Modern Buddy

Hey MB World:

I was an idiot. Laid the Buddy down in a bad place and bent the frame. 2007, <4000 miles.

1) Anybody willing to take it off my hands?
2) The shop it's at is willing to pay $300. Is that a good price?

If you're willing to part it out I think you can get more.

Demo_Nic wrote:If you're willing to part it out I think you can get more.

ack! more variables. what are my options? i got it for $2200. can these things be fixed affordably and still remain reliable?

my guy tells me it's pretty much "a goner" if the frame is bent

zzarate wrote:

Demo_Nic wrote:If you're willing to part it out I think you can get more.

ack! more variables. what are my options? i got it for $2200. can these things be fixed affordably and still remain reliable?

my guy tells me it's pretty much "a goner" if the frame is bent

It is pretty much is a goner with a bent frame. You could possibly get another frame for it, but then it has to be entirely rebuilt. Unless you're up to doing that yourself, that's not very cost effective. I'd say you could likely get more from parting it out but are you willing to do the legwork to accomplish that? Take a look in the for sale section here and you'll see a number of people who have parted out their scooters. Reading those threads might give you an idea of what you're up against.

How did that happen? I could see in a wreck, but just from laying it down or.....did it fall over? That concerns..... me are these frames really that delicate? That's a bummer tho, well, I would get a second opinion is there another repair shop nearby? Is it immobile at this point?

kimmiekarma wrote:How did that happen? I could see in a wreck, but just from laying it down or.....did it fall over? That concerns..... me are these frames really that delicate? That's a bummer tho, well, I would get a second opinion is there another repair shop nearby? Is it immobile at this point?

Thanks for your concern Kimmie, the problem was when i laid it down, it slid into a high sidewalk. I drove it over 10 miles to the mechanic and it was drifting to the right.

I'm able to get it out but I leave to Spain on Tuesday!

zzarate wrote:I'm able to get it out but I leave to Spain on Tuesday!

See that's because you got the St. Tropez instead of the Pamplona. ;-p

zzarate wrote:

kimmiekarma wrote:How did that happen? I could see in a wreck, but just from laying it down or.....did it fall over? That concerns..... me are these frames really that delicate? That's a bummer tho, well, I would get a second opinion is there another repair shop nearby? Is it immobile at this point?

Thanks for your concern Kimmie, the problem was when i laid it down, it slid into a high sidewalk. I drove it over 10 miles to the mechanic and it was drifting to the right.

I'm able to get it out but I leave to Spain on Tuesday!

When you say laid it down do you mean you placed it on its side on the ground? then it slid cuz it was near the curb? Or is laying it down a term used for a spill? Feel like I'm missing something here....... either way I am hoping you can get it worked out somehow.....

It means he/she had a wipeout. The nice way of saying that in motorcyclese is I "set it down" or "put it down" or "laid it down."

Sliding and hitting a high curb will do some damage for sure. Just be glad it was the scooter and not the rider that hit the curb.

The bottom line here is that it hit the curb in a slide. If it was still moving at a decent clip, and it it hit the curb just right (or just wrong, as the case may be), that's enough to bend the frame. The other factor is that these scooters are so inexpensive to begin with that even moderate fixable damage will be considered totaled, at least from an insurance standpoint. I laid my Italia down hard enough that it bent the handlebar and destroyed all of the headset plastics plus a bunch of other minor damage. My insurance company called it totaled because the cost to fix that was greater than replacement cost. Now, keep in mind that they are factoring in the cost of having a shop do the work. I could have repaired it myself for much less than the replacement cost, but I decided to just take the money and get a new(er) one. Back to this case, though, when the frame is bent, it's not cost effective to fix it no matter who does the work.

Oh ok ...... that all makes sense now.... thanKs for clarifying K1.

i could see that getting parted out real nice. seems people always need spare parts. must be some good "used" pieces on it. lots of them. even the panels can fetch some quick cash, i believe

Here's the deal with making money on parting it out:
Do you have the time, knowledge, skills, tools and other resources necessary to completely take the scooter apart, sell the parts, pack them and ship them? There are people out there occasionally looking for whole Buddy engines. Can you pull yours out and get it to someone?

That's a LOT of time and work, especially if you've never done something like this before. If I was buying, I'm not sure I'd trust someone who'd never done it before to correctly remove some of the parts.

Are you getting any insurance money for the scooter?