability and safety of some of these machines. Remember that import tax, shipping and the dealer's mark-up take up a decent chunk of that price - that makes me dread to think of how much (or how little) has been spent on the parts that go into some of these things.

For that sort of money, you could easily pick up a 2-3 year old Peugeot V-Clic (common amongst learner riders), Piaggio Zip / Fly or, for a little more, a Gilera or Yamaha Jog.

Nikkisun

Thanks all - he's back looking second-hand!

Is a liquid cooled scooter a good thing or something to be avoided? (You can tell we've not done this before!)

citykid5

liquid cooled a lot better..try to find a geared one too will make driving a car in the future a lot easier...ck

Coveredinbees!!!!

liquid cooling is fairly irrelevant on a moped as for gears you won't want to be bothering with that when your only going to be doing 30 mph.

forgotmyname

I looked at some cheaper scooters before buying a gilera runner, A lot of money at £1800
But it was brilliant. Never missed a beat.

Sold to my brother in law who had it stolen. You do need somewhere secure to keep them.

Mate had one stolen from his garage. Expensive tools and stuff never touched, Cheapo chinese
scooter taken.

Found it later on a playing field minus all the body panels & anything not needed for it to run.

sassy_one

Avoid them, poor build

boyse7en

Buy a known-brand moped/scooter and you'll be able to resell it when he wants to move on. The secondhand market for no-brand scooters is pretty non-existent.
I started out with a secondhand Gilera Runner 50, and got more than half my money back after running for three years. I then bought a Runner 125 for £1600, and sold it two years later for £1200!

Good brands are (in no particular order) Honda, Yamaha, Gilera, and Piaggio

Second-tier brands (good quality, but less well-known so likely to get less demand (and be cheaper) second hand) are Kymco, Sym, TGB and Benelli.

Don't ignore buying new. Some brands have got insurance offers on at the moment, which may make it cheaper to buy a new scooter than a secondhand one and have to pay more for the insurance.

Nikkisun

boyse7en wrote: »

Buy a known-brand moped/scooter and you'll be able to resell it when he wants to move on. The secondhand market for no-brand scooters is pretty non-existent.
I started out with a secondhand Gilera Runner 50, and got more than half my money back after running for three years. I then bought a Runner 125 for £1600, and sold it two years later for £1200!

Good brands are (in no particular order) Honda, Yamaha, Gilera, and Piaggio

Second-tier brands (good quality, but less well-known so likely to get less demand (and be cheaper) second hand) are Kymco, Sym, TGB and Benelli.

Don't ignore buying new. Some brands have got insurance offers on at the moment, which may make it cheaper to buy a new scooter than a secondhand one and have to pay more for the insurance.

Thanks - do you know which brands have the insurance offers?