My Vespa is fixed, according to Joe at Vespa Ft Lauderdale but he's keeping it for a few days until I get back from California just to make sure the scooter really is working properly. Then I will be able to sell it and wash my hands of this whole unhappy period of my life.
The problem with the Vespa was apparently a loose fuel injection unit which the computer would have revealed immediately had Vespa Miami done as they promised and taken the scooter all the way to the Ft Lauderdale main store 45 minutes away and tested the scooter. Instead they buggered about and made me return three times to get the job done. Each time I was polite and more frustrated and though they discovered the broken check valve in the evaporative system they failed completely to discover the original cause of the stuttering.
Joe is a piece of work and he it is that forced me to decide to sell the scooter. he told me that the Vespa shouldn't go beyond 70 miles per hour or it would die a premature death, which if true makes a nonsense of the water cooling and the rev limiter and so on- all the precautions Piaggio has built in to the scooter to assure long and useful life. Then he said riding the Vespa flat out sucked "too much fuel" into the engine so that when you roll off the gas the engine is starved for fuel and hesitates. Then he suggested that I was shortening the life of the scooter by daring to ride the scooter at wide open throttle. I know its all rubbish and I also know the Vespa will now run smoothly and reliably but I don't want to go near South Florida's only Vespa dealer again.
Joe may know how to read a computer print out but he epitomizes to me a man who services machines but understands neither riders nor scooters. He also confirms me in my belief that the Modern Vespa is not a machine to be ridden. It is to be admired ( and it is beautiful) and purchased by inexperienced riders who want something cool in their lives. Joe reminded me more than once that I have ridden my 250 further than anyone else he has come across, and at 11,000 miles I don't really feel that that is very far at all.
If my style of riding is too much by Vespa Fort Lauderdale/Miami standards then I need to accept the fact that if anything happens to the scooter after the warranty expires in November I will be on my own, and it will be a world of hurt with these bozos smirking and saying "I told you so."
I went to Pure Triumph down the street with my buddy Diggy who had been turned on by his first sight of the "gangsta" MP3 ( Diggy is 24 and his vernacular is quite an education for this old man) where he fell in love with the Ducati Monster and I confirmed my lustful feelings for the Triumph Bonneville. My wife sounded relieved when I called her and said I was moving on from the Vespa. Diggy looked me as though I was mad when I asked if he wanted to look at Piaggio's three wheeler. We had just finished being verbally abused by Joe and Diggy said: "No Dude. I will be worrying all the time about over revving the thing and then I'll end up starving it for fuel." And we laughed together all the way to the motorcycle shop. I don't think Diggy had ever seen me so angry as I was during my confrontation with Joe, and that revelation brought home to me how upset I have been over this broken Vespa mess.
$5600 obo.
