Hi,

I thought I'd share this with y'all since I think my CC is one of the best ways to commute and I'm willing to argue that with any takers :-)

Here’s a record of the averaged running costs over 24,000kms (2 years for me), in US$. I've done over 64,000 in 5 years so far, and although the LCD display is almost dead (burned out in the middle, like an old Gameboy), the rest of the scoot is fine. I bought the CC with 4,000kms on the clock, 4 years old, for $3,000. As you can see, the biggest costs are fuel, depreciation, and paying the man. It’s in order of expense, highest to lowest.

1. Fuel: on my regular commute I get 32km/l. That’s  $1,235 for 24,000kms. It’s mostly highway at 100km/h plus some lane sharing through jams and a little city riding. Compared to my Kawasaki Ninja 650R, this is a saving of about $600.

2. Depreciation = $1,200, 2 yrs – the machine cost $3,000 and I assume I’ll never sell it so it’s a total loss from purchase. As a result, depreciation loss per year keeps decreasing the longer the machine is in constant use and it’s had 5 years of this so far. The Ninja cost $5,000 and I’ve had it 10 years, and it’s still worth something, so they’re about the same. The CC would be impossible to sell here - the old age and the relatively high seat means no-one would buy it. It's fairly obvious that the more often you buy/sell vehicles, the higher this cost is, and it can easily be the most expensive.

3. The man - government mandated costs – insurance ($200 for 2 years), and road tax ($325 in 2 years) = $525 in 2 years / 24,000kms. Again, the insurance is 30% cheaper than the Ninja.

4. Tires – $120 – Maxxis lasted 18,000kms, would cost $100 to replace, but typically scooter tires cost around $200-$300 for 24,000kms it seems? For me, the actual cost of Seyoun NJK is US$60 for 12,000. Compare to my Kawasaki Ninja, which is $250 for 8,000kms, the Ninja is over 6x the price of the CC.

5. Belt – $50 – replaced at 21,870kms when the revs started rising a little – not fully worn – $80 for the SYM part: Mitsuboshi is $55 on Amazon. The second belt had worn to 23.1mm at 49,460km. The service limit is 22.5mm. I replaced it after 40,000kms of use (62k on the ODO) when it was 22.8mm and looking a little cracked between the grooves. Say $50 for 24,000kms.

6. Oil changes every 3,000kms and gear oil every 6,000kms is 11 litres of 10W40 engine oil and half a litre of gear oil (Castrol GL-5 85W-140) for 24,000kms = $45

7. Air filter – switched to K&N = $150 for the filter, cleaner and oil = a lifetime, so it’s hard to say, but call it $40 for 24,000kms.

8. Transmission – clutch, variator, rollers, etc. – still working fine at 62,000km. Clutch pads at 5.5mm – wear limit is 3mm – so clutch life is 120,000kms or so. Again, hard to say, but call it $40 in 24,000kms.

9. Brake pads – the front and rear use the same pads and I’ve used 6 sets in 60,000km – the originals, 1 pair of EBC sintered ($20), another EBC organic ($10) in the front and some very cheap unbranded pads in the rear ($2.50). Brake fluid was replaced at 30,000kms for $15. Overall that is $20 in 24,000kms. The rear brake is so powerful, every pad I've tried has made little difference. The same can't be said for the front, where only the EBC are good enough, and the SFA264HH sintered pads make it a decent brake.

10. Spark plug – Iridium CR8EIX or CR9EIX (tuned) every 30,000kms or so is $10

And that's it for running costs.

For repairs, I needed new fork seals and ATF fluid ($50), a new main stand bump rubber ($10), a new left brake light switch (a standard part used widely on a huge number of machines, $5), and some rear axle nuts and thread lock ($10). I might say I need a new display but not yet. It's bad but the ODO and fuel level are still readable. The clock can barely be made out, which means it's useless on the go when I need it.

The total running costs are $3,285, and it means $0.137 per km or $9.58 for my 70km commute. In Hong Kong, it means about HK$1.07 per km, or HK$75 a day, which is about 35% more expensive than the cheapest public transport but it's less than half the time, and is so much more enjoyable and convenient. It’s also about $600 a year cheaper than the Ninja, mostly because of lower tire, fuel and insurance costs. 🙂

I've got my eye on an X-Max 300 and a MT-09 as replacements/upgrades, but as long as the CC and Ninja keep doing what they do, I am holding off on the new machines.

Well done SYM - you made a mighty fine scooter.

Hi,

Just seen a report on a Hong Kong site saying the GTS300 (RV300?) is discontinued and the new Joymax Z replaces it, alongside the Cruisym as the premium version of the 300.

Hong Kong has a 35% tax on new scoots so the price is much higher than elsewhere. It is 12kg lighter and I'd be interested except for the low seat.

https://translate.google.com/translate?hl=en&sl=zh-CN&tl=en&u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.ibike.com.hk%2F01_bike_report%2F19%2Fsym%2Fjoymax_z300%2Fjoymax_z300i.htm&sandbox=1

Hi,

Someone knocked my CC over when I was at work and damaged the near side. I can repair a lot of the damage myself but if I repaint the side panel, I will need to get the side decal that says "Citycom 300i".

Has anyone had the sticker made for their scoot ? Do you know if it is a standard font or if there is a scan of the lettering available somewhere to get a sticker laser cut ? Maybe a SYM catalogue/brochure has it ? I've hunted for one but so far they are very small and not clearly defined.

Thanks,

Tom

Hi all,

I'm in the process of upgrading the lighting to LEDs.

I already did the 3 T10 bulbs - front sidelights and rear number plate lamp. So next I'll get two LED 18W H4 led headlights - should be about the same lumens as two 90W incandescent bulb.

I'm also looking for LED tail light bulbs - the fitting is a Phillips 12495 which is the same as BAW15D but it's hard to find LEDs in that fitting. Has anyone done this? Did you manage to get LED bulbs? I can probably order some from China if needs be but that can be slow and a lot of hassle.

If I do have to order from China, is anyone interested in a group buy ?

Thanks !

EDIT - after a few days hunting, I haven't found anywhere, and I can't even find anyone selling the mounts either. I can get pretty much anything and everything except BAW15d. Thanks SYM. So either I change the sockets or I make my own bulbs. What would you do? Since I had a dead bulb, I made my own.

I've posted details on my blog https://myl8test.wordpress.com/mbikes/sym-citycom-300i/ about halfway down the page. Here are a few of the images if you're curious.







The tail light is brighter, the stop light about the same, but they use a lot less juice and should outlast my time with her. So hopefully, that's the last time I think about them.

Hi all,

After commuting on a Citycom for a month, I decided to start modifying it. I've done this a lot on motorcycles.

I've been running the modifications for around 800kms and all is good so I thought I'd share. When I got the scoot, she had under 4,000kms, and she's now almost 6,000 ready for a big service.

I've put all this info and other stuff on my blog if you're curious. https://myl8test.wordpress.com/mbikes/sym-citycom-300i/

I opened up the airbox and checked out the pipe connecting the airbox to the throttle body. It's long and twisty and has a much larger diameter (42mm) than the airbox air inlet tube (33mm). The pipe could do with a better flare into the airbox.



The inlet tube in the front of the airbox cover is removable so out it came. However, the circular hole this left was still much smaller than the 42mm pipe, so I trimmed out all the plastic and added some epoxy putty to smooth the new intake. This gave a similar intake area to the 42mm diameter pipe. Like this :



and the square ridges too



After that, I removed the tab of plastic on the inner half of the airbox, since this another way to restrict the air intake to less than the 42mm pipe.



And then finally, to smooth the intake area as best as I could, I added some foam filler and a layer of epoxy putty to the cavity. Like this :



It's very subjective, but the throttle feels like it has a slightly better response. For sure, there is now some induction noise which makes the scoot sound more like it has an engine. It isn't loud at full throttle, and sounds good to my ears.

When the air filter is due for replacement, I may consider fabbing my own using a K+N filter.

Exhaust

I didn't want to pay big bucks for an exhaust because the engine clearly isn't going to deliver significantly more power and the CVT means that power would only be noticed on top speed runs. The main reasons to change the exhaust were the looks and the weight.

So I got an exhaust for a Honda CBX 250 (?) and an interface from Taobao, figuring that they were so cheap (US$40 plus US$20 shipping to here in Hong Kong) I could give them a go and not be unhappy if they turned out to be trash.

The interface with sizes :
http://item.taobao.com/item.htm?spm=a1z09.2.9.23.7fLR34&id=36930450577&_u=s10d5b0g8171

The exhaust :

And the ad:
http://item.taobao.com/item.htm?spm=a1z09.2.9.64.7fLR34&id=38369933258&_u=s10d5b0g60b7

I was surprised to find they were good. The interface inner diameter was 1mm too tight so that got filed down to fit. The outer diameter was 2mm too small so I added some thin steel pipe split along its length for clamp tightening. The exhaust bolted on without interfering with the original exhaust mounts or sticking out from the side of the machine. It fitted very well in fact. I got very very lucky with that.

The exhaust sound is very deep but much too loud for me without the decibel killer fitted, and sounds kind of farty with it, and the exhaust didn't seem to make any change to the performance. That was really surprising - I'd expect that it would have less back pressure and that would either cock up the fuelling, or knock torque off the bottom end for a small gain at the top. But actually, no obvious fuelling change at all - just more noise.

However, the original with its bolts weighed around 8kgs and the replacement weighs 2.5kgs, so that's significant, especially since the 5.5kgs reduction is unsprung mass at at the back of an already back-heavy machine. It also looks much better to me, so it's a keeper.

I recently checked the spark plug, after about 750kms, to see if it was running too lean. Surprisingly, it's not. So that's great, although I'll wait until I've seen how a new plug colours to be sure. Fuel economy has averaged at a little over 32km per litre, which is a slight improvement, but I wouldn't assume that is only these changes.





Before :



After : 



I've also been slowly re-spraying the silver parts with either black or graphite paint. The first things I did were the grab handles and side panels, and I've also done the rear clamp, rear shocks, front forks and I did the wheels with black spokes and graphite rims. I'm very pleased with the look. 



EDIT Forgot to say - I removed the AISV stuff -it adds air into the exhaust below 3,500rpm when slowing down on a closed throttle. That caused some pops and it affects emissions, not performance, so off it came. And the pops stopped. 



Air comes from inside a low frame tube on the spark plug side of the engine, through a rubber tube into an air filter can, and through another rubber tube into the Air Injection Solenoid Valve. When the AISV is open, the air flows through another rubber tube into the head where there is a reed valve. The output from the valve flows out of the head and through a metal tube to the exhaust port. So I removed all the rubber tubing and filter can, plugged the frame tube, plugged the AISV but left it electrically connected, and plugged the head entry to the reed valve. This came off :



So overall, I'd definitely recommend the airbox mod but the exhaust hasn't made much difference.

Cheers !