Piaggio BV 500

The only concern I would have would be Service and Parts availibility. I have been watching the Aprillia forums and it seems that North America had problems before and now during the Piaggio take over. As thes Scooters have a very small share of our market there are long ,lonnggg, longggggg parts waits .

letmedance, that's one of the reasons I'm fishing for info on this particular machine. I know there have been problems but I think Piaggio is making progress on the parts and service front. If you look at Vespa, Piaggio is selling a ton of them and from what I can gather satisfaction levels are very high. I'm hoping things are similar on the BV 500 front, but I have heard some rather disapointing remarks regarding the Aprilia Atlantics and to a lesser extent the Scarabeos and all three of these use the same basic engine and running gear. To be fair though, most, if not all of the comments I've read have been pre 2005 model year.
As I've said before the Majesty is still at the top of the list.

In Seattle, the local Vespa dealer sells Piaggio. I traded in my SWing-600 for the BV500 and am very pleased.

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Last month I sat on a BV500 in tha Vancouver Vespa dealer. It was fine, but like my Majesty better.

I saw a new Burgman 400 yesterday parked outside a sports medicine office. I saw it again going the other way on the freeway. Gray color. No one's selling Maj's around here, so the Burgman or the Honda Big Ruckus (I've seen two of them recently) are the only choices for people interested in maxi scoots in eastern Washington.

Dee Willis
1964 Cushman Eagle
1973 Vespa 150
2006 Cherry Red Maj

RE: "Honda Big Ruckus"

A lot of guys who have the BR love it - but the consensus is that it is oddly slow and feels underpowered for a 250cc. Personally, I love the industrial looks and if Honda stuffed the twin-cylinder 600 from the SWing in there and upped the wheels to 16-inchers (front and rear) I wold be first in lne to buy one.