Best practice for long life

[Finlay1967]

Hi there,

I have ordered the latest PCX which should arrive in a couple of weeks. I am going to be using it as a delivery driver so going to be clocking up the miles pretty quick (my last scooter which was stolen last week did 25,000 miles in about 9 months). For this scooter I am going to try and do most of the maintaintence myself. What is the best practice to get the most lifespan out of the PCX. Regular things like oil change, air filter, spark plug and belt I would feel confident doing. But what other things should i be regularly maintaining? How often would valves need checked/ adjusted? Is it important to check them in the first few hundred miles? I want to take care of the scooter from the beggining to maximise its lifespan so any help would be much appreciated.

[Jge64]

First, don’t overthink this. PCX is an extremely reliable machine and used all over the world with various grades of gas & oil, sometimes they never get checked and they worked fine. It’s a can you sophisticated Scooter built for the third world. The only thing you really need to watch is the oil. I would change that once a year or every 5000 miles if it was my bike. Get the valves checked if you want add the 600 mile initial check and then don’t worry about it. Look at the manual for the things that are supposed to be inspected, and do that. Everything else, the spark plug and such can go 100,000 miles easy, And obviously change out the tires and brake pads when they need it. Other than that, just go have fun.

[iceman]

Agree with the reply above. My bike is now 9 years old, the 1st LED '14 UK version. Has the 1st service done for extortionate cost for an oil change and never been back as do things myself and get tyres changed by my MOT place (could even do those yourself but it's tricky to do that).

Change the oil and front pads myself, still on original battery! (which starts 1st time and the bike get used all year round but on shift work so 15 days/month) and never trickle charged it and the bike is kept outdoors all year round.

Done over 30.000 miles, changed the air filter once and spark plug once (both was about 20K in and both were in not too bad condition and made no difference changing them in terms of performance), no valve check as still getting over 130mpg's and always have done. Suffered what was a common fault with noisy final drive bearings but ordered the parts from overseas and did the replacement myself. Also changed the brake fluid once but now just top up - brakes still work fine and pass the MOT.

Very few have major issues (such as engine) so it's cheaper to do the service yourself and only basic things, rather than cost 1/3rd or the bike cost+ in service charges at dealers. A choice you need to make as it's a gamble, but pretty safe one.

[Monty]

Interesting to read you experience, Iceman. We recently picked up an 11 year old PCX, and I'm amazed at how well these machines fare over time.

[Mprime]

I just did the 4000 mile service, myself, a few weeks ago. During the valve inspection I observed that two of the valves were a little on the tight side and had been over tightened at the dealership. Adjusting them made no perceivable difference, but I know that they are correctly set now. It's not a terrible job, but you do have to remove a portion of the body panels in order to have the room to work with the feeler gauge. Having had a number of screw and locknut machines I view valve adjustments almost as important as changing the oil. I tend to do a good portion of my riding on the faster side, so I change my oil at around 2500 miles. This bike uses an oil strainer in lieu of an actual filter, so I change it more often. That, and the fact that it requires so little oil, anyway.

Mike

[Mister Paul]

Get a small paint brush and some ACF50, and brush it on all of the exposed metal. It will stop surface rust.

If you want to protect the body work then you could also get a roll of protective film off Amazon and apply it to the points where you're going to catch it with a foot.

[Ozzibiker]

First, don’t overthink this. PCX is an extremely reliable machine and used all over the world with various grades of gas & oil, sometimes they never get checked and they worked fine. It’s a can you sophisticated Scooter built for the third world. The only thing you really need to watch is the oil. I would change that once a year or every 5000 miles if it was my bike. Get the valves checked if you want add the 600 mile initial check and then don’t worry about it. Look at the manual for the things that are supposed to be inspected, and do that. Everything else, the spark plug and such can go 100,000 miles easy, And obviously change out the tires and brake pads when they need it. Other than that, just go have fun.

Are there links to the final drive bearing issue?
My final drive idler bearing failed and I replaced it, but it was a HUGE effort to remove it.
What did you do?