Change Your Kymco People S200 Spark Plug

Yes, I’d probably put money (the little that I have) on it — I’m probably the only scooterist sporting the Taiwanese look in Utah. I wear it proudly with my halfsies helmet, tinted visor, sunglasses and Spider-man face mask. Could I possibly be the only one in the US too? Well, if you ever see me around town, talk me up (as others have) or wave hello!

Okay, let’s get on with it, shall we? The other day, I changed out my spark plug — did a lil’ self maintenance and trouble-shooting. I’ve been having issues with my scoot stalling on me and someone suggested I switch out the spark plug.

Thanks to fellow blogger Peanut Butter Scooter Time, I had a fairly decent idea of what I was doing. His directions are awesome — but I took a few extra photos and decided to do a tutorial in my own words.

First, pop your seat — and remove it. You’ll need to unscrew it with a wrench attached with an extender.

After you have removed the 2 bolts up top and 3 additional nut cap bolts (1 up top, two near the bottom), remove the electric socket by popping it out.

After you have popped it out, pull it out to reveal where it is attached to the wiring. Unclip from the wiring by pressing down on the latch and pulling it out.

Now, you can remove the seat storage box. Lift it up and out with care, then set it somewhere safely aside.

Next, remove the silver rack in the back — you’ll need the correct size Allen (or, as I like to refer to them, L) wrench to remove the screws.

After removing the rack, remove the black license plate holder at the tail. I found it easier to unscrew it with the extender attached.

Be careful not to pull off the black tail piece — the lights are still connected to the wiring. Unattach the wiring by pressing the latch and pulling it gently.

The last step to removing the outside body — gently pull the black plastic fairing near the passenger foot rests. Be very careful as this part is fragile and can tear with too much pressure. The fairing is notched into the bottom. Carefully tug at a slight angle to pull it out. Do so on each side of the scooter. In the below photo, I had removed the sides but this isn’t necessary as I later realized…

Again, be careful as you remove the body because the lights are attached to the wiring. Remove the wiring before completely pulling off the body. It’s, again, a latch that you press down on and pull out.

Okay! Tough part over… I had the hardest time removing the outside body because I thought you had to unscrew the fairings and I had no such tool to do so in the tight spaces allowed. Turns out, the screws weren’t meant to be touched until the entire body was taken off the scooter first! Ignore this babbling if it doesn’t make sense to you… it’d only make sense if you did the same thing I did :).

Focus, focus. After you have removed the outside body, you should be able to easily spot the spark plug cap. If you are sitting on the scooter, it is on the right side. It’s black. Tug it gently to remove it — hold it close to the cap and pull out to not damage the connecting parts.

Behold — the spark plug.

Use the spark plug tool (it was included with your scooter tool kit — it’s a long metal tube thing) to remove the spark plug. Push it in to “catch” the spark plug and rotate it to unscrew the plug out of the socket.

I used screwdriver or thicker Allen wrench to help me unscrew the spark plug by inserting it into the holes on the spark plug tool. This helped me rotate due to the tight conditions.

Once you have unscrewed the old spark plug, take it out — it’ll stay within the spark plug tool.

Take your new spark plug — perhaps a NGK CR7HSA (I got mine from HondaWorld for just a few bucks) and stuff it into the spark plug tool. You can also use the fancier iridium version — NGK CR7HIX.

Screw the new spark plug into its socket.

Tighten it up a bit — be careful not to overtighten.

And just walk through the steps backwards — from removing the spark plug cap, that is… Remember to put that spark plug cap back on before starting up your scooter! I had totally forgotten and thought I broke my scooter :(. I was relieved to realize I just hadn’t put that cap back on… Feel free to start ‘er up and make sure she runs before going through all the steps of putting the body panel back on.

There you have it! The first time I removed the outside body, it took me about an hour and a half to figure it all out. After that, I can usually do it in about 15 minutes. It’s a simple maintenance procedure that will cost you maybe a few bucks for a new plug and about 30 minutes — as opposed to that maybe $60+ trip to the service shop! YES! Frugality – I love it.