Learning the hard way

One of the things you have to know going into it is that scooters are maintenance needy. All scooter owners learn to perform maintenance. That said, I had hoped not to be in this maintenance world on the first day. Unfortunately I am. After riding a total of about 27 miles, the scooter would no longer start up.

When Cathy pulled it out of the garage to try and start it, I think it is possible she flooded the carburetor. Okay...fine...I pulled out the spark plug which looked kind of oily on the end and decided I might as well put a new one in...That had been suggested by a number of scooter people. Unfortunately I also tried to play with the idling speed which I think later bites me.

The scooter would not start up even with a new spark so I decided to let it sit for about 4 hours while I debated my purchase all over again. Don't get me wrong - I've loved the time I've been on it, but nobody wants to do maintenance on a purchase the day you pick it up!!!

After about 4 hours, I was able to get it to start, but because I had messed with the idling screw, I'm afraid it just couldn't stay running in idle. So...I get it running and think I've got the screw adjusted and even go around the block only to have it stall on me just as I come into the driveway. Very depressing because I couldn't get it started back up again. Is it possible I flooded it again? No idea...it is very late and I've played with it quite a bit already so I'll probably sleep on it and see if it starts up in the morning. I did adjust the idling screw way down to try and get the idle to be really high if it does get started again, but at this point I think I'm going to take it back to Brad tomorrow just to have him check it out and make sure it doesn't need a new carburetor...If it does either of us can do it because installing a new carburetor into a scooter is really not all that terrible of a process...and to be honest, I partially got a scooter so I could learn more about engines, so that could be a challenge. Then again, it is still possible I just keep flooding the engine when trying to start it because I prime it with the throttle.

Techno speak for "I broke it"...Now I gotta fix it.