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3 years and 15,000 km with my Aprilia SR150 scooter

7th July 2021, 16:08 by Rahul Nagaraj

Even after nearly 5 years of its launch, the Aprilia still manages to grab attention from the crowd by its looks.

BHPian car_guy1998 recently shared this with other enthusiasts.

This is the review of my Aprilia SR150, which I bought as new in July 2018, and to date, it has run close to 15,000 km in almost 3 years of ownership, i.e., 14,700 km.

Background:

I had started riding scooters when I was in 10th class and learned to ride on my maternal grandfather's 2012 Access 125, which is also with us now (used by employees in mom's office) and ran just 25,000 km in 9 years and I don't even know how to ride a geared bike till now. I had to use Access by force due to personal reasons and I had thought, why not own two-wheeler myself? Yes, this was in my mind since I had completed 18 years of age and since then, I had started pursuing the degree. But, destiny had other plans and had to postpone buying a two-wheeler. But, in the year 2017, when I was about to buy an Activa 4G or Aprilia SR150, my parents had got me the Access 125 of my grandfather's and had to ride it forcefully and I hated the Access 125 to the core cause of poor brakes and suspension. But, I rode the vehicle for around 8,000 km in 10 months on Access until I bought myself a new one. After owning 2 cars at home, I felt that a 2 wheeler is a must at home as I feel lazy in getting groceries by walk and I used to go to college by cab until last year before getting the Access. The Access served my needs but, after few days of using it, I felt that this vehicle is too old for me to use for daily rides to college. Hence, I had started searching for a scooter for my daily commute since the day I had completed 18.

Selection process:

Vespa - This is my all-time favorite scooter when it comes to the looks. I had ridden my friend's first lot of Vespa but 125cc one, many times along with dealer TD vehicles and I loved it. But, had to strike it off as the Vespa was expensive at that time and the price was more than Rs 1 lakh (SXL) and only the standard version was coming in my budget.

Honda Dio - My other favorite. I booked one last year by transferring Activa booking to Dio. But, destiny had other plans and had to drop this one and felt too old but matte grey is favorite in Dio.

Honda Activa 4G/5G - Every second or third person has an Activa. Many of my relatives and friends own the same vehicle. But, had considered this one as this is one of the trusted vehicles. It was there till final consideration until I had TD'ed Aprilia SR150.

Now, coming to Aprilia SR150,

I had ridden this when it was launched. First, I used to hate its looks but the looks had grown on me afterward. I had taken several TD's of SR150 and felt this is the vehicle which I wanted and made for me After TD'ing the SR150, I had decided to book it but destiny had other plans and booked Activa 4G and then transferred to Dio. That happened in the year 2017. And, after a year, I had earned around Rs.6k and had decided to book a vehicle for myself. Finally, on June 18th, 2018, I had booked my Aprilia SR150 by paying Rs 5k to the dealer and had to take delivery of the vehicle after one month of booking although the vehicle was readily available. Finally, after 2 years of convincing my parents to buy one for me, today I had bought my first ever two-wheeler.

And, decided that Aprilia SR150 will be my new love!

Booking and dealer experience:

I had booked it at Radar Motors, Uppal, which is near to my home. This dealer has another two dealerships in Hyderabad. And, I had decided to go to Uppal dealer as this is near to my place. The booking experience was good and my manager was Nikesh, who was friendly and polite. But, he later left his job in this dealership after few weeks of delivering my Aprilia. He used to call me frequently after I booked the vehicle and I used to say there is a financial delay, I'll buy it very soon and he happily agreed on it. On 21/07/18 finally, it was the day that I bought my vehicle and called my manager in the evening that I'm going take my vehicle today in Black colour. He said Black is not available and he had to procure it from another dealer. And, finally, at 5:45 pm, my dad and I went to the dealership and completed all my formalities and paid full cash rather than buying on EMI. Since my desired colour was not available, my manager, who dealt with me, had sourced a black one from another dealer. This made us wait for nearly 1.5 hrs and told my dad to go home and called my cousin, who is also an auto enthusiast. Then, after few mins, my manager had arrived with my vehicle with 3 km on odo. Then, washing and fitting of accessories like side stand and floor mat took some time i.e around half an hour of the arrival of the vehicle, and Nikesh got my vehicle washed before fitting those accessories and got the side stand and floor mat installed and the vehicle was all set for delivery. Again, I observed few watermarks on it and immediately called that guy and made him clean the vehicle. Finally, my dream came true, and took delivery of my vehicle along with pictures taken by the dealer guy and my cousin, who has an iPhone 7 Plus. After taking the vehicle, I went to the petrol bunk and filled Rs.300 of fuel, which contained 3.7L of Petrol and odo at the time of filling petrol was 4 km and now I did 14 km after filling the fuel. As soon as I fill the Petrol in the vehicle, I had headed to the nearby Hanuman temple along with my cousin coming in his Celerio driven by himself and the vehicle got all the blessings and headed home directly after my dad had pestered me to get food for him. So, it was the chance to test my vehicle, and did it successfully. After getting food for dad, I had parked my Aprilia behind our Honda City.

And, the OTR of my Aprilia was close to Rs.84,000 (now it costs close to Rs.1.5L) along with the side stand and floor mat and I had purchased a helmet from the dealer for Rs.3000. Now, the same Aprilia SR150 albeit SR160 costs around Rs.1.5L, which is Rs.50-70k expensive than what I paid in 2018.

At first sight!

Myself (right) taking delivery!

My impressions with the Aprilia:

Performance:

Well, the performance is the reason why I bought the Aprilia. It easily touches 60 km/h and can go beyond that easily without any fuss.

Ride and Handling:

Now, this is one more reason why I bought this over others. I just love to do corners on this and doing cornering on the Aprilia is quite fun.

Braking:

I absolutely love its braking and in fact, the brakes are quite strong, thanks to Aprilia for adding disc brakes.

Fuel Efficiency:

I get the FE of around 34-37 Km/l, depending on how I drive. But, in the middle of the ownership, the FE got reduced to 30-32 Km/l, which the FE got increased after I've started doing commutes and I got 40 Km/l as well when the vehicle was new but I don't care about the FE much as I just love its performance.

Looks:

Even after nearly 5 years of its launch, the Aprilia still manages to grab attention from the crowd by its looks. When I bought the Aprilia in 2018, it had double barrel headlamps, which was now changed to single headlamps in later versions.