Two Frames Welded Together, Does Not Make A Safe Scooter!

I purchased a Lambretta Series III LI 150 Special from Huy’s Scooters in Ho Chi Minh City. I did this after meeting Huy on one of my many business trips to Vietnam. I love Lambrettas and I love Vietnam. I am not a NAM-Basher or subscribed to the fact that all products from Vietnam are crap. When I met Huy, he took me through the process of how they restore the scooters. He showed me some of his sample scooters. They looked nice and seemed to be of quality. He seemed to be conscious of selling scooters that had correct serial number on the frames that came close to the engine unlike other shops that would sell TV175 frame with a Series II engine. My original idea was to find a quality shop and be able to tell people there are some scooter restorers out of Vietnam that do quality work. Huy said he would work with me to get me a quality Lambretta

Once we identified the frame and engine and a deposit was made, Huy went to work on my scooter. I started to notice that he would contradict himself on the pricing or what would be included in the price. I was glad I held onto all my emails so I could remind him of what he committed to. One example was shipping at $300 usd including crating. Later he passed the crating charge on to me with shipping at $420.

After much correspondence my scooter was finally ready. Huy sent me pictures and the Lambretta looked good.

Several weeks later, I received my scooter at a warehouse in Oakland, CA. I was surprised when I received my scooter at how poorly restored it was. The chrome or SS was tarnished, scratched of unfinished. There was slight rust on the chrome rims. Rust on the nuts and bolts.

As we uncrated the bike, my associate pushed the scooter off the crate and the handle bars crumbled under his grip. The handlebars had been cracked much earlier in the scooters life but never fixed by Huy, (as seen by the rusted break). This was a major safety issue that made me want to inspect everything on whole scooter right away.

When I got the scooter back to the shop, we realized the front alignment was off on the scooter. The front tire was sitting at an angle, (see picture). It looked like a frame issue so I ended up taking the legshield off so we could take a closer look at the frame for straightness. Right Away, noticed the front strut cracked at the weld, (see picture). We also noticed that the weld was done on top of rust. All struts were not level.

“New Parts: The key to making any reconditioned scooter look like new again. EVERYTHING that is worn or old is replaced” – Huy’s Scooters Website

As we took the bike apart, we found a lot of poor workmanship. We found rust on the inside of the side panes. The rust or rot was not treated and was painted over, (see below picture). I have not started the bike but there is a lot of rust in the tank. The top of the headset was off a LI3 and it did not fit together with the LIS lower headset. The top was ground down the top to make it fit. The headlamp was cheaply wired in and shined to the left with no way to center it. Most of the bolts or screws that were already used and a lot were stripped out. A lot of the nuts and bolts were the incorrect size and some were rusted. The rear shock was very worn and should have never been placed back on the scooter.

“Paint Removal: We chemically strip the body to bare metal, creating the best possible surface for further bodywork”. – Huy’s Scooters Website

We then took the frame down to a motorcycle frame alignment shop to confirm the tweak to the frame and to see what was needed to straightening the frame. To do an accurate test, the bottom and top race need to be removed. When we removed them, we found that there was major rust / rot damage on the lower upright. There were areas where 1/8 of metal had rusted away which make the frame questionable for resell, (see pictures). The pits from the rust were covered up with body filler. They next found that the frame had been welded in the center and the weld was very poor quality. The alignment shop felt that this was the reason for the alignment issues and that I would have to send the frame to another shop that specializes in Lambretta frame straightening, (Casa Lambretta in CO.).

Huy claims to replace parts and use quality ISO 9001 parts. I did not see this when examinig the bike. I found a lot of kludged solutions like the makeshift oil plugs or the welded up API rear drum that is also cracked. A lot of parts held on by copper wire. As I dug deeper I found so many issues with the bike that it would cost me about $1500 to right the scooter to a machine that is restored properly. I stopped everything and asked myself the question do I throw good money after bad money? Do I spend the money to sandblast the frame to see what else is wrong with the frame and then send it off to Casa Lambretta or do I just say I made a very bad decision and throw the bike in the dumpster? Later, I had the frame sand blasted and it confirmeded that Huy's shop had taken two Lambretta frames and welded them together. The welds were were questionable and the frame diagnosed as scrap.

“Once the painted frame and body parts are returned from our outsourced providers, the engine is rebuilt, and the powder coating and polishing are completed, we start the reassembly of each scooter. This is very labor intensive. It will include running brand new cables and a new wiring loom, rebuilding the forks, installing the engine, installing new floor channel kit, installing forks, and everything needed to deliver a superior vehicle. This is the most important aspect of the restoration and HUY"S SCOOTER guarantees your satisfaction with the finished scooter". - Huy’s Scooters Website

Resolution? – I asked Huy for a refund or half of what I spent to get the scooter. He sent the following responce;

Thank you very much for your emails. At first, please accept my sincere apologize for all the inconvenience that you've encountered during these days. Please find below for our answers to the problem:

- As you've seen in our workshop, all the scooters are being restored in a professional ways with intensive labour and materials. In the bodywork workshop, we have equipments and experience to re-aglin and rebuilt all the frame to their original condition. So I am very surprised to see that the front wheel has the problem like the photos you've sent us.This problem can only happen due to a big force to the front of the scooter. We are also working with the freight forwarder to find out if there was any crash during the packing and transit of this shipment or not.

- Regarding the handle bar, I am sorry that I didn't inspect personally this scooter before shipping to you so there's a mistake on the handle bar.

As we are working on a low profit margin so I am very sorry to see this matter happened. After carefully consideration, we are ready to offer you USD 200 OFF as our compensation for the problems. I hope this will work for both of us.

Please let me know your decision so that we can know what to do.

Yours truly

Le Tuan Huy

Would you buy again from this shop? – No

Would you suggest the readers to buy from this shop? – No

UPDATE: After this site went live, Huy reversed his position and was willing to replace the parts on the scooter. He wrote, "You need to send me a list of what parts are faulty in your scooter with photos of each faulty part.  However, we then need the faulty parts back in order to have a compensation from the manufactures so please also give us the faulty parts in exchange for a new one".

I thought this comment was ironic considering the issues are with the original Innocenti parts and I dought Huy has a "Way Back Macine" to go back in time to replace the parts.

Huy told a prospect looking at buying a Vespa this; "The Lambretta of  the customer on the website was a faulty scooter from our workshop and we've offered him to exchange all the faulty parts for new parts but he refused as he doesn't want to give us the faulty parts back for the exchange".

This is partially correct except here is the rub and it is alway important to ask this question before you buy from any Viet Scooter Shop, who pays for shipping on warranty issues to and from Vietnam? Huy expected to have me flip the bill for shipping on warranty issues. This is differnent than other Viet shops like ScooterAZ, PowderScooters or ScootRS. Most larger and respectable Viet shops will look at picture and take care of the problem. Powder Scooter did something incredible with a customer with a faulty scooter. They suggested the owner take the Lambretta to a local shop and Powder flipped the bill for the cost of repair since they reliezed the issue was from their quality control.

After looking at what needed to be shipped back which included, the frame, hub, shock, headset, horn casting, rims and legshield back to Vietnam, I was quoted $650. usd to ship to Huy's parents house for replacement. I would then be looking at another $400 - $600 usd to ship back to the U.S.. For that money I decided to buy a GP 150 locally and boycott Huy's Scooters.

Feedback

ScooterX, I had a similar experience with Huy's Scooters. The Vespa I purchased was saddled with problems. Bad chrome, incorrect bolt and nuts and electrical was funky. Engine seized after the first 100 miles. It ended up that the piston was not correctly insstalled. Paint started to look bad after the first 6 months. Never Again!                       - Andrew in the U.K.   

Thanks for the review. I was considering a Vespa scooter from Huys but given his warranty policy and fact that he admits producing a faulty scooter yet does not replace the obvious parts, (shock, hub or headset), I think I will go buy somewhere else.            - Tony in Florida