Majesty, a heckuva scoot

IF you're looking for something lighter, and say..more nimble than the SW, definitely look into one. I'm a big-boy, and I am averaging 52mpg combined right now. Once you're at-speed, it's every bit as smooth and quiet as the swing. However, there's no understeer, and the handling is darn close to it's big-bro TMax. Simply put, you'll quickly realize how porky the wing is once you get back on it, LOL. 

Storage is great. The rider's saddle lifts forward, and the pillon stays put. You slide your wares back under that, much as the pocket at the rear of the swing. I ride the swing with the MM backrest, and some cobbled together seat cover with extra foam padding. Still, I find the stock Yam seat far more comfortable. Although, I am quite nearly in one neutral position, so the swing still has far more legroom to stretch out. 

The only quirk I'd point out is the height of the bars. When turning slow, at near steering lock, I point my knees outward. Otherwise, the bars will smack into my knees. IF I tuck my knees in toward one another, I can get MOST of the steering available to me. It may not matter for a shorter rider. I'm 6' w/32" inseam.

Check one out if you have a chance.

I’ve always kinda fancied a Majesty. But at my age I don’t think I’m about to learn Yamaha. It’s taken 150+thousand miles for me to get this far.

The only Yamaha I've ever had was a 1980 XS 850. I liked the bike a lot and the wife and I rode it to FL one year. But that was years ago when I was a lot younger and stronger. It was a fantastic trip and we loved it. I think the wheel base was a bit longer than my 1974 CB750 that we rode to FL a couple years earlier and it had a drive shaft which made the ride a bit smoother too. So now I have my 08 SWing Trike and really like it. Not sure how long it will be before I get too old to ride but so far so good. I don't put on as many miles as I used to but the miles I do put on I really enjoy!!

I had a Yamaha Majesty 250 Mk2 for a year in 2004 after selling my Helix, it was OK but bland after riding the Helix for eight years. The taller Givi screen I fitted made it a lot quieter and comfortable to ride. It also had those weird side by side twin headlights, one for main beam and the other for dipped, It was also the only maxi scooter I've owned that I couldn't summon up enough interest to go touring on.

When I went to a local Yamaha dealer enquiring about purchasing a new Majesty 400, the salesman quite bluntly gave me the brush off, saying they were Yamaha motorcycle dealers not Yamaha scooter dealers. Fair enough I thought, you've lost a customer that would also have spent money on servicing, accessories, and maybe clothing and helmets. Who knows if they'd sold me one I might have hung onto it and later joined MajestyUSA.

That same dealership no longer has a Yamaha franchise. It's now a Kawasaki dealership and I was amused to see they've had to swallow their pride and are advertising the Kawasaki J125 and J300 scooters on their website.  

As it turned out the Yamaha Majesty 400 seemed to fly under the radar and sales were completely eclipsed by the Suzuki Burgman 400's available back then.

I remember looking over a couple of very clean low mileage Majesty 400's in dealerships when I had my Silver Wing, and they were still there months later.

As it's raining today and I'm going nowhere, out of interest I had a look online on two of the UK's online used motorcycle websites for used Majesty 400's and there were only 3 for sale. For all it's qualities the Majesty 400 now looks very dated, especially alongside it's sharper looking successor the Yamaha XMax 400. Which in turn was dropped as it's smaller brother the XMax 300 was taking the lions share of sales.

Japan, early 90's I had just purchased a new Helix (the 1st year with MAG wheels---bike called Fusion on Japan market) and noticed Honda had very little interest/push in selling Scooters in that market. Yamaha on the other hand was selling a lot of Majesty-250's and had huge accessories catalog.

I have no idea if Majesty was better than Helix----later in US I looked into Majesty 400 which I think had gas tank recall and was earning the reputation of hard to work on. So I stayed away.

Majesty in end, off US market because it didn't sell in dead scooter market.

I have had three Majesty 400s, a red '06, a silver '07, and (still have) another '07 that's complete except all of body parts are gone. I found them to be much better handling than the Burgman 400 even though they weighed a bit more than the Burger. The performance was very good for a single, I think that was due to being a D.O.H.C. motor, that always returned 56-62 mpgs.  Even though they may be dated, they make fine tourers. They're equally comfortable  running on interstates as they are on country two lanes.  I felt they were the best all around scooter, grossly under rated, until I got my Silverwing. There was a recall  on earlier models due to a poor fuel pump and related wiring, which was corrected.They have a very generous maintenance schedule. It was very common for belts to go 20K miles and still be in spec. A valve clearance check was to be done at 25,000miles and again at 50,000. I found them to be truly a gas and go type ride, requiring very little.

My question on the Majesty admirer ---how many miles did you ride them?? I did 175,000 miles with 4 new Helix, had 2 new Burgman 400's, but only 60,000 miles with them---SilverWing 600's over 90,000 miles on 2 new ones----so have some idea what they really are.

Hi John,

Do you ever write a post that doesn’t mention how many miles you’ve done....

No-----miles done simply I have been doing this a long time and tend to use my bikes.

John-You're not the only one that has ridden a lot of miles-as if that means anything. I've done over 85,000 on the two Majestys alone. I've done over 30,000 on my Burgman 400. While the ride was softer, it wasn't as good on the interstate, and handled like the land barge it was. I'm not counting the miles done on the Burgman 650, the 250 Elite, Helix, or the Morphous. I've always done my own work. And it is possible to make the machines better using other than stock parts. Not that stock isn't adequate- but they could be much better. Don't forget the factory has to make them to the lowest common denominator, for a wide variety of riders. Out of the box, I feel that the Majesty 400 was one of the best all around scooters (my opinion only).

Lest this digress into a piss’n match I give the last word to Mr Minimac.

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