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Spandi - We already covered that when I purchased my Aprilia it was as an unknown walk in yet you keep bringing networking and sharing a coffed break into the equasion.

It appears that you are not getting it yet that on the 250cc Aprilia deal this was not the case and that deal was not special just for me but rather available to everyone in the USA for over a year and then for two more years the 250cc bikes were available further reduced to $2,599 from the national distributor in Seattle Washington.

Even the forums sponsors sell their 250's in the price ranges that I have indicated Chinese 250cc scooters are selling for.

I am beinging to think your mind is getting lost in a white room some where. Time to change the dosage bud.

For the rest please check local prices at some of your mainstream dealerships for a while first before just assuming that a Chinese scoot will always be the better bargain or you could really loose out.

The thread is mostly about Sym and Chinese head failures in comment on one or two Piaggio valves dropping so I am not following your logic here. If I walk into a Piaggio dealer and asked about a bad head for me to experiment with having bigger valves put in, porting etc the answer is that they do not fail that often so we never had one come through here while at the Chinese dealerships they usually have a pile of them so thats what I know as fact verified in person.

When I spoke with Lance directly and they told me its a know industry wide problem across the board I had to believe them. All the local scooter mechanics I spoke with agreed with Lance on the recomendation that when you replace a head on a Chinese 150 to go on the low side of the torque settings on the studs and tighten the side cover screws, after applying a very small amount of light duty LocTite, to just barely beyond when they initially seat using a nut runner screw driver and refrain from torquing them or using any kind of wrench on them.

When I first got my Lance I found afterwards one of the more common issues was with the Chinese 150 dropping valves and destroing piston tops and with them going lean at high speed and burning holes in the pistons along with toasting valves. I haven't gone so senile yet as to forget the trials folks went though with the Chinese 150cc bikes a few years ago.

Anyways with the pollution issues in China and more strick enforcement of environmental regulations they are going to have continue raising prices so now more than ever it will pay to shop around locally in the mainstream as you can find great deals on new and demo European, Japanese and Korean bikes that will be less of a trial with 100% dealer supported warranties that cover parts and labor along with many times provide a loaner bike or at least a curtosy shuttle to and from the dealership.

Mind you though that there are some folks who will destroy the best engineered equipment in the world telling you it was defective when it really was their own fault. My stuff usually lasts me a lifetime unless someone else touches it. I had a Jacobsen Lawn Mower that ran perfectly for years and easily had another 10 to 20 years left in it that I let my nephew borrow which he destroyed in a few weeks. The brand new name brand mower he bought after they only lasted one season and turns out that all equipment he touches fails in very short time. Turns out his dad is the same way and will destroy most powered equipement in very short time so we have learned especially not to buy a fairly new used car from him as in few short years he can still wear the best of them out. The only thing that stood out with the nephew was the Stella 125cc 2 stroke which was realatively trouble free as his daily ride for about 10 years which was probably because the oil tank sensor would not let him start the bike unless it had oil in it and it had a manual transmisson with no CVT to service.

Original Cushman StepTru with optional front cover. New ones are almost $6,000 but they are the heaviest current model. Add a $120 HarborFreight 6hp and your still below $1,000. The new ones I believe come with more like a 13 hp engine which Harbor Freight has for about $350 which still makes the bike a consideration.

www.cushmanscooters2.com/models

Spandi - I just double checked my facts with multiple locals and in Florida between 2010 and 2011 the Honda derived 250cc Chinese bikes sold at Brick and Mortor dealerships when the Piaggio/Aprilia 250's were selling for $2,999 wer indeed $2,599 to $2,799 and the Vog 260 Monoshock Bikes such as the Tank Vog 260 were selling for $3,299 to $3,499. I pays to shop around and not listen to Internet Rhetoric as Chinese bikes are not always the cheapest way to go. My bike was several hundred dollars cheaper than the VOG bikes and equal in cost to less expensive than the Honda derivatives after considering the much larger trade-in value the Piaggio dealers offered compared to the no-existant to $100 from the clone dealers. Again I am only talking about buying at local brick and mortor dealers and not sight unseen from drop shippers with little to no real support after the purchase.

Everyone across the USA was offered the same $2,999 price that I got and then for two years after that everyone in the country could have taken advantage of the $2,599 price on the Aprilia 250cc bikes. It is only since then that I have spent 30 minutes to an hour each year maintaining a few relationships at the local dealerships. Much less time than you have denying this or twisting things around. People who listened to the likes of you missed out on that deal however eveyone on this forum who walked into an Aprilia Dealership or contacted MotoInternational in Seattle during those years not days or moments could have made exactly the same deal.

Today you have to look and work harder for it however its well worth the effort as you usually end up with a vastly superior product and not have to go through the OCD remanufacturing of the bike to make it right. Its like the original poster said, part or the "Trial and Error".

As for the castings being weak and having defects, Lance themselves warned me about the issue with the stock heads along with most replacements being inconsistant in quality as did several local mechanics that worked primarilly on Chinese bikes with problems. The local mechnics usually had a stock pile of bad heads waiting to be stripped down so they could be sold to the local scrap yard for the best price for the low grade aluminum that they were made from. They did turn me to Parts for Scooters as a sorce of better quality heads and Matt over there has more than proven that they are a few step ahead of the competition.

You have to become known in the community as the nice guy networking and forming relationships. I sometimes if I am driving by a dealership will simply drop in to say high how are you even when I am not in the need of anything more than the use of a restroom. Might bring some coffies or a dozen doughtnut/bagels maybe not. Don't demand anything either and make it a point while I am there to purchase at least some small maintenance item such as a clip, bottle of oil, visor wipe, etc.

Just how I am wired as my Briggs Myers scores pretty accurately indicate.

When I purchased my Aprilia it was the finance manager at the dealership who stopped me at the door as I was leaving asking me to stay and walk with him while he made his rounds and locked up the Mega Dealership handing me the keys to his personal bike to take for an extended ride as he finished locking up the back lot. With the price he offered on a new one and the generous trade in on my Znen it was a no brainer since he was giving me many times what I could have sold the Znen for further reducing my my out of pocket expenses. The Chinese scooter dealers only offered $100 to $150 trade in which made the Aprilia deal with the much larger trade in an even sweeter deal than I had ever hoped for since with the bigger trade in the real out the door costs were a few dollars lower on the Aprilia. I know some will be stomping up and down like Rumple Stiltskin calling me a liar over that however that is how it all worked out in April of 2011. Also being able to get preferred 0% financing through Piaggio instead of using a credit card at the clone dealership allowed me to keep my money in the bank earning interest instead of paying out interest. It just kept getting better and better despite my going in knowing for a fact I could never afford one of those frightfully expensive Italian bikes. I learned from that experience not to listen to the mongers and test out the waters. You strike out a lot for sure but every now and then you hit a home run. Made a few good friends along the way too.

When I went down the folks from one dealership saw me recognizing me and my bike so I had a crowed sprinting in my direction to offer assistance. They invited me to come in and collect myself while they looked over the bike serving me coffee and having someone sit with me a while offering to call for medical assistance if I did not start feeling better. More like extended family now than just strangers one does business with.

Spandi - I paid exactly $200 more for my Aprilia than what the Chinese 250's from Puma, Znen, Rocketa, Tank and such cost in my City. I did not bother looking at the more expensive Linhai. Aprilia pulled out of the Maxi Scooter market because people were not willing to pay the extra few hundred for a very high quality bike and most of that was because of really stupid rumors spread by those that did really vet things out about the costs being so high that nobody could afford them. I believed these dumb internet rumors until I walked into a Piaggio dealership and saw for my self what you could bargain for and walk out the door with. The small Japanese scooters were the high cost bikes compared to the Aprilia.

Why do you keep harping on Vespa when I mostly reference Aprilia and Piaggio branded bikes? Yes the Vespa UniBody steel scooters do cost a bit more however they do not fall apart or shatter on impact or crumble to pieces if left out in the sun. They do not suffer from the issues that others Japanese, Italian and Korean ABS Plastic bikes or Tiawaniese and Chinese have with frail low grade plastics that are more prone to become a total loss in a minor mishap.

I had a 45 mph slide with my Aprilia after hitting a patch of sand on a local highway and all that broke was a turn signal lens which cost an extremely low $1.75 to replace.

Don't be a defeatest. If you keep your eyes and ears open there are still bargains out there on new bikes from Piaggio such as leftover new BV250 and the original BV350's that you can pick up for around $3,000.

I am most certainly glad I did not listen to the likes of you otherwise I never would be riding a bike as nice as my Aprilia. Kymco too has leftovers from prior model years and if you keep yourself open to the possibilites they can also be had for very reasonable prices. Sometimes even Honda during their Garage Sale events drops their prices to insanley low levels. They recently in the past 6 months had their leftover 700cc DCT Naked Cruiser Automatics down to less than $4,000 during a Garage Sale Event which is a whole lot of bike for the money.

Old parking lot next to a prison. The instructors were former MotoCross Racers and shoveled sand in places and tore down fence rails and put them on one section of the course. Had a long way around with a slalom to make it more interesting since you had to a full turn around the course swerving around all the cones to get back to the starting line.

The instructors can make it memorable and fun or a boaring drudge that you will soon forget. I feel I really got my monies worth.