April, I purchased a brand new scooter, a Tao Tao. The dealer, who shall remain nameless and unremarkable to-date, swore it was a great scooter and that I would be very happy with it.

If being stranded on the road or having to walk it home on various occasions equals happy, then I am ecstatic. The dealer was happy, too. The first week it broke down, they came and picked up the scooter and left me to fend for myself. I'm just grateful I had bus fair. The dealer said, "It was a dirty sparkplug. Boy, was I happy.

It broke down again during the second wonderful month of ownership. I road it right into their shop because it kept dying on me at intersections and sputtering. My friend followed me in her car to make sure I got there with it. They replaced the engine, because somehow the engine was cracked. The dealer said, "All good now." It was good for about a month. Then it left me stranded again and for some reason, it never got picked up and no one from the dealer called me back. They do swear however, that they did come to get the scooter but that neither it nor I was home. I must have taken the scooter out for a walk or something at the time they showed up to collect it. I managed to get it started again and it broke down again. This time the kick start mangled to get it started but then the kick start fell off.

It began the sputtering again and continued having it's starting issues. I hooked it up to a trickle charger at night hoping maybe that would help. It seemed to make it a little better. You can imagine, by now, that I am beyond happy with my scooter. Until finally, in the fifth month, I got so happy with pushing it around that I finally pushed it up to a local Gulfport shop.

The scooter got a new carburetor, a new starter, a new break switch and is awaiting a new kick start, all out of my own pocket and all under 3,000 miles. The dealer I purchased it from, said they have only one record of the scooter being in their shop for a bad spark plug and won't fix it for free and won't admit to the scooter and this brand being a lemon and won't call it warrantee work.

Now into the sixth month, I would just like to say, I can't be happier or healthier due to all of the exercise I get pushing such a great, non-lemon scooter around. It's kind of like having an expensive accessory wherever I go. It's a good thing I like the unpredictable because I never know if it's going to start but no surprise there.

If you are shopping for scooters, do yourself a favor and stay away from the Tao Tao brand. They are the ones with the stickers that say V.I.P. and Future Champion. It's a good thing, too, that it has stickers, and otherwise, I might think I didn't get anything for my $800. While they are more affordable in the beginning, they are unreliable, undependable and no one wants to take responsibility for them. I called the manufacturer and they told me I had to go to the dealer and we know how that went.