today my gas gauge decided to work: ten things i hate about stella scooters
i love my scooter. i love the quirks, i love almost everything about it. but stellas do have a few problems, and mine is no exception. today (just as i was about to run out of gas) i realized that my gas gauge started working. it hasn't worked consistently in about a year, so this was a surprise. in honor of my suddenly cooperative fuel gauge, i decided to mention some of the problems i've run into on my stella.
my headlight lens keeps falling off. serious. i think i'm on my fifth or sixth headlight lens. twice, i caught it before it shattered on the ground and glued it back on. this was a temporary fix at best. genuine replaced it several times under warranty, but my warranty is up now, so i'll be putting on a piaggio headlight when this one loses its will to live.
the stella crank is pretty crap. mine grenaded at about 6800 miles, once i was well outside of warranty coverage. now i've got a nice solid mazzy crank in there, and hopefully it will last a couple years longer.
my petcock stopped working in degrees. first the breather tube broke off, which rendered the petcock almost useless. it no longer mattered whether the lever was set on "reserve", "on" or "off", the gas would keep flowing until it was empty. a while later the filter in the bottom of my gas tank broke off. i have no idea how either of these was able to break, since they're in the bottom of the tank. nothing could possibly hit them... the replacement part from piaggio is mostly metal. hopefully it will fare better than its plastic counterpart. luckily i didn't have the problem which some stellas had, where they would drain all their gas onto the floor of the garage if the petcock wasn't turned off at night. so for me it was mostly an inconvenience.
the lack of a reserve lever was only an inconvenience until my fuel gauge stopped working. with neither reserve nor a fuel gauge, i ran out of gas more than my fair share... the fuel gauge problem is a weird one though. i've checked the connections to the gauge itself, i've even replaced the sender unit in the gas tank. i know both ends of the wires are securely fastened. but for some reason it still doesn't work. except for a few odd days like today. still haven't figured that one out.
this one is minor, but the mirrors are no good. they are placed just wide enough for me to get a nice view of my shoulders. i replaced the stock mirrors with a legshield mirror, and now i can actually see things behind me!
stellas have some strange electrical demons. i think i've got to classify the fuel gauge quirks under this category. other issues include the switching module catching fire last summer, some odd fuse trouble, a handful of wires in the headset that decided to become a fuse, an intermittent short that randomly blows light bulbs, a horn switch that's failing and randomly honks, an odd electrical burning smell, a tail light lens that's kinda melted because it had a 10 watt bulb in it instead of 5...
my shift cables melted once, but that was my own fault. my exhaust pipe didn't like to stay on, and one day i didn't notice that it had fallen off until i tried to shift...
the little plastic speedo gear in my front hub has broken twice. the first one was broken from the factory, and the second one ate it around 1200 miles. the new one seems to be holding up better.
the speedometer is really optimistic. it's about 10% off. this seems to be a pretty consistent problem with scooters, but how hard could it be to fix it? i think they just don't want us to know how slow we're really going.
the paint on a tangerine stella is horrible. i've seen vintage sixties vespas with fewer rock chips. one summer long road trip, and my paint is hosed. i guess it means mine will have a custom paint job that much sooner.
I was having trouble too with gas gauge, horn, etc. A friend of mine worked on them, and said the wiring is in the shifter part of the Stella, and the turning (shifting) caused them to be cut. He fixed them & said it would just be a matter of time b4 they wore out again from the shifting. My gas gauge quit working about a month later
Stellas have a few problems, but you can't compare the "feel" of this machine to any other scooter.
I bought my 2007 Stella when it was about 10 months old with 1100 miles from a fellow who bought it to avoid withdrawal symtoms while his vintage Vespa was in the shop - which was often.
Once his Vespa was fixed, he parted with this baby-blue beauty for $2100 bucks, and I bought it. Quite a bargain.
I had Motorcycles as a kid, up to 450cc, and more recently had a late-model, 4-stroke, 80cc Honda Elite. The Honda was an absolutely flawless machine, with no problems other than a sticky automatic choke.
When I rode away on the Stella, I thought it was crude and cumbersome, no doubt due to the 2-stroke engine and the manual transmission. After the effortless Honda, I found it a handful.
On the way home in the dark, a friendly motorist at a stop-light told me I had no tail or brake lights, and i was not pleased.
When I delved into that later, I found that the harness and connectors for the hand brake were just too short, and the assemblers just didn't bother to connect them.
The battery was crap, and the electric start was not reliable.
I later found that the gas gauge only worked when the tank was completely full, and then only for 5 minutes after the fill-up. After that, it went to empty and stayed there until the next time i needed gas.
If this sounds like a trashing of the Stella, read on.
I fixed the brake lights for about 20 cents after the dealer told me the warranty was only good for the original owner. I simply used some butt connectors to splice some extension wires and connect the hand-brake light. He told me how to fix the gas gauge, but I never bothered, since it has a reserve tank.
As I rode it over the next few days, I grew to love this ungainly machine. It's quirky, but the torque is amazing, and the control I felt with the manual transmission was awesome.
I even found that I really like the Stella "perfume" from the two-stroke.
I kick start it and don't even use the electric start. I'll eventually replace the battery, but it starts easily with a kick. I doubt I'll ever use the starter.
A nice touch is the spare tire - a rarity on modern scooters. I had a flat on the Honda, and had to take it to the dealer to have the tire replaced. That sounds rediculous, but the Honda requires disassembly of the drive-train to remove the rear tire.
I've since bought a 2002 Kymco 150 People to play with, and it's actually about 7 miles faster than the Stella, but at 55mph, it feels like it's going to fling you into a ditch.
The heavier Stella is absolutely stable at 50 mph, and the kick you get from fast get-away from the manual transmission is fantastic.
The Stella isn't for everyone, but the look, feel and handling of it is like no other scooter you'll ever ride.
In short, it's the Lamborghini of scooters: If you want to DRIVE a scooter, as opposed to just being carried around, it's as good as it gets.
i wouldn't part with it for anything.
Post new comment