Vehicles & Servicing Best scooter for the money?

When I purchased a motorcycle shortly after I moved here I decided on a 125 cc model size. I had raced 125 cc Bultaco Sherpa motocross about 4 decades ago. I do not have those same quick function in my body now. The 100 ccc models did not have the power to get me out of trouble spots. I tried the 200 cc and thought that with my frustrations in traffic I may use those extra CC's to accelerate too fast when frustrated escaping traffic and get myself in trouble. I can handle organized traffic flows but that does not occur here in the Philippines. When you have dogs, cat, goats, caraboos, pedestrians, bicycles, push carts and caraboo pulled carts, reverse direction motorcycles as well as drunken pedestrians and drunken drivers on the same road you are on: care must be taken. That larger motorcycles can supply the extra speed you may want, but at the same time take you into speeds that can cause you problems as objects come at you. I have the old Yamaha 125 YBR model 2011, there is no grade too steep including Tierra Alta for the bike. I am very happy with the motorcycle, it is not a scooter. The frame size of the MC fits my body. The older used models sell in the 30 to 40,000 P range. Just some thoughts.

 

You are a very experienced rider, would it help an inexperienced rider making a panic stop in downtown traffic?

 

I also started replying about bikes other than scooters. The OP and a subsequent poster asked specifically about automatic scooters, but the question is from an inexperienced rider (at least one who is 250 pounds or so) who wants to start with a full automatic in order to pay full attention to driving (no distracting shifting, with or without clutch).

 

Here is an e-bike if you have the cash and can import it.

As far as I know you need no license or registration for an e-bike in the Philippines, but this might be stretching the point.
2016 Electric Motorcycle Model Line || ZERO MOTORCYCLES

 

Not sure p500,000+ (before import duty) hits the affordable part of the equation. Interesting versions offered though.

 

While I doubt you would ever recover the cost from not buying fuel and not paying registration, 40-50 KW power would climb about anything you need and they have one model weighing less than 300 Lbs which might be important to the wife.

I have already mentioned what I think was best cost/ benefit ratio and that was Kymco Agility 16+, mostly because they are fairly high class and they are reasonably priced. I saw the virtually identical Agility City on Mindoro 2 years ago and they were sticker priced 53,500. If they couldn't order you a 200i you could have them order a bore and piston for a Like 200i as it's same- same case. I wouldn't bother if it were the 150i as there wouldn't be much difference in performance but the difference between the 125i and the 200i (163cc actual) would be noticeable. I liked that Yamaha Nmax you pointed out and I did see where it sells for the equivalent of USD $2,200 in Indonesia but they are not imported there. I think it likely that the Nmax will cost about the same as the Honda PCX150 when it hits a showroom floor (if it does) in the Philippines USD $3,600-4,000. The Agility City 16+ should cost slightly more than 1/3 of the Nmax, much easier to pick up if it gets dropped also being air cooled and lighter weight by about 22-27 Kg or 50-60 lbs. The Agility 16+ has one more thing going for it, simplicity, built on 30-40 years of incremental improvement. The scooter equivalent to being as complicated as a claw hammer and the drive train is shared by the average Kymco.

The Suzuki 16 was-is a pretty sweet scooter but I think they were only marketed in europe.

 

The p118,000 price I found was from The new Yamaha NMAX - Motorcycle Philippines, the link I posted for the NMax is the official Yamaha Philippines site so it should be available here. I would have stopped in Yamaha Duma yesterday was was running from the rain haha. A 250+ pound westerner plus Filipina puts a lot of stress on a motor with only 10-11 horsepower on some of the steep grades around here (maintaining 10kph in 1st gear on a XRM 125 for example). The NMax, still p19,000 more than the p99,000 price of the Kymco 200i Motortrade | Kymco Motorcycles | Like 200i , would not have that problem with its 16 horsepower. Do you know anything about the 300i Kymcos? They have the power but look to be p100,000 more. Motortrade | Kymco Motorcycles | GRANDDINK300i

also found the NMax on motortrade as the article says for p118,000 Motortrade | Yamaha Motorcycles | NMAX

 

The Like is billed as a premium scooter, which I don't think it is except for more storage and a larger cylinder and piston kit. I'd say definitely not worth the money. But that same bore and piston can be put on any super8 or agility 125.

The Kymco like 300 when it first came out had cooling problems which I think were not easily solved, just not a design that transitioned well to water cooling. I haven't heard of any problems with the other 300's, Kymco has been making the Dink and grand Dink for several years and they actually seem to hold their value fairly well which is an excellent indicator.

I still think the Nmax is going to cost about twice what an Agility 16+ costs but the price of the Nmax seems like a good deal with one caveat, I don't like to buy the first year model of anything or the first model after a redesign...of anything. I like to let someone else be the guinea pig. There is an Indonesian owners forum, I don't know how much of it might be in english but might be worth checking out before you buy, if you decide to do so. For what it's worth, I like the looks of the Nmax equally as well as the Honda PCX, at least when you throw in performance and price, the Nmax actually looks better.

 

How is the availability of non asian scooters like Piaggio, Aprilia, Gilera and so on? Piaggio have a very nice 300 cc scooter: the Beverly 300.

 

I never heard of a Piaggio dealership on Negros but that doesn't mean there isn't one, possibly in Bacolod. I have seen Piaggio scooters for sale on OLX.

Aprilia only make/rebrand one scooter 50cc to the best of my knowledge.

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