The most convenient piece-of-shit I ever bought
| 5 min read
Last month I bought a three wheel motorcycle with a cargo bed. It's a neat vehicle, it maneuvers really well in the city. I can carry up to about 1000 Kilograms according to the dealer, but the manufactorer puts that at around 500Kg including the driver. So who knows what the load capacity is.
The MotoCarro, as they call it here in Mexico, isn't very fast. Nor does it have much torque. But it was also quite cheap. About €3200 EUR ($3600 USD) out the door. Ready-to-ride. Mexican style of-course.
This monster!
First impressions
My first motorcycle with a reverse! That's right, this thing has 2 gear levers. One more-or-less as traditional, gears N-1-2-3-4-5 and then a second lever to go backwards in first gear. Neat!
It has a speed of about 60Km/h and the fuel tank holds 16 Liters. The range should be around 400Km, but I suspect they measured that on a downward slope with backwinds on a perfectly smooth surface. I'm on my 3rd tank and the odometer just passed over 400 kilometers.
It has a dual leaf-springs in the back. Which are so jumpy and bouncy that even if I could go faster than about 60Km/h I wouldn't want to. I often slow down to 20-30Km/h just to keep all wheels to the ground.
It has a drive-shaft. Like a proper car or truck. Damn straight, this thing is a beast! According to the promotional material this delivers and unleashes the brute force of 16 horsepowers to the wheels. I had no trouble pulling into my sloped driveway with ~200Kg sand in the back for example. Also if I go full-throttle, I can pull out quite fast from traffic lights.
It has a handbrake and a spare wheel, too!
That all sounds fun and practical. But I also already am on my 3rd battery. Had 2 mechanics work on it and fixed several poorly built bits myself. It is a low-budget Vento after-all. I would expect that after over a 100 years of functional motorcycles the low-quality would be better. But it's not.
Initial problems
From day one I've been having starting issues. According to the Vento mechanic the battery was too weak to spin the starter engine or something. So he recommended a bigger-better-more-crank battery. Fine, but that 'modification' promptly voided my warranty.
What's worse, the battery type was fine all along. The original battery wasn't filled properly, 2 cells were half empty. But the replacement with a same type also didn't fix it. Even the bigger more powerfull battery couldn't start the vehicle. Turns out that a Neutral wire was missing, or something was wrong with the neutral. Aparently that normally goes through the frame, but an extra wire is needed from the starter engine to the battery to make it crank properly.
Fine - Whatever! I had a roadside mechanic patch that in. The next day it still worked so I visited his shop and he made a more permanent wire with proper terminals on it for me and and it has been mostly fine since.
The breaks feel like a sponge and the front brake is more a suggestion of slowing down than anything else. The rear brake is much better, but when used strongly locks up the wheels. Yes, I had to test that out when nerd in a SUV pulled out in front of me.
And then there are the loose screws and bolts. I tightened dozens already, lost a few while driving - Including the tiny screw that held in the speedometer sensor wheel. Which I had to fix yesterday.
Super practical
It's a budget vehicle, I never expected all too much from it in terms of comfort or quality. Hoping to have it last for a few years. Anything beyond that would be luck. I had some wild ideas to put beach stuff in it and drive down to the nice Playa Tecolote, a beach some 30-40 Km away. I'm rethinking that now. I bet it'll be a hour long bumpy ride on this thing.
Still, it's super practical for Home Depot runs. I hauled sand with it for the garden, building materials, lumber. I get groceries and collect water barrels with it.
I put a 80 Liters top-case for motorcycles in the cargo bed. This mounts to a plate with a lock and can be removed if needed. This big box can hold a weeks worth of groceries, or all kinds of smaller things. Super helpful for when I need to visit several stores, or just buy tons of small items.
And, I bought sticker letters recently. It'll be a promotional vehicle soon too! For now I stuck 'AJ Rentals' on the back. But I'm thinking to add 'apartments' to it and my Whatsapp number as well. I do need to promote my apartments of-course!
Super cool!