On our last full day in Phnom Penh we went to a new (to us) vegetarian restaurant and stopped by Piaggio RMA for a small tuk-tuk repair and service.
JC Vegetarian Restaurant 👩🍳
The girls were both demanding bowl of sup kiev bonlae, so we searched and found JC Vegetarian Restaurant on Google Maps and decided to give it a try. The dish I previously mentioned is basically a Khmer dish similar-ish to Chinese won-ton soup, but that was the previous day, this is actually our second trip for some fried rice and fried dumplings. The place is fairly affordable and the dishes seem to be made hygienically and with care. The menu is full of mock meat dishes in Vietnamese style, but not actually sure if the place is Khmer or Vietnamese.
Piaggio RMA 🚜🛺
Here in Cambodia John Deere and Piaggio are combined into a congolomerate called RMA, and that is where we purchased our tuk-tuk, right alongside John Deere tractors, a familiar site from my hometown back in the USA. The service center is now located in a different location from the sales site, but there were some new fully built tuk-tuks there. The above model is the mid-sized one, the Piaggio Ape City+, very similar to ours, but no diesel engine and a little shorter.
In recent months I had noticed a small oil leak from a gasket under the rocker arms cover. It's not an area under pressure like other parts of the engine, so it barely leaked, but because oil is sprayed in the area it did nee to be fixed. It is frustrating because they have no parts in stock for our model and won't order them from India, so instead of replacing with a new gasket, they trimmed a gasket from another model to fit, not the correct material or gasket, so time will tell if this repair made things worse or not.
I'm a former Vespa tuner and mechanic myself, and because I know the technical skill is very low in Cambodia, I have to watch and guide the mechanics. It's quite normal though, another guy was having his transmission rebuilt, and coaching along the mechanics, correcting when they put parts on upside down or in the wrong order, welcome to Cambodia.
I also got an oil chance while there, replaced the air filter and showed the young quasi-mechanic where it's located and how to install it because he'd never even worked on the diesel models yet. A lot of parts are UV damaged on our tuk-tuk because it sat for a few years on there lot before selling, fully exposed to the weather during this time. The taillight covers cracked after two months of driving, so I requested two new covers, and luckily they had them in stock.
The mechanic put them on, not bothering to wipe or clean any dust from inside the taillight housing, over tightened the screws, cracking a portion of one of the covers. I asked him to replace it with another new one, then he pretended it wasn't broken, then reluctantly removed it and wandered around the shop asking other mechanics for advice because he didn't want to let the boss know he'd broken a new part during installation.
After 15 minutes he gave and went to the parts desk to request a third taillight cover, got chewed out by the manager, them came back to finish the job, a little embarrassed and now working much more nervously. I have decided from now on out I will just buy whatever are tools are required as I need them, and do any future repairs by myself, of course providing the dealer will one day want to provide parts for all of the tuk-tuks they sell.
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