2005 Coolster F50 Scooter Review

by Doug
(USA)

First, I bought this off of eBay, my biggest mistake. Now the question becomes, why is this the biggest mistake? After being assured that the scooter was indeed street legal and I could get it licensed, turns out I live in the only state that that was not possible to do.

Coolster scooters were and as far as I know still are not CARB approved and that means that in California you can not get it registered to ride on the street. This angered me to no end, the seller was not willing to do anything to help me out.

So, the scooter showed up at my house in a big cardboard box and was secured to a metal frame inside the box. I was very happy. I finished the assembly (put the front wheel on) charged the battery after filling the cells with electrolyte, put some gas in it and after a little priming got it to run. I rode it around the neighborhood a few times, tried to register it and had no luck with the DMV. On one of the trips up and down the block the throttle cable slipped out of place and I lost throttle response. The cable issue was easy to fix.

I really liked this little scooter and would have loved to have been able to ride it for a good testing. I did learn a lot form the experience.

Would I order online again, well yes if I could be very sure the scooter would be legal in my state. I said I've learned a lot, that came from many hours of searching the internet and participating in scooter forums, like "ScooterRebels" forum.

People that are in the Chinese scooter forum have been there and done that before, they are a wealth of experience and freely offer it. If however I was not able to maintain a scooter without the help of a service department, I'd take another route.

It is always better to buy from a local shop that will be there to help you if you need it. Some of the friends I have made have also found help at places like a local lawn mower repair shop. Local scooter and motorcycle shops that do not sell Chinese scooter usually turn their noses up at them.

Advice on the forums for these drop shipped scooters includes doing a professional quality prep on the scooter before you start using it. Weak points tend to be, hoses, oil, spark plugs, tire valve stems, electrical connections, fuses.

When you unpack one of these scooters you really should remove the body panels and start replacing the items mentioned above, no don't replace the wiring, but check the connections, put higher quality fuses in make sure all wires are snug. Do replace the fuel and vacuum hoses, do replace the valve stems. Using higher quality parts in these places prevents a lot of headaches down the road.

Sorry, no picture of the scooter for me to post from this computer.