Re: The Daily Chat
Posted: Sun Jan 19, 2020 8:12 am
Mike,
Good find.. the 50cc Buddys are very popular with the college students in Gainesville, Florida, and the two dealers there still sell a lot of them. What is nice about the 125cc ones is that they have the same chassis and body as the 50cc Buddys, so the 125s are light and fast. This is unlike Kymco and TGB where the 50cc scooters are 125 scooters with 50cc engines, and the 50cc 4 stroke Kymcos are painfully slow, while the TGB 50cc 2 strokes are pretty good. The included open top glove box at your knees on the Buddy is also very handy. Common Genuine (PGO), TGB, SYM and Kymco marketing strategies stress that scooters made in Taiwan are much higher quality than those made in mainland China, and some of that is true. Seat material is somewhat better than that on a Chinese GY6 scooter, but not as good as Honda. Engine reliability is very good. The black plastic parts on your scooter are made from a different type of plastic than your red parts. Very often, what is black on yours is a different color, for example, pink on a pink scooter, green on a green scooter and those parts fade to white fairly quickly when left outdoors in the sun. I sold all my Kymco 50s, which were too tall and slow for me with 4-stroke engines. I did keep one 50cc TGB 2-stroke which is too tall for me, but is reasonably quick. I still have three Buddys and one PGO MyBuBu. I have never had a SYM, but see a lot of them in Taiwan, and the Lance brand sold in the US are marketed as made by SYM, to differentiate them from Chinese GY6s and to imply a higher quality. Here is my current Buddy/PGO fleet.. the green is a Buddy 150 Italia International, the blue is a Buddy 50 San Tropez, Pinky is a Buddy 125, and the red/silver is a PGO MyBuBu 125:
Good find.. the 50cc Buddys are very popular with the college students in Gainesville, Florida, and the two dealers there still sell a lot of them. What is nice about the 125cc ones is that they have the same chassis and body as the 50cc Buddys, so the 125s are light and fast. This is unlike Kymco and TGB where the 50cc scooters are 125 scooters with 50cc engines, and the 50cc 4 stroke Kymcos are painfully slow, while the TGB 50cc 2 strokes are pretty good. The included open top glove box at your knees on the Buddy is also very handy. Common Genuine (PGO), TGB, SYM and Kymco marketing strategies stress that scooters made in Taiwan are much higher quality than those made in mainland China, and some of that is true. Seat material is somewhat better than that on a Chinese GY6 scooter, but not as good as Honda. Engine reliability is very good. The black plastic parts on your scooter are made from a different type of plastic than your red parts. Very often, what is black on yours is a different color, for example, pink on a pink scooter, green on a green scooter and those parts fade to white fairly quickly when left outdoors in the sun. I sold all my Kymco 50s, which were too tall and slow for me with 4-stroke engines. I did keep one 50cc TGB 2-stroke which is too tall for me, but is reasonably quick. I still have three Buddys and one PGO MyBuBu. I have never had a SYM, but see a lot of them in Taiwan, and the Lance brand sold in the US are marketed as made by SYM, to differentiate them from Chinese GY6s and to imply a higher quality. Here is my current Buddy/PGO fleet.. the green is a Buddy 150 Italia International, the blue is a Buddy 50 San Tropez, Pinky is a Buddy 125, and the red/silver is a PGO MyBuBu 125: