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You will probably find no unanimity on tires. Its a personal preference thing, performance versus mileage etc. Michelin City Grips or Michelin Pure Powers seem to be some of the most popular if they are in your size.

Yea but aren't Michelin City Grips mainly for City Commute and aren't the speed ratings for those around 65?
I was looking for a tire set good for freeway speeds.

My knowledge about Michelin Tires is from having had a SSR scooter before and when the tire tread wore out I put Michelin's on the bike but they were J rated for 62 MPH. I assume the City Grips to be similar but not sure.

The only thing I can add is here is always, always whenever possible use Kymco OEM parts.

What about tire upgrades? Is there any unanimity on that subject?

First off putting your location in your profile can be helpful as Los Angeles covers a fairly large area. I'm down in Costa Mesa but ocassionaly end up in the LA area from time to time. I bought my Kymco MyRoad 700i from Bert's about a year and a half ago. I took it back for a feels like the clutch slipping on take off at only 140 miles on it. My one experience with them wasn't confidence inspiring and ultimately had to take it else where to get it fixed.

Now I'm not really sure if you are noticing a slippage problem or its just something Bert's threw out there. I can't imagine you need tires, brakes, or a CVT belt at this point. I've got 5,500 miles on my scoot and all seems well. If you want to sometime i'd be happy to look at it for you and/or show you how to work on it yourself.

MJR

That's absolutely awesome!

I am in Pasadena area. Specifically South Pasadena. About 40 miles from you, but I know where you are, where it's near to is Laguna Beach, me and my girlfriend have driven there about 2 months ago on the Kymco.

Man, i'd love to set something up perhaps next week or the following week, depending on my work schedule and of course yours. How would this work out?

By the way, thanks in advance!

Hello all,

This is my first post and i'm super 'xcited' that there is such a thing as a Kymco forum.
 
So, i'll delve right into my experiences and concerns.

First off, I live in Southern California (Los Angeles area) and I upgraded to the kymco xciting 500 abs 2016 model after I had a SSR Turino 150cc (cheap chinese vespa knock off).

The reasons I did the upgrade were:

1-Needed to get on the freeway desperately because i'm still relatively new to LA (came here in 2015) and i'm still searching earnestly for long term, consistent work. I also do freelance work that is sometimes 50 miles away, so I needed to be able to jump on the freeway when ever possible.

2-Low Maintenance potential. I figured with a better model bike made by a more reputable company like Kymco i'd have to invest less and do maintenance less outside of my service updates every 3000 miles.

So, I have about 3300 miles on the bike now after having purchased it brand new at Berts Mega Mall in west covina about 3 months ago.

For the most part the bike has been handling the freeway driving fairly well, I have been able to keep up with "most" freeway speed driving except when I am forced onto certain freeways by navigation (I wear earbuds when using my iphones navigation through siri or google maps). On some freeways here in California it is literally impossible to go slower than 80-85 safely because NOBODY obeys the speed limits. The 118 for example, or the 5 as another example.

That said, there have been multiple occasions where I was forced to 'push' the bike to 85-90 for a few minutes at a time because of these unreasonable driving conditions.

The other thing is, I wouldn't say I "hard accelerate" but there are instances (again, on the freeway) where I am forced to go from 0 rpm, to say, 3 or 4 rpm because of dangerous road conditions courtesy of guys doing 90-100 mph in large SUV's.

I took it for a brief inspection at berts mega mall last week and was told by one of the service techs that he thinks the belt might be 'slipping' a little due to 'hard accelerating" and I told him I don't hard accelerate, unless going from 0-2 or 3 on the rpm scale is considered hard accelerating. That means 0 to 2000 to 3000 rpms when I have to usually more 2000 than 3000, and I try my best to give it a second before going from 2-3-4 on the rpm scale but sometimes I don't have that luxury due to safety concerns.

Now, I could choose to stay mostly off the freeways but the reason I purchased the bike is to use it mostly on the freeways.

Secondly, this service tech told me my tires have "slight pre-cupping" which means ever so slight signs of cracking at the point where the side wall meets the tread surface, but none of that on the tread surface itself. I've been making sure the PSI is at 35-36 at least 2-3 times monthly. Lately i've been checking them more and keeping them about 38 PSI.

He also told me my brakes have about '60% left" in them which was another shocker.

Now, there was a single time I drove with the parking break half way engaged for less than a mile, but as I said it was only half way engaged or I would've noticed it sooner and I wouldn't have been able to drive as fast as I was with my girlfriend on the back also. I usually keep the rear suspension settings at 4-5 when she is on it and 3 when I am by myself, since I go shopping a lot after having installed a top case on it.

Based on all the above info, what should my approach be to this situation? I have a service maintenance coming in about 600 miles (out of my own pocket) but I kind of loathe the idea that i'm already having to consider pouring other money into this bike after only owning it for 3 months.

My second inquiry is about upgrade parts. Should I stick to the Kymco factory belt drive or seek out an upgrade model? And then tires, are there any tires that are considered an upgrade to the maxus factory installed ones, which would be great for both freeway and surface street driving? They're telling me these tires will only last 6000 miles! A HUGE shocker since i've seen motorcycle tires last 15000 miles. I'm honestly not yet ready to pour money into this bike, and the reason I bought it is so I wouldn't have to do it so soon.

Another thing, it's my main mode of transportation. I don't have a car.

What should I do?

Thank you in advance for all your responses.