Nice scooter with some niggles (Piaggio Typhoon 125)

Member Name: tabwasher

Product:	Piaggio Typhoon 125
Date:	25/10/02 (5788 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Nippy, good brakes, quite practical

Disadvantages: Thieves like them, dodgy handling, poor suspension

I've had my Typhoon for about 6 years, and covered around 9,000 miles. There's now 12,000 miles on the clock. As far as performance goes, it's fast enough to beat most cars away from the lights (unlike a 50cc!). Cruising at an indicated 55 mph is no problem. Top speed is 65 mph.

For short journeys around town the Typhoon is great fun, even better than a motorbike. The lack of gears makes getting through traffic easy, parking is no problem, and with a top box and room under the seat it's quite practical.

Long journeys aren't quite so good. Although quite nippy for a 125, most cars are faster on A roads, and a long ride can be tiring due to lively handling and the constant noise of the exhaust. However, the seat is comfortable, and there's not much vibration. It's much better to stick to back roads if possible, and avoid motorways and dual carriageways. The furthest I've ridden it in a day is a round trip of 120 miles, which was more than far enough.

Petrol consumption is not very good at about 60 mpg. The fuel light comes on after about 75 miles. A bigger petrol tank would be nice. The Typhoon has a complex fuel tank arrangement with a second tank under the floor. After filling the main tank the level drops as petrol slowly gurgles into the second tank. An extra litre can be squeezed in if you wait a minute or so!

Handling is not bad (for a scooter), but the front forks are way too soft and there's virtually no damping. I find that I have to sit near the back of the seat to stop the forks bottoming out over bumps in the road. The brakes are excellent, especially the front, though of course applying a lot of front brake bottoms out the forks... I fitted new springs and bushes to the front suspension, but it made hardly any difference.

The automatic clutch gets a bit snatchy in heavy traffic, probably due to overheating. {Update 8/2008: The snatchy clutch became so bad that I removed the clutch flywheel and cleaned it out. The clutch assembly was hardly worn and appeared in good condition. Putting it all back together, it was then just as bad as before. I then fitted a new clutch (£35), which completely fixed the problem... what was wrong with the old clutch, I don't know.}

I've fitted car steering rack gaiters over the front forks and rear shock absorber, to keep crap out.

The rear tyre wears out more than three times quicker than the front. A Taiwanese no-grip block-pattern rear lasted just 1,200 miles. I think block-pattern tyres are best avoided. Michelin Boppers have a decent tread pattern and proper grip, and last about 2,000 miles on the rear. The front Bopper has so far lasted 7,000 miles.

The front brake pads last about 3,000 miles. The rear shoes are still the originals.

When I first bought the bike, with 2,000 miles on the clock, it didn't run very well as the carburettor intake rubber was perished and split. At 9,000 miles the headlamp reflector needed replacing... unfortunately that meant a complete new headlight for nearly £50. At about 9,500 miles, the electronic ignition unit went pop. A new one was £70, about £70 more than I wanted to pay, but a bit less than I expected. Luckily, it conked out outside my house.

The bike takes ages to start after leaving it standing for more than a week, as the vacuum petrol tap doesn't let fuel through quickly enough to fill the carburettor. I keep a short length of petrol pipe and a pair of pliers under the seat, so I can remove the vacuum pipe from the fuel tap and suck on the vacuum inlet to the tap (yuk), to fill the carb. Also it smokes like crazy on start-up. Maybe due to oil passing through the oil pump, when the engine is not running?

The silencer rusts like mad; it's a real nuisance. I had to buy a new one last year, and it wasn't cheap... about £130, I think. In spite of regular cleaning and painting, I don't think it will last more than another year. I've also had to replace the short pipe that leads from the cylinder to the silencer, which cost £30. {Update 8/2008: I have just fitted a new 'Sito' pattern quick-rust silencer (£130). I found some stainless silencers, but none of them were street legal.}

I took the cylinder head off at 10,000 miles for the scheduled decoke, but there wasn't a trace of coke on the head, piston or exhaust port. I just put it all straight back together again.

I've twice had problems with the variator.

Just after I bought the Typhoon, I was bombing along on a motorway at about 65 mph when the variator pulley nut came loose. The kickstart mechanism was mincemeated as the outer variator pulley fell off; the bike screeched to a halt, frightening me to death. I thought the piston had seized. Fortunately I only had to push it 5 miles back home, and it was quite easy to fix. A new outer variator pulley was £30... I can't remember how much the other bits cost.

At 11,000 miles I tried to remove the variator in order to grease the rollers. This is supposed to be done every 2,000 miles. However, the inner variator pulley would not come off. The inner pulley had been moving on its splined hole, damaging the spline on the crankshaft. Presumably the nut on the end of the crank had somehow loosened, although I had used thread-locking compound when I last tightened it, and it didn't seem loose when I undid it. Anyway, I though this was the end... The crankshaft was damaged, which made the bike possibly not worth repairing.
I eventually removed the inner pulley by drilling four holes in it (damaging the rollers), tapping the holes, threading bolts into the holes and using a flywheel puller to pull on the bolt heads.
I decided that it might be worth buying a new inner pulley, rollers, etc. and putting it all back together again. After all, the crank spline, though worn, had not actually given up the ghost. There could be years of use left in it. Maybe.
Then one of those amazing things happened... I bought a new inner pulley assembly (about £50), which, on removing from the box, looked like the wrong one. Its rear was more 'dished'. The miracle was that Piaggio had changed the design of the pulley to eliminate a crankshaft spacer... which meant that when I fitted the pulley, the splined hole was now on an undamaged part of the crankshaft spline! So I put it all back together, as good as new, and the Typhoon lives to fight another day!

At 12,000 miles the throttle cable broke in the splitter box under the floor. Not the sort of thing that can be fixed at the side of the road. Obviously a broken cable could happen to any bike.

A few weeks later the petrol pipe split, emptying petrol all over the rear wheel, which gave me a bit of a fright on the next corner. Again, this could happen on any bike. Except perhaps replacing the petrol pipe every few years might have been a good idea...

Summary: Great fun, but not totally reliable

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