One of the things of buying a scooter, I've learned, is try and instil the fear of god in you before you leave the store. "Sign up for a motorcycle safety course or you'll DIEEEEE!" is one of them; "do NOT miss the first checkup at 300km" is another (when I brought my bike in at 368km, I was told that it'd be fine up until 500km). Maybe they do this with all new vehicles, but the one I wanted to hear — and knew I wouldn't because of sales — is "take the time to learn about your machine and how to maintain it."
I had these visions of getting all Robert Pirsig on my machine, spending more hours with it than I would a significant other as the two of us bonded over metal and grease. My scooter and I— we'd be the happiest of friends. I'd open up that throttle all the way, and it'd roar back at me a little, but oblige by going faster and faster. And in return, I'd lovingly drain out the dirty oil and feed the machine with a clean change. Yes, it would be the start of a beautiful friendship.
Except one thing got in the way: time. It takes time to sit down with a machine and learn its parts inside and out, never mind time to Google what those parts mean (and where they're located). So in the less than a month that I've had the scooter, I've only filled it up with gas, and I haven't even been on top of that task. I really should pay more attention to the fuel gauge, because it's twice now that I've glanced down to see the needle firmly in the red zone. How many kilometres are left when the fuel tank reads empty, I don't know, but it's something I don't want to find out either.
But one thing jogged me back to that original dream I had of becoming one with the bike, and that was the bill for the first checkup. It was $214. And what did that pay for? An oil change, gearbox oil change, spark plug, and the mechanic eyeballing the machine to make sure everything was tight and uncracked. Oh, and my machine was cleaned. So, $214 for two oil changes, a new spark plug, and a hose-down.
The next checkup at 1,000km is a minor one, and only involves an oil change...but will cost $90. YEEPS!! I was round-the-bush asking how difficult it'd be to change the oil or if I'd void the warranty, and the answer I got? "There's a chance you may void the warranty". Well, hell. I didn't get a solid yes-you'd-void-the-warranty-if-you-even-thought-of-maintaining-your-own-bike-and-did-something-as-crazy-as-change-the-oil-yourself, so I took that as a sign that I'd be okay.
Now, all I have to do is watch a couple of them YouTube videos, pull out a socket wrench (I think), and have at it. I know from reading articles so far that changing the oil is not a hard task at all, and much of its ease lies in the preparation, sort of like getting a room ready to paint the walls. As long as you move everything into the centre of the room, lay down a plastic sheet and put tape over the areas you don't want paint to touch, the process itself is easy.
I'm at about 650km so that oil change is coming up fast over the horizon. Nothing could possibly go wrong, eh?
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