Lowering a scooter that doesn't have kits available for it?

My wife's scooter is a Honda SH150i. Sadly this ended up being a 1-year only model here in the US so aftermarket accessories are nonexistent. It's Italian made and is everything my wife wants in a scooter except the ride height is just a little too high. It's caused her to drop it once, fortunately that was from a stop in the driveway. What do you guys suggest we do to make the scooter fit her better? Is there a way to lower the suspension when there isn't a kit on the open market? Should I try to shave some foam out of the seat? Do both?

She's petite, around 5'2", so the more we can lower it without messing up the ride and handling the better. The preload is already set all the way down in the rear.

Cutting the seat foam is the first thing that comes to mind for me. If you come up with a way to lower it, make sure you don't lose any travel. Pretty much every scooter I've messed with has a pretty low amount of rear suspension travel already.

If you want to take some measurements of the rear shock, you could find something that will fit, still have enough travel, but have a shorter overall length. Maybe one of the other bigwheel scoots out there will have something that would work.

I have the opposite issue with my latest ride. A Genuine Buddy is a little cramped for a 6' tall person.

Strip off the plastic and take a photo of the rear suspension linkage. I think I know how to make this happen

Shorter rear shocks will lower the ride height in the rear and in the front you should be able to raise the forks where they clamp into the tree and gain 1/2" which to 3/4". That should drop the entire scoot at least an inch to 1 1/2" and not effect the handling. To get more drop than that and you'll have to strip the seat to the pan, replace the foam with a gel pad, and recover. If your Honda seat is anything like the seat on my Majesty, there isn't a lot of height to be gained(lost) without extensive work on the seat.

Woody wrote: Strip off the plastic and take a photo of the rear suspension linkage. I think I know how to make this happen

I will do this this weekend.

Thanks for the tips, guys!