Frame bent

Discussion of the Genuine Buddy, Hooligan, Black Jack and other topics, both scooter related and not

Moderator: Modern Buddy Staff

Post Reply
Marcos619
Member
Posts: 2
Joined: Thu Mar 06, 2014 3:37 pm
Location: San Diego

Frame bent

Post by Marcos619 »

My buddy scooter has a bent frame after an accident . The engine is still good. Can I still drive it in low speeds? Is it safe?
User avatar
jrsjr
Moderator Emeritus
Posts: 3746
Joined: Fri Jun 09, 2006 11:26 pm

Post by jrsjr »

To answer your question briefly - No, it's not safe to ride a scooter with a bent frame. I suggest you concentrate on reducing your losses by selling your scooter whole or parting it out and then move on.

So sorry! :cry:

P.S. Do you have insurance? I ask because I have been told that California insurers always total a motorcycle (scooter) if it has a bent frame. Am I wrong on this? Could one of our California members please let me know if I'm misinformed. Thanks.
Marcos619
Member
Posts: 2
Joined: Thu Mar 06, 2014 3:37 pm
Location: San Diego

Post by Marcos619 »

Thank you for the quick reply. Well good thing about this is I get a new Buddy
User avatar
jrsjr
Moderator Emeritus
Posts: 3746
Joined: Fri Jun 09, 2006 11:26 pm

Post by jrsjr »

Marcos619 wrote:Thank you for the quick reply. Well good thing about this is I get a new Buddy
There are actually at least two good things about this. 1) You get a new Buddy and 2) You apparently were not injured in the crash that bent your Buddy's frame. Based on my long years of riding experience, I count that as a very good thing. :)

Oh yeah, welcome to Modern Buddy!
User avatar
Drum Pro
Member
Posts: 1163
Joined: Thu Sep 01, 2011 4:03 am
Location: Victorville, Ca.

Post by Drum Pro »

Here in California if it was a PX or Stella It could be fixed (depending on how much damage) but since it's a buddy I don't think it's worth fixing and it may be unsafe to ride. Better off getting a replacement. It depends on your insurance but generally the insurance company will total it if the cost of repair is 50% or higher of the value of the scoot. I have found out the hard way that insurance companies do what is best for them not you. I went down on my Stella last year and had to do all the leg work and fight with my insurance company to get them to fix mine. In the end I won because the damage was way less than their valuation of the bike...
Riles13
Member
Posts: 1
Joined: Mon Oct 26, 2015 10:23 pm
Location: Denver

But ... what exactly is the exact danger

Post by Riles13 »

I know I'm being reckless here, but ...

WHY, exactly, is it bad to ride with a bent frame?

Will it crack while I'm going down the road and buck me off?

Backstory: accident with car. Bent frame. Scooter shop said it's totalled. Other guy's insurance is gonna give me $2000+-. And let me keep the scooter. She's clearly beat up ... but she still rides. She leans to the right -- but she rides. So I"ve been riding her around town a little here and there.

Why shouldn't i?

Sincerely -- Reckless Riles
User avatar
babblefish
Member
Posts: 3118
Joined: Tue Dec 04, 2007 8:42 am
Location: San Francisco

Post by babblefish »

Because a scooter is not a bicycle. It is capable of much higher speeds and has more mass behind it. The handling and braking will be affected which compromises the safety of both the rider and anyone who happens to be unfortunate enough to be in the way of an accident. But, in the end, it's up to you whether or not you want to be a recipient of a posthumous Darwin award.
Some people can break a crowbar in a sandbox.
User avatar
ericalm
Site Admin
Posts: 16842
Joined: Sat Jun 10, 2006 3:01 am
Location: Los Angeles, CA
Contact:

Post by ericalm »

Everything related to the dynamics, handling and safety of the scooter is built around the frame's correct geometry and depends on its integrity. The solidity of the frame also helps protect you, by preventing wheels and other parts from breaking off and causing more damage or a more catastrophic result in the event you should have another accident.

What you wind up with is a scooter that's more likely to crash because it doesn't handle and brake as intended, and one that's more dangerous in a crash, because the frame is already compromised. Doesn't have to be a car; it could be a big pothole, a mechanical failure, a wet surface, gravel, whatever. Any of the sorts of things that would cause problems for a scooter in good condition become much more dangerous.

Of course, these outcomes aren't inevitable, it's just a much higher risk factor. You could hobble around on it for a long time and not wind up on the asphalt again. But if it happens, your insurance, the police and other vehicles' insurers might not have much sympathy for someone riding a scooter with a bent frame. (Can it be ridden legally? Do you have to register it annually? If the VIN gets reported as totaled and repurchased as salvage, you might have trouble with this, too.)

For two grand, you can get a pretty decent used scooter.
Eric // LA Scooter Meetup Group // Stella 4T // Vespa LX // Vespa LXS // Honda Helix // some, uh, projects…
lovemysan
Member
Posts: 660
Joined: Sun Jan 15, 2012 2:55 am
Location: kansas city mo

Post by lovemysan »

I guess it depends on how or where it's bent. I had an acquaintance that I serviced a scooter for. It was wrecked and struck hard just below the handle bars bending the bars toward the seat by 4-5". I told him it wasn't safe. He asked me what the risks were and rode off into the sunset. This spring I had him pull all the plastic and we jacked the frame straight with a hydraulic jack. There were no clear stress points and no cracks. This fixed the wayward handling. For $200 he got his money's worth. I rode it around the block and the wreck damage was undetectable. But for a bike that's suffered a side impact and don't think there is a happy ending.
161cc big bore kit, NCY big valve head Hand ported, NCY transmission kit, jetted and tuned. I can port your cylinder head.
User avatar
Dooglas
Moderator
Posts: 4368
Joined: Sun Jul 08, 2007 2:17 am
Location: Oregon City, OR

Post by Dooglas »

No reason to risk your life on a bike with a misaligned frame. Sounds like you got a new scooter out of it. Sell the engine and other reusable parts from the damaged bike. Call yourself lucky.
george54
Member
Posts: 126
Joined: Sat Jun 13, 2015 3:01 pm
Location: New Jersey

Post by george54 »

Dooglas wrote:No reason to risk your life on a bike with a misaligned frame. Sounds like you got a new scooter out of it. Sell the engine and other reusable parts from the damaged bike. Call yourself lucky.
+1 !
george54
Member
Posts: 126
Joined: Sat Jun 13, 2015 3:01 pm
Location: New Jersey

Post by george54 »

lovemysan wrote:I guess it depends on how or where it's bent. I had an acquaintance that I serviced a scooter for. It was wrecked and struck hard just below the handle bars bending the bars toward the seat by 4-5". I told him it wasn't safe. He asked me what the risks were and rode off into the sunset. This spring I had him pull all the plastic and we jacked the frame straight with a hydraulic jack. There were no clear stress points and no cracks. This fixed the wayward handling. For $200 he got his money's worth. I rode it around the block and the wreck damage was undetectable. But for a bike that's suffered a side impact and don't think there is a happy ending.
Bent the frame 5" back and forth? Sounds like a ridiculous idea to ride it and trust that frame no matter what could or couldn't be seen. Insurance companies don't total a bike with a bent frame because they like giving away money. Ponder that.
lovemysan
Member
Posts: 660
Joined: Sun Jan 15, 2012 2:55 am
Location: kansas city mo

Post by lovemysan »

I'm no engineer but given the relatively soft tubing used, the location of the bend, the amount of force required to straighten it, and the behavior of the frame under the before mentioned force I would have no issues riding it. I mean we're talking about a bike that weighs 175 lbs and tops out at 30 mph. The owner has actually put 2000 miles on it. And I know he has ridden several times 2 up at around 475lbs of payload. I don't think it was the smartest thing to do but he did. And the scooter doesn't seem to care.
161cc big bore kit, NCY big valve head Hand ported, NCY transmission kit, jetted and tuned. I can port your cylinder head.
george54
Member
Posts: 126
Joined: Sat Jun 13, 2015 3:01 pm
Location: New Jersey

Post by george54 »

Of course it's all good until the moment it isn't.
lovemysan
Member
Posts: 660
Joined: Sun Jan 15, 2012 2:55 am
Location: kansas city mo

Post by lovemysan »

Round tube Metal with no fatigue isn't going to magically snap off. Much less 3 tubes side by side of the same radius. If it was wrinkled, buckled or stressed I would agree with you. It wasn't. How do you think the factory made the frame to begin with? A tubing bender. That's right the bent the tubing. Guess what it got bent a little more. You want to talk about something scary. Think about some of these expensive autos that the insurance companies are having fixed by welding in new front frame horns. Here We're talking about a $200 scooter that tops out at 29 mph. Not exactly a menace to society.
161cc big bore kit, NCY big valve head Hand ported, NCY transmission kit, jetted and tuned. I can port your cylinder head.
User avatar
k1dude
Member
Posts: 2394
Joined: Sun Jun 08, 2008 3:11 am
Location: Northern California

Post by k1dude »

lovemysan wrote:Round tube Metal with no fatigue isn't going to magically snap off. Much less 3 tubes side by side of the same radius. If it was wrinkled, buckled or stressed I would agree with you. It wasn't. How do you think the factory made the frame to begin with? A tubing bender. That's right the bent the tubing. Guess what it got bent a little more. You want to talk about something scary. Think about some of these expensive autos that the insurance companies are having fixed by welding in new front frame horns. Here We're talking about a $200 scooter that tops out at 29 mph. Not exactly a menace to society.
Tubing at the factory is bent in a controlled environment. The ductile steel is bent at a speed and temperature that either work hardens the steel to the proper strength, elasticity and yield or it's then strain relieved (annealed and quenched) after forming to the desired strength, elasticity, and yield properties. A crash where the steel deformation does NOT occur in a controlled environment is often detrimental to the desirable properties of the steel in this particular application. It may have been work hardened to the point of undesirable brittleness, in which case, repeated cycling of load could potentially lead to catastrophic failure.

Without knowing the exact material used in the tubing and without knowing the exact forces imposed during the incident, it's impossible to predict how the material was affected and if catastrophic fracture could occur as a result of those unknown forces.

Bending of the frame of an automobile is an acceptable practice because the structure of the automobile is typically ladder or unibody, which means the structure has many components which would all have to fracture simultaneously for catastrophic failure to occur. The likelihood of that occurring is infinitesimally small. Whereas the Buddy only has 2 main tubes which carry the entirety of the load between the front and rear of the scooter. There is no redundant structure to provide additional factors of safety.

Even with an automobile, if the frame is bent past what the insurance companies deem acceptable, they won't even attempt to bend it back because of safety concerns and cost.

A car also has 4 wheels. If one wheel should separate from the vehicle, it's likely still a survivable event. Not so in the case of a scooter loosing one of it's wheels. If a Buddy separates in half at high speed, it likely isn't a survivable event. And a Buddy 150 doesn't only go 29 mph, it can go up to 65 mph (even 75 downhill).

The bent frame may also cause dangerous oscillations at certain speeds or other undesirable steering and handling behaviors.

So yes, it's possible to ride a scooter with a bent frame. But it isn't advisable. The nature of the damage is a complete unknown. The risk isn't worth it IMHO.
george54
Member
Posts: 126
Joined: Sat Jun 13, 2015 3:01 pm
Location: New Jersey

Post by george54 »

Well said.
Post Reply