oki doki, i think after owning the gilera nexus for about 2 years and the number of problems i have had over the past couple of months, i think its time to say goodbye to it, once its fixed and ready to sell, as i need something which is a lot more reliable,

so im opening this up to everyone,

what to get next?

1. it has to be more reliable than the nexus,

2. it must be around the £2500 mark,

3. im not fussed about down sizing, so 250's, 300's, 400's or other 500's,

what would you recommend as a daily commuter scooter,

i have already looked at vespa gts 250's and 300's,

so what else is out there?

Tricky Tricky Tricky!
How long is your commute? Is it town riding or are there bits of dual carriageway? Do you need lots of luggage space? If you traded down, would you miss the power of a 500??
There are of course reasonable numbers of older TMaxs around which are normally very reliable and , though maybe not the cheapest things to keep on the road.

sorry forgot to add about my commuting trends,

at the moment i travel approx a 35 mile round trip daily, this is mainly on a roads and only has a couple of small national speed limit stints,

or i sometimes take the motorway if im a bit late, this makes the journey a 40 mile round trip but constantly doing 70,

i then sometimes at weekends travel down the m6 approx 45 miles, so 90 mile round trip,

so altogether my weekly mileage is somewhere between 175 - 200 commute, + 90 to my girlfriends, then all the extras nipping to the shops and what not,

so i would say weekly mileage is really - 200 - 300 miles,


im am however in the near future moving in with the gf, but my commute will increase to about a 40 or 50 daily mile round trip, so it will up this to about 200 - 250 commute, then say 30 for odds and sods, then about a 70 mile round trip if i want to visit my father,
so will be about 300-350 max when i move in,

so i need something that can comfortably do both, even on the nexus on the motorway i would rarely sit anything over 77mph as i watched my fuel consumption drop anything over that,

as for storage space, all i need is space under the seat for my helmet gloves and puncture repair kit, may also need a back box fitted for when i need to carry more, but after that i normally just pack a big rucksack on my back or strap it to the passenger seat.

hope this helps!

oh and i take it , there would be no point in looking at the xevo 400 as they are a near identical engine?

which maybe as reliable as the nexus has been of late,

im seriously leaning towards getting a vespa gts 250, as i think it will sort my needs, ok it won't have that 100mph top speed, but it does sit nicely at 75-80 on the motorway.

if i can save enough money up i will try and get the 300 version, i know it has the exact top speed, but its supposed to be more torquey and get to its top speed quicker than the 250

you could get a 300 Nexus, supposedly better engine... but if you want more reliability you should stay away from italians.

I find myself in the same quandry, but with less restrictions on price, I had been thinking I was gonna stick with the Nexus till it dies completely then just get something else. Fixing things myself has been easing the pain but getting something more reliable like a TMax would ease the pain even more... as you can buy second hand ones with near 70k on the clock so they must have good engines.

Oh well, with that sort of journey, I wouldn't go down to a 250. You need more grunt and more comfort. If a Tmax doesn't suit, how about a Burger 400??? Comfort, luggage space, and enough power - or maybe a Maj 400?

Burgman 400.... nice one here....http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Suzuki-Burgma ... 688wt_1397

....and this one is offering free delivery. http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/suzuki-burgma ... 136wt_1166

Some might see this as heresy but have you considered one of the new auto Hondas?

The NC700x/s get excellent mgp, have a big tank range, integrated helmet storage al la the Mana and very large sevice intervals - 8k miles and sparg plugs at 32kmiles.

With your big milage it might be worth considering. The only major downside is a lack of weather protection

Make me an offer over 2500 for my Piaggio Xevo 400 . Very reliable, nothing like your Nexus! 2500 is the best part-ex I've been offered for it, book says I "should" get more as a private sale but make an offer and we'll see. 8500 miles, just had a bunch of new plastics (front fairing, knee board), runs wonderfully. Great performance, superb space, heated grips, givi monokey rack (original grab-handle included).

Only reason I'm selling is I'm doing a DAS course on a manual bike and will be buying a sports tourer (Suzuki GSX650F, BMW F800ST, Triumph Sprint GT or the like). What can I say, I've discovered I want to have gears!

-simon