A Chinese 150cc Scooter Saga

Well we pulled the trigger on a 150cc scooter for one of my friends. The truck showed up 4 days later.


Out came the crate.


I have never bought a crated bike before so this was a first for me.


It took about 45 minutes to get it out of there without damaging anything.


Front view.

Rear view.


I now have 4 break in miles on it. It is a 2008 leftover from a large manufacturer that ends up selling these under various labels. It has decent power and is pretty light in weight. The price was $888 shipped with a 6 month warranty. Insurance should be $100 per year.
I am neither endorsing nor condemning Chinese bikes at this point. Curiosity got the best of me and I wanted to see how these things hold up.

This will be interesting, well see! If your a good luck kinda guy it is possible for it to hold up for a while. But if your not [like me] it will fail in a few days or weeks.

$888 shipped for a 150 is real cheap. Its not that much so well see about it! Keep us updated!

Do replace the fuel line and fuel filter pretty quick, it will start leaking.
I sold mine with about 1200 miles on it, had to put a clutch in it, was $60 on the internet. I removed the aluminum sheeting on the floorboard, really worthless, the rubber underneath is much nicer to ride your boots on. I put a $70 aftermarket Harley windshield on it, homemade brackets. I also cut and removed the outer muffler cover, it started vibrating on the muffler and was driving me crazy, just painted it with some barbecue paint.
One thing: DO NOT use the quick release mounting for the tail box. The plastic tongue broke on mine and the box went tumbling on a ride to the store. Just bolt the box directly to the rack.

Thanks for the head up on that stuff.

Go over the bike really well. replace fuel lines and filter. Change oil. get the Chinese oil out of there. Put in a good NGK spark plug. Flush out the fuel tank and carb. Check bolts/nuts for tightness. Check electrical connections, many problems there. Keep fingers crossed.

Maybe scooter love you long time, be number 1..make you, whole family happy.

I learned my lesson on Chinese scooters. never again.

I've been SO tempted to do the same. Keep us posted on what you find and how things go.

I dig these leap of faith chinese bike experiments! good luck. keep us posted with how it goes

found this vid review by someone. looks like a very similar scoot. have a looksy :)

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I don't think I can send 300 lbs of sand from China to my house for $888.

Nice video.

Oh, another potential issue I just though of on those. I notice it has the FAKE ABS, as he showed in the video. I don't know how bad the case is with this scooter, he didn't seem to mind it. But I will tell you, it sucks.

If it is a bad case, you will likely need to take the restricter off. It may require some drilling and fitting to get the brake line to fit without it though. What it is is that little brass colored tubish thing that the brake line goes into. This restricts brake fluid, which means less power. It does not just release a slight amount of pressor to the wheel to prevent it from completely locking up, it just takes away braking power under hard braking!



The Review was ok. He makes some good points, but I don't believe that its anywhere nearly as reliable as a Honda or other quality scoot. Not nearly.

I'd tell him to put some real miles on that scoot and then report back to us. I'll believe it if I see him put 30,000 miles with only basic maintenance and few troubles on. But who knows? Some guys have with these chinese scooters, and some just end up with a money pit.

On the other hand, if gas reaches $5 a gallon and the scooter can go 4 or 5 tankfuls before it explodes, it paid for itself.

it's like any bike from 30 years ago. You go over every time you ride. Nice if it keep on keeping on but I would go over it from the bolts on up.

Loos good so far.

I guess there is a bit of luck of the draw in these scooters.

Other than that, just keep an eye and hand on it.

Hope you stay a happy customer.

well i for one will be following this saga as it progresses. this is one of those lowest price, most generic chinese scooters around. i doubt it's a ZNEN scoot, but most likely from some other chinese maker

i can read chinese scooter forums and the info and opinions and experiences are just all over the place. and now that i have some experience with my own scooter, have collected some tools, and am comfortable with the idea of doing some work on it, a chinese scooter for some transpo purposes is viable. trouble is i live in Cali, and the 200cc big wheeled scooter i would consider isn't approved for emissions by Cali. but a 150cc big wheeled scooter is, and it would certainly be more appropriate for climbing some local hills and getting down some faster roads then my smaller wheeled 125 is

thing is, i wouldn't want a "project" bike. or anything i would have to fuss with too much after a good PDI. i like the fact my Kymco just runs and runs and runs, and does it well. starts and goes, battery still works, bulbs don't blow, valves don't need adjusting, nothing has been changed, swapped out, or broken. i also like its solid feel on the road

but, you never know. and i figure if THIS chinese scooter has what it takes to go along fine, you never know if i might pick up a 150 with 16in wheels for $1000 just for the heck of it. not expecting it to last too long, but if i got even 12,000 fairly trouble free miles for $1000 out of it, that would be a deal for me, really. heck, even 10,000 miles. especially as a "second" scoot

we shall see...

on all counts

I had a Vento ZipR3i and it was a great bike for me. I had to go over it with a fine tooth comb initially, and fix one minor problem, but it never let me down as a daily driver and I wish I still had it. I knew it was probably luck of the draw to some degree, though the PO had 2 of them and ran them both WFO all day long in the True Grits rally right out of the box with zero issues.

Good luck! Hope you got a good one.

Just for reference . . the China 16" wheel scooters usually have some variation of a GY6-B engine. The ignition system components ARE generally the same as non-B engines.

For those considering a China scooter . . the Baja SC150, sold by Pep Boys, has both front and rear disc brakes. Also include Superior Powersports in your research.

Why anyone would willingly buy a Baja scooter from Pep Boys is beyond me. I can truly say that I've never seen a scooter in their store that was assembled in a road worthy manner. But that actually pales in comparison to the fact that the company was fined $5million dollars for falsifying emissions on a quarter million vehicles and engines. They are known to lie and to cut corners. Why reward bad behavior?

I could be wrong . . but it seems like the crux of the emissions violations was that the carbs did not have a plug over the low-speed mixture screw.