Scooterville

Published: Thursday, June 26, 2008 12:13 PM PDT

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As a relatively new owner of a scooter, I took particular interest in the U-T's story today about the mania for the little vehicles. The scooter story has been making the rounds. There was the Wall Street Journal. The New York Times. And, of course, the Louisville Courier Journal.

The UT's piece is a pretty straight forward trend story until I got to the end and this rather disorienting line from the writer of the article, Bruce Bigelow:

The lowest-priced scooters, which are imported from China, cost about $800 and are recommended by local retailers about as highly as anything else made in China these days.

Oh snap! Take that you Chinese losers. Oh wait, I just realized my shoes were made in China. And my bike helmet. Oh and that voice recorder that I love. And my phone. Yeesh.

Looks like Ron Roberts has some more work to do to improve those Sino-San Diego relations he's been investing so heavily in.

-- SCOTT LEWIS

2 Comments so far on this story...

The quality of Chinese-made motor vehicles lags a bit behind many of its other consumer goods that are marketed to the world, but there's another issue. Scooter retailer are also concerned about long-term service, and parts availability. Go ahead, buy a small Chinese-made motorcycle from the auto parts store. Looks just like a Honda, for 1/4 the price. The bike works fine, until the brake shoes need replacing. The auto parts clerk can't get 'em...and hands you the phone number importer, who no longer imports Chondas, and doesn't know where to get a brake shoe. Same thing happened in the moped boom, 25 years ago. Moped shops popped up like, well, Starbucks, selling mopeds from around the world. Three months later, the moped shop WAS a coffee shop, and good luck getting a brake shoe or a carburetor.

Posted by BobbyJim | reply to this comment
June 27, 2008 2:23 pm

Meanwhile, the shopper who bought a Piaggio (Vespa) moped, or a little Honda or Yamaha motorcycle had a better quality vehicle to begin with. And when it broke, there was a source for parts. Cell phones, shoes? Yeah, Chinese made. I own several chinese-made fishing reels. But they are built for, and distributed by established fishing reel companies, with parts and service available here in the U.S. Buy a chinese-made scooter from the same boutique that sells t-shirts and sunglasses at the mall. Who's going to tune it up for you, the 17-year-old cashier? A year from now, when the boutique is replaced by an Orange Julius, where are you going to find a new sprocket for your scooter? To paraphrase the modern philosopher Oprah Winfrey, "Yugo, girl!" Yugo. Get it?

Posted by BobbyJim | reply to this comment
June 27, 2008 2:39 pm

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