Honest review of Chinese Grom clone

I’m cheap. Honestly, i wanted a street legal XR100, but buying a Chinese Grom clone was cheaper and easier.

So i ordered a TaoTao hellcat in June ...and the vendor cancelled the order the next day, because nothing will be in stock in the states until 2021 at the earliest.

fast forward a few weeks, and Amazon had a vendor advertising the “Boom Vader” in stock for $1600 assembled, and shipped to my door.

It was easily $300 more than necessary, but I’m impatient and not that concerned about $300 right now.

but bottom line is this: it runs well. It’s horribly slow, and i encountered several problems, but it runs well now with mild frustration and no cost labor.

top speed is a GPS confirmed 49mph with stock gearing and removal of all the emissions garbage. That was 2-up if it matters, so about 300 lbs of human.

i have a $32 Mikuni carburetor (copy) on order. Debating whether or not exhaust is worth it... guess we’ll find out.

anyway, if anyone is on the fence about a Chinese clone, it’s not a grom, but if you’re planning to buy an exhaust and farkle up your Grom anyway, consider the clone. You can make it run well for $0 and add some power for $30. Maybe $80 if you want an exhaust too... or for $700 more, you came swap in a 190cc crate engine.

do i regret the purchase? Not yet. I just saw a 2015 Grom with 9k miles for $2000. I’m into this for $1600, with 75 miles. It will never be a Grom, but it’s the only new bike i have ever purchased, and i won’t flinch when the kids drop it.

honestly, i think it’s a great way to have a means of grabbing supplies from the corner store at the track for less than the cost of a Grom. Luggage rack is standard. Milk crate and bungee cords are not.

 

I'd like you to post the 2k mile follow up. Hell, might surprise us! Probably not, but it might!

 

Go ahead and support intellectual theft* and a culture that doesn't value human life. Glad your stimulus check was invested in bettering America, ha ha.

* - it pains me to use this term on a clone of a Honda product.

 

Let us know when you need parts down the road...it's a crap shoot at best.

Honestly some are great and run forever and some are complete garbage. Quality control just isn't there.

Chinese carburetor? Good luck with that. I got one for my generator because I needed the gaskets for my stock carb. I put the whole carb on for shits and giggles and it ran like absolute crap. No amount of "tuning" would help. Small precision parts, they just cant make them worth a fuck.

 

Pull the exhaust off and look at the header where it goes into the head. Many of them are nearly choked off here by horrible welds. Grind them back and you'll likely free up the motor a bit.

 

I wouldn’t give real money for anything made in China.

Have a Coleman side by side in the shop we are doing for another local shop that can’t handle it.
Wouldn’t go into reverse, when we
Got It Apart, it is horrendous how Bad the finish is on most of the internal stuff. The problem was the shift shaft finish was so bad it wouldn’t slide into the case( yes that design the shaft actually moves in the case unseat of the fork on the shaft..)when loaded to put it in reverse.
I guess if you wanted to take it all the way apart and fully blue print it like was common place n the 60’s to 70’s it might be okay....

 

On aftermarket pipes for two strokes, due to regulations, you will have restrictors limiting the flow. Once removed, you achieve a performance gain. With proper jetting adjustments, of course.

 

Pic?

 

Cool deal. Have fun! As long as you're willing to take on the maintenance, some of the Chinese stuff isn't bad. We've got 4 chinese vehicles now (dirt-bike, quad, dual-sport, and a scooter), all working great but have required a lot of initial setup that wouldn't be required on a Japanese branded bike like a Grom. For someone like me who loves working on bikes, it's been great. After doing the initial work, it's been all normal, nothing bad. But yes, as mentioned, you can't go to a local dealer and get parts, you'll have to go to eBay/Amazon for that. But parts are available as much as I've needed, assuming you want to replace with OEM parts.

There is some crossover to Japanese or KTM on a lot of the bikes, but it's often not what you may think. Engine design origins often off a '83 Honda air-cooled engine, and so does the modern Honda engines, but they branched off a while ago. So things like pistons and cylinders swap, but case covers are Chinese original. Google around and you can find the stuff that works and what doesn't. Zongshen is a common engine manufacturer over there and they have a lot of parts available directly. Tao tao may make their own stuff though, they're a larger company over there.

 

Ask @Metalhead how his Chinese dong has been doing

 

Apple products, most laptops, Bose products, most walmart clothes. . . tough to not buy China Inc products.

 

Often times.....a bargain.......isn't.

And don't get me even remotely started on China.

 

These sort of purchases usually go like this: Add the $1,600, plus your time/frustration/parts to the cost of a used Grom at $2-2,500 that you'll most likely have to buy at some point anyway. Its an expensive and round-about way to get to where you wanted to be in the first place. Hope you're the outlier that has a decent experience though, best of luck!

 

no way. Saw enough of that poorly copied stuff when every wannabe was selling "chinese quads" on the street corner. The scooters are even worse.
And junky copies of $200 carbs? no thanks.

 

I'll take my Baja Designs kitted 2001 XR100L over that cheap copy any day of the week. I'm about $2200 in it, including the rear shock I had Race Tech build for it. I have a feeling mine will still be running like a champ the years from now (and further), how about that copy?

 

I have a buddy who likes to buy Chinese knock off crap off EBay (levers, rearsets, coils, etc.). They always end up being junk and he has to spend money again to get the parts he should have bought the first time.

 

If Asian bargains is your thing. I think I posted about discount condoms. Only used once and properly sterilized before being repackaged.

 

My best friend bought 4 of these SSR 110's a few years ago so we could all race at his farm and be on the exact same bike. No more. "you've got the better bike" crap. First day out, pretty sure all of them were grounded because at the slightest lay down, levers and foot controls would break like they were made out of cottage cheese. So he ordered a bulk of replacements. Then we found that the tires absolutely sucked, so all new tires on them. And then after about 4 weekends we all became bored with it and they sit in his barn to this day, covered in an inch of dust.

 

This post screams that you have a shitty harbor freight generator that’s loud as fuck and who cares cause you saved $7 but everyone hates you and your shitty Chinese knock off garbage.