October 2024: It didn't pass inspection

I figured it would happen eventually: A couple of problems cropped up that caused it to fail inspection. For one, the right front turn signal cover, a piece of clear plastic, had cracked and had a hole. It might have been that way a year earlier and the inspector didn't notice. Maybe it was that way when I bought it. Maybe I got nailed by a rock last week. I don't remember. Regardless, with that hole there, it was not going to pass.

A bigger problem that I did not realize was that the brake light was stuck in the "on" position. This was serious, since nobody following me would be able to tell if I was applying the brakes. I have no idea how long this situation existed, but that grounded the machine until I figured out a fix.

Starting with the lens, I reached out first to eBay and Google, then to the scooter Facebook group, for replacement parts. This proved elusive, then fruitless. I became aware that these machines were being scrapped whole, without removing potentially useful parts like lens covers. Elapsed time was measured in weeks while I turned over various stones and exhausted options.

In the meantime, I diagnosed the problem to the right brake lever, though I was not sure what the actual problem was. Sure, some sort of switch was stuck "on", but exactly which, and how, it took a few tries to identify. I took pieces apart and lubricated what I could, and eventually was able to make the brake light turn off. Once I had narrowed possibilities to a single part, I was able to replicate and remediate the problem at will. While whatever part that's defective was not replaced, I got it working well enough to pass inspection, and if it did recur, I could fix it in a minute on the side of the road.

For the lens, the solution was to find a clear tape covering that would not peel off in a week. It took a couple of different hardware and auto parts shops to find something that fit the spec, but that too was a 10-minute fix once I had it in hand. With the problems attended to, now I just needed to get the inspection itself done.

Note that the month end had passed by this point, so I was technically running on an expired inspection for all of the rest of this story. 

Finding motor repair shops that inspect motorcycles is not easy; there are not that many of them, and finding ones familiar with the former Scoobi fleet is vanishingly small. The only one that was open more than one or two days a week was on the far side of Squirrel Hill, 14 miles away. Just getting there and back required an intermediate recharge somewhere in the day, but hey, I would get it done. Here is the full story of my Squirrel Hill trips.

The first trip there was a dud. Their motorcycle inspection guy was out sick that day.

The second trip there was a dud. He was in, but the shop had run out of the official PennDOT motorcycle inspection stickers, and they were not expecting a shipment until the following week.

The third trip there was when the diagnosis of the bad brake light was noticed.

The fourth trip there was a dud. A huge rainstorm had come up, so even though the scooter was fixed, they did not do inspections when it was raining.

The fifth trip there was a dud. I got there too late in the day for them to work on it.

The sixth trip there, finally! The inspection happened, it passed, I got my new sticker, and I was good to go for another year.

For all of these trips, it was a normal work day. The hope and plan would be that I would make it all the way to Squirrel Hill by 7:30 a.m. and hang out in a Starbucks around the corner from the repair shop in time for my daily 7:45 start-of-the-day meeting at work. That would tie up in time to make the two-minute trip to the shop that opens at 8. But due to my own inertia, bad weather, whatever, attaining that goal didn't happen a couple times. At least three of those times, I attended a work meeting on the side of the road somewhere, either on the way to or from Squill and downtown.

For next year, I need to do some homework and see if I can find a motorcycle inspection station a little closer to home, and then also make darned sure the machine is in spec before I make the first appointment.