End of an Era

Bad Penny is getting a new home, tomorrow.


I'm selling her for whatever it costs to get a duplicate title (I can't hang onto shit), + $1. To someone who is a talented mechanic, and who also needs cheap, reliable transportation to keep a job. And, this person is hauling it away from the water treatment plant, where it has been for a year and change.

I'd love to have a second, backup bike, but I just don't have a place to do the work on it, nor the tools to do it. Plus, this may be the only good deed I can ever afford to do, again, so... strike while the iron's hot, sez I.

I'll keep the site up, as it gets a lot of hits for people researching service issues, answers, and assorted tomfoolery that's been posted.

Meanwhile, the Wanda era is still in full swing.

Peace.
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Thanks For All The Fishheads

This is the last photo I took of Bad Penny before it was illegally impounded by the Rutherford County Sheriff's Department. I took this on 6/26; they snagged the bike on 6/28, just over an hour after discovering her at the side of TN-840. Had she been a ragged-out 1998 Ford Escort, they would have slapped a green sticker on her, and waited 72 hours before impounding, but since the sight of a parked-upright-on-center-stand scooter caused a green-ass deputy to call every fire and rescue squad in the area, they couldn't save face any other way than to steal the poor bastard's sole vehicle without a single attempt to contact said poor bastard... and it had to happen in just over an hour, y'know.

Bad Penny got her name from her penchant to blow a head gasket every year. This year's issue is almost certainly the same problem.

The first time this happened, it was still under warranty. My excellent dealer did the repairs, gratis; KymcoUSA did not pay for those repairs, as they also failed to do on every warranty claim my excellent (now defunct) dealer submitted to them. Learning that, I decided there would be no more Kymco scooters in my stable. Ever.

Did Bad Penny serve me well?  Between head gasket issues, very much so -- she ran the interstates with ease, and was finally getting the 70- and near-70MPG fuel economy a good, broken-in, well-maintained People 250 should get.

Still, she is not worth recovering, unless I can get her back at auction for $1. The repairs are going to be $900, at minimum, and that may not include the resurfacing of the mated surfaces of the head and the cylinder, which she has obviously needed since the first repair. I may go to the auction, hand out printed copies of the story, and offer up my two keys for $200 (there are none with the bike), and the new Michelin City Grip I just got for the front for fair market value ($100).

So, the bottom line: This blog is going on hiatus. I invite you to join me at my new scooter blog, A Scooter Called Wanda, instead.
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