Scooter... Moped Scooter Options

[tomazws]

I just moved to a new place, and it's about 20 minutes drive local to work. Lately my friend just bought a Honda Metropolitan (2008 model, 2 tone red/white), and I think I'm falling in love with those lil scooters. The only problem with that Honda is it is only 50cc and top speed is only about 40MPH.

So I've been looking online for scooters and I found out there is a large market of Chinese knock offs that offers 150cc for about the same price as the Metropolitan. If you know about scooters I would like to ask you for your opinion:

Are the Chinese Vespa knockoffs (Roketa, Dragon..) as good as the Japanese Vespa knockoffs (Honda, Yamaha), what about those American Vespa knockoffs (Tank, Lance, SYM, Genuine Scooter)?

Another question is, those claim to be American companies, their scooters are STILL made in China right?

What's your take?

[GriffGirl]

Scooters are HUGE here in Portland. From what I understand in researching them myself, the Chinese/Taiwan knockoffs are good to go for about 2 years, but their average life expectancy is 3 years. Given their relatively low cost, that's fine if you're not that invested, but for the money, I'd buy a used Vespa or something similar that you KNOW is built right. There are TONS for sale on Craigslist. At least up here there are.

For the record I myself decided against the scooter for myself since my daily commute is long - I'll be getting a motorcycle for myself, but I'm working on getting a scooter for the g/f who has a much shorter commute.