Pretty good deal at 31p/mile (Peugeot Vivacity)

Member Name: freekb

Product:	Peugeot Vivacity
Date:	21/09/02 (1658 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: No more traffic jams, affordable, built in anti theft kit

Disadvantages: it's a scooter = zero style

** Update 3 nov 2002**

1st birthday ... Well, it's survived it's first year, and so did I. I was rather pleasantly surprised to find that my insurance policy hasn't gone up by a ridiculous amount.
For those interested, my first year was £300, zero excess. The 2nd year, £360, with £50 excess (considering an £850 theft, that's okay). The insurance company is CIS (http://www.cis.co.uk/) and they're fairly nice to deal with if not a bit strange (they insist on an agent visiting you personally and taking cash or cheque payment for the first year!)


** Original **
Bought a 100cc vivacity out of desparation. My commute was taking between 1 and 1.5 hours each way and it was killing me. My (impulsive) eye fell on the vivacity because it doesn't look too "sportsy" which would only make it more popular with the plentyful thieves in my area (streatham), has a built in chain lock (sometimes a pain to get the key in/jammy) and an electronic immobiliser. At high speeds (45mph+) its a bit unstable and at 60 you know you're going way too fast.

This is my first scooter, so I can't contrast it to other scooters.

I've done about 9000KM (milage indicator is in KM, not miles) on it over the last 10 months, it's fairly reliable, but one of the gears snapped once, instantly rendering it dead. Cost only £22 to repair (gear), my dealer didn't charge for the repair since I had it serviced at the same time. A service sets me back £75, which is needed every 2500km, although you could get away with it every 5000km according to peugeot, if the vivacity has an easy life.

Mine does not have an easy life.
It's a hard-core commuter ped. I do about 25 miles a day on (2 runs of 40 minutes) through half of london (streatham-ealing via the south circular), including 40mph dual carriage ways, potholed roads, smothered in a sauce of typical nasty london traffic.


I've crashed it twice (one oilspill at 10mph, and going down during emergency braking at 30mph), it's been stolen and smacked up to the tune of £850 of body work repairs. It only got stolen because my key fell out of my pocket after examining my punctured tyre and leaving the bike there for the weekend. Having gone down 2 times, I can't stress the importance of getting proper safety kit enough! Get booties, trousers with knee+shin pading and a well armored jacket. When you go down with your vivacity, you're very likely to suffer injuries to your knee, shin and ankle on the side that you fall... I wasn
't wearing lower torso protection at the both times I crashed and that's where the pain was (for 3 months!)... Good kit shouldn't set you back more than £350/400 for helmet, booties, trousers (steer clear of pablo spada kit, rubbish, get Dainese Dry line instead) and jacket.

It's cut my commute down to 40 minutes, so I'm very happy.... The total cost to run, ie fuel and maintenance, is £55/month for doing 500 miles/month, that's 11p/mile. Add insurance and loan repayment, it works out to 31p/mile over 2 years. Once the scooter has been repaid, it will be a wicked deal, working out somewhat cheaper than travelcards, but leaving me with far more free time and no more "signal failures on the district line".

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