LCGB Forums

we all know that lambrettas have a reputation for being unreliable, compared to say, that other make of italian scooter, but is there a league table of relative unreliability?
Which make is top? (I think Honda is probably the most reliable based on my dads C90 which didnt skip a beat in over 10 years commuting without so much as having the tool kit even removed from the small side panel).
Is there a law that says "the increase in tinkering = a 2 fold decrease in reliability"
Has any clever person done research to prove these points?

Don't know of scooter related research but I have been involved in that sort of thing in the rail industry where the concept of maintenance induced failures is well known. I think with scooters though that it is design and component quality that is key along with a degree of over engineering.

The idea of Vespas being more reliable than Lambrettas seemed to develop in the 1980's when most Lambrettas were more than 20 years old, and most rally-going Vespas were almost-new P range scoots.

Since then, P range Vespas have become 20 years old and Lambrettas have received more and better options for new components, so perhaps the folklore has changed?

Discuss

On the lines of "maintenance induced failures" many in the air-cooled VW community used to think that much of the legendary VW reliability was down to the fact there was so little one could do to the engine without dropping it, people didn't tinker.

In my experience the idea of unreliable Lambretta's is mainly put about by the 80's scooterists so I'd second what Knowledge suggested.

Reflecting back on breakdowns from our crew over the last 10 years or so, regardless of which breed of scooter, failures have been either down to poor quality components or slap-dash work when putting them together. As often as not it's been a Vespa that has given up the ghost on our trips.

It has to be said that over that period of 10 years, collectively our group has come to realise the importance of using quality components and careful assembly. The number of trips where the same number of bikes come back as went has increased noticeably.

EarlyDucati 916 - electrics, wiring harness and components made by Stevie Wonder in a dark workshop.
Spoilt a truly beautiful bike.
Now give me my Fireblade back

68Sxandy wrote:EarlyDucati 916 - electrics, wiring harness and components made by Stevie Wonder in a dark workshop.
Spoilt a truly beautiful bike.
Now give me my Fireblade back

Maybe it's just all Italian bikes? I've had more bikes than you could shake a stick at. Most of them were Japanese and I honestly can't remember a failure. Except.....I had an aprilia caponord which I had to nurse everywhere. I remember one particular trip to Austria when I had to rebuild the fuel injector, replace the stator and rewire the charging circuit. It was all within about 4000 miles.

Obviously the classic British bikes - Triumph, Norton, BSA etc had a pretty bad reputation

Knowledge wrote:The idea of Vespas being more reliable than Lambrettas seemed to develop in the 1980's when most Lambrettas were more than 20 years old, and most rally-going Vespas were almost-new P range scoots.

Since then, P range Vespas have become 20 years old and Lambrettas have received more and better options for new components, so perhaps the folklore has changed?

Discuss

I'd agree wholeheartedly with this ^^.
Combined with the fact these aforesaid 20 year old Lambrettas had generally led a fairly hard life with little maintenance before being placed into scooterists/mods hands who demanded even more performance and work from them for even less maintenance it's no wonder they broke down occasionally.

If Piaggio had packed up or scooterists had refused to accept the new automatic offerings then I'd wager you'd see 2 or 3 times as many PXs broken down than Lammies, because they'd be just as unreliable as the Lammies had been 20 or 30 years ago.

In the past 2/3 decades however most Lambretta riders who go any distance have had a better spares supply and are more knowledgable about their machines.

It's unusual now to encounter anything more than routine/emergency fixes like snapped cables or punctures on a Lambretta, dare I say it the vast majority of terminal breakdowns tend to be GTS riders where anything that seemingly goes wrong is 'terminal' since they are too complicated to fix at the roadside.

i think the electronic kit for lambrettas solved a lot of the breakdowns we had had back then , when points were on most of our Lambrettas.

also.......the Lambrettas and Vespas were being used for distances that they weren't really intended for. Doing a 600 mile round trip, two-up, with camping gear, wasn't the scooters intended use. I daresay if the Honda 90 was put through the same abuse it's reliability might have been tested.

martyn dwane wrote:i think the electronic kit for lambrettas solved a lot of the breakdowns we had had back then , when points were on most of our Lambrettas.

Very questionable is that Martyn.
I've seen more failures of electronic stators than point stators in my time, and points stators can usually be fixed by the roadside and electronic ones can't.