As a scooter mechanic, I’ve worked on pretty much everything at one time or another, from Piaggio’s, Peugeot’s, Yamaha’s, and right down to the cheap and nasty crap like the first generation Chinese scooters.

As far as I’m aware, Piaggio actually released the first big selling 4 stroke 50cc scooter with the Vespa ET4 50cc, over 100mpg compared to 65-70mpg for it’s 2 stroke counterpart definitely made it a winner among commuters, but with it’s high European build quality and all metal monocoque chassis, it wasn’t the cheapest scooter on the market, and this was the way the market was heading: 16 year old lads still wanted scooters with the best handling and performance (a niche pretty much dominated by the Piaggio NRG, Gilera Runner and Yamaha Aerox, in that order), and older people trading in their cars for cheap transport wanted something just that; cheap.

The problem is as I see it, most car owners see their £6-7000 car (at the cheap end) as a big machine, they then look at a scooter and thing “oh it’s only a scooter” and wonder why it costs £1600+ for the top of the range Italian liquid cooled 50cc’s, not realising that just as much development goes into these as modern cars get, right down to race track testing.  So with this in mind, the car owner trots off to find the cheapest scooter available, and usually finds the cheap Chinese scooters being sold en-mass through the internet and eBay.

So what’s wrong with them?

Admittedly, they have got a lot better recently; the first generation Chinese scooters had the worst build quality imaginable, with lots breaking by the time they got to the end of the street with faulty electronics etc, but they have improved a fair bit in later years.

I think Chinese scooters are perfectly acceptable forms of transport, as long as you see them for what they are; cheap transport with good fuel economy.  If you pay £500 for a brand new scooter, don’t expect Italian quality because you simply will not get it.  The way I see them is, if you buy one you can use it everyday for a year, not service it and throw it away, and it’s only cost you £500, or £1.37 a day, which is less than what a bus to and from work would cost you, let alone a car.

Since the Chinese scooters are so cheap and don’t have a regulated dealer network, you also tend to find that most Chinese scooter so called “dealers” are either one man bands selling them from his garden shed on eBay, or a car dealer in to make a quick buck, neither of which have any specific scooter experience or significant backup.  In the early days of Chinese scooters, this was a major problem as when they went wrong, their “suppliers” didn’t carry any spares and most places ended up having to order in extra Chinese scooters, just to break them for spares for warranty work, as by law all new and second hand vehicles require a 6 month parts and labour warranty if sold by a dealer, unless sold at auction, which is why so many where sold on eBay originally, because it got the Chinese scooter dealers out of any liability.

Nowadays, the spares backup isn’t so much of a problem, as there are now a few major importers and stockists, as well as increased quality and multiple Chinese scooters being sold under different brands, sharing the same spares and parts.

As a former mechanic, my biggest problem with Chinese scooters was the fact they weren’t sold by proper dealers, and these people never got paid a PDI fee like the bigger franchises do.  The PDI is a Pre-Delivery Inspection, but it is also meant to include a strip down and copper greasing off all the bolts for later servicing in the scooters life.  Although not essential, if you’ve ever had to remove an M6 low quality mild steel bolt after a year of picking up road crap and rusting, you’ll know why they need greasing from new!  At my work I was trained to do every major bolt that was used regularly in servicing plus a few others before the scooters even turned a wheel, so when it came back for servicing, our life was easier and the customers life was easier if they needed work doing, the costs for drilling out rusted and snapped bolts tend to be a lot.

Due to the fact that most cheap Chinese scooters don’t have any of this done from new, just battery acid and air in the tyres (if that!), most mechanics and scooter dealerships won’t touch them with a barge pole.

If you’re planning on getting one of these cheaper Chinese scooters, it might be worth ringing around your local mechanics and telling them you already have one, will they work on it?  If it’s no from everyone, I wouldn’t bother getting one unless you’re fairly mechanically able yourself.

So can you get decent Chinese scooters?

Actually, yes you can now, but with varying prices, because as quality goes up, so does price unfortunately.  They’ll all do around 40mph when derestricted, but 30mph as per the law when restricted.
The 3 main groups of Chinese scooter are:

The traditional cheap Chinese scooter (Sukida, Lifan, Skygo, Baotian, Zhongyu, Kinroad, Jianshe, Jialing, Jinlun, Xinghue, Skyjet etc you get the idea), all the 50cc scooters are pretty much the same bike (Baotian QT50)

These are the original Chinese scooters sold by many, and in my opinion, are perfectly good bikes providing you use them for what they are; cheap transport.  Like I said before, if you buy one and use it for a year then throw it away, it’ll still cost you less than your bus fairs would.

Generally as well, most of these are bought unregistered, and you have to pay a £65 registration fee and £15 tax on top of this (along with number plate and petrol), which is something to factor into the cost of buying one too.

Pros:  Cheap transport, excellent fuel economy

Cons:  Not PDI’d properly most the time, no official spares supplier, hidden costs.

Peugeot VClick

This is the same as above believe it or not, just the normal Baotian Chinese scooter but rebranded under Peugeot.  This retails at £829 according to the official Peugeot website, and this includes a PDI, Petrol & Number Plate.  However, this doesn’t include Registration fee and Tax, so add another £80 to this for on the road price.

Pros:  Proper dealer network and PDI with a full 2 year warranty

Cons:  Still the same cheap Chinese scooter as the originals, nothing to stop you buying one and just fitted Peugeot parts to it if it goes wrong.

Piaggio Zip 50cc

This is the classic Italian Piaggio Zip, but now assembled in China, even though it still uses many Italian parts.  The price is normally £1099 OTR, but is currently reduced to £999 OTR.  The £999 cost is exactly that - £999, includes PDI, Number Plate, Petrol, Tax, Registration, everything.  You just need to sort out your own insurance as with any bike, but even this Piaggio cater for by providing very good insurance rates through Piaggio Plus run by Lexham Insurance.

The Piaggio Zip’s come with a full 2 years unlimited millage parts and labour warranty, backed up by the biggest scooter dealership network in the country, with next day delivery spares if it even breaks down.

Our local CBT & Test training centre tried one of these out and were so impressed they made their entire 50cc fleet the new Piaggio Zip’s, which in my mind, really proves how good they are, considering they’re being used all day everyday during CBT’s, and my old work has never had any returned for warranty work yet either.

Pros:  Huge dealer network with next day spares backup, very reliable, top quality, top brand and will hold their money compared to other manufacturers

Cons:  Most expensive of the Chinese range, but still cheap at only £999, which includes registration and tax and everything.

My overall opinion on these bikes is, you get what you pay for, and they’ll treat you how they treat them.  If you buy the cheaper Chinese scooters, PDI them properly, and service them regularly, they’ll happily last 2 years nowadays, but after that don’t expect brilliant resale value.  If you’re not mechanically minded enough to do this yourself, the Peugeot VClick or Piaggio Zip’s are the better option, although the VClick is just a rebranded cheap Chinese scooter, so I personally don’t see the point in paying £900 after fee’s for one, considering the Zip is better quality for only £999, and will still easily sell for £5-600 after 2 years.

You’ll further save money if you’re getting one of these scooters instead of a car for commuting, they all do 100-120mpg, so the fuel savings alone will cover the cost of their purchase after 6 months or so, and if you passed your car test before February 2001, you don’t even need to take a CBT to go on the road, nor need L plates!

Early Suzuki Katana’s had the Suzuki air cooled engine in them, whilst later Suzuki Katana’s had Suzuki’s new liquid cooled engine, and where designated AY50R for the race production version.

One notable feature of the Suzuki Katana’s are their very low gearing, which means the engine does more revolutions per wheel revolution compared to other scooters, this provides very quick acceleration but a lower top speed, even on tuned engines, most other derestricted scooters can keep up on top speed, but will struggle to match a race tuned Suzuki Katana on shear acceleration.

Although some people see the Suzuki Katana’s low gearing as a problem, it is also the scooters greatest strength, with blisteringly fast acceleration, most other scooters will struggle to keep up with it in an urban environment, as even when others are tuned and kitted up with performance parts they’ll still struggle to match the Suzuki Katana’s 0-30 times. When the liquid cooled Suzuki Katana is tuned it is practically untouchable against all the other 50cc scooters on the market in these times, it’ll only loose out on longer roads where speeds of 50mph+ can be acheived by other LC scooters.

The Suzuki Katana’s are primarily restricted mostly in the exhaust, so in the very early models it requires binning and replacing with a race exhaust, whilst in the later versions with a 2 part exhaust, you can grind out the internal restrictor cone and refit the exhaust, although nothing will match the performance that an aftermarket race exhaust gives for the Suzuki Katana. On the very early models, the CDI is also restricted and requires replacing with an aftermarket model, although this isn’t a problem on the later scooters.

As with my usual reccommendation, Giannelli Exhausts generally make the best performance exhausts for scooters, and since they’re all e-marked, completely road legal and come with a warrenty when fitted by an authorised mechanic, so are by far the best tuning option for road going Suzuki Katana’s, and all other scooters that are being tuned for the road.

When fitting a Giannelli race exhaust to your Katana, it’ll require a slightly higher jet (0 to 2 sizes on non catalysed Suzuki Katana’s, I don’t think they made any with catalytic converters) and slightly lighter rollers, since performance exhausts allow the Katana to make more power but at a higher rpm. Tuning the rollers to 0.5 - 1 gram lighter than standard generally does the trick for Giannelli race exhausts on the Katana’s, but it varies between exhausts and tunes, and the Suzuki takes 17×12mm rollers, 6.6g as standard.

After fitting a race exhaust, the biggest benefit the Scooter Katana will gain during tuning is by fitting a performance big bore kit, adding a 40% increase in capacity and more than doubling the power. Malossi and Polini make the best big bore kits available for tuning the Suzuki Katana, and will provide the best performance and reliability compared to the cheaper big bore kits on the market . As you’re increasing the capacity with the Malossi big bore kit, a bigger jet is required to be fitted in the carb, usually around 6-8 sizes larger, although doing a plug chop after a test ride to check the jetting is reccommended to check your scooter isn’t running lean after it’s tuning, otherwise it can be liable to go bang.

When tuning your Suzuki Katana, it is important to make sure you run it on the best quality fully synthetic oil, especially with the Katana’s oil pump system, as it can be prone to clogging up the exhausts, especially the standard ones. This is one of the reasons why fitting an aftermarket race exhaust to these scooters can provide such a huge difference on older models.

After fitting the Giannelli race exhaust and tuned big bore 70cc Malossi cylinder kit, you’ll have a exceptionally fast accelerating scooter, but without an amazing top speed increase compared to other scooters, due to the Suzuki Katana’s low gearing. You can now either keep the fast acceleration, or sacrifice a little and fit a Malossi gear up kit to your Katana, allowing it to use some of this new found power provided by your Malossi big bore 70cc kit to give you a better top end, good for another 10mph in most cases. Although it looses some acceleration by fitting a Malossi gear up kit, your scooter will still be faster accelerating than a standard untuned Suzuki Katana, so don’t think a gear up kit will make performance worse than before.  Top Racing also manufacture gear up kits and I have used these in the past too, but Malossi always make the best parts, and I prefer to use Malossi for the peace of mind knowing I have the best performance tuning parts in the business fitted.

For even higher increases in power, bigger carbs and aftermarket variators are available, but do not make as bigger differences as the Giannelli race exhausts, the Malossi big bore 70cc kits and the gear up kits. The Malossi variator will provide a substancial benefit if it is fitted onto a Suzuki Katana that is older and has done a lot of millage, as this combined with a new Malossi Kevlar belt will give a lot smoother acceleration and a slight top speed increase.

Done all this? Consider improving your handling and getting some new tyres and suspension

Typical real world fuel economy figures across our range would be as follows:

50cc ……………………..75-95mpg
100cc…………………….90-110mpg
125cc…………………….70-85mpg
250cc…………………….60-80mpg
400cc…………………….60-72mpg
800cc…………………….50-60mpg

Lower figures are for in-town use and/ or hard riding, upper figures are for open road/ more reasonable speeds.

Despite some of the government fuel consumption figures being touted around my all the major manufacturers, it’s nigh-on impossible to obtain the best figure on any new car, while the combined (So called ‘average’) figure needs a modicum of control to obtain.

These are real figures obtained by real riders!

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Author:  John Thompson of Piaggio Center
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