Yesterday I herd a rumour again concerning the piaggio group having some serious issues which could well determine there future with any of there owned brands ,has anyone else herd or know any more about this .

i recall recently reading the Brand was in trouble and Vespa was the only Viable bit . It was on Tinternet so must be true !! It's a tough time for everyone at the moment !

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Hardly dire straits.

Mind you, if it's Piaggio UK you're talking about, that would be no surprise, the useless fracking counts. I think my nearest Piaggio dealer is 43 miles away.
Well done lads, forgot the First Lesson of scooter sales: 5 miles max.

In fact with the dismal state of public transport in the New Forest, and the opportunity to tie in with Yoof transport funding programs (scooter loans) the morons appear to be hell-bent on self-destruction.

the person i dealt with at piaggio uk over x10 issues think thats the uk bit is on borrowed time and will dissapear in 2014 .

When I was at Groombridge ordering my new SYM they mentioned that they had heard a rumor of problems at Piaggio UK, and Steve at SYM UK said a large London dealer had switched from Piaggio to SYM but he would not tell me which one. Interesting that SYM have arranged for the local Piaggio dealer to do my warranty repair tomorrow, I wonder if change is in the offing there?

CD scooters said it was news to them and tried to tempt me with an X10 rather than a Maxsym 600, they declined to comment on the master cylinder issue.

So if Piaggio pulled out of the UK would they take Vespa with them? I guess if they close down their showrooms they'll have nowhere to sell them but I thought the LX and GTS were decent sellers then there's the new Primavera and PX???

I'm really not sure what would happen if Piaggio UK went bust....Piaggio Group might get someone else to import them for them, or even pull out. But given the number of Vespas around, I'd be amazed if someone couldn't make a go of the business.

Maybe an idea for them to save money is to franchise their brand so that other manufacturers might sell Vespas alongside their own scooters. I can't see the likes of Honda or Suzuki wanting to do that though.

Some of the importers of some Chinese / Taiwanese might be interested though, as to an major extent the ranges of scooters would be complimentary.
Also, we must remember that Aprilia are part of Piaggio (and MotoGuzzi I think) so that the major brands wouldn't be interested in competing with themselves!