I’d like to share some thoughts based on my experience of buying the P150 first, and then moving on to the P250:

I know that it is the wisdom of experience that many people use to encourage the purchase of the 250 right off, and often for good and valid reasons. For me however, there were other, equally important reasons to consider, and to decide to buy, the 150 first:

This would be my first scooter, or any other motorized 2-wheeler; the 250 just felt too big for me: too heavy, too much power, too much to handle given my lack of experience; I didn’t even know if I’d like riding.

Even though the dealer naturally steered me toward the 250 when I explained what I wanted to use the bike for – a 30 mile each way commute, including the first and last mile and a half of the day on a rough dirt road – he also assured me that the 150 would do what I wanted, even though, in his view, the 250 would do it “better”.

So I bought the 150 because it felt much more manageable to me, more comfortable, more handleable, and plenty powerful enough to do what wanted it to. Even though I moved on to the 250 after just three months – obviously I DID like riding, and in fact rode up to 200 miles a day just for the pleasure of it, exploring parts of my state (NM) that I never had any interest in exploring by car; and in this process I learned that I wanted to ride long distances, including the option of using the freeway if I wanted or needed to, and became much more comfortable with higher speeds, and with my own abilities in traffic
and in various weather conditions, and did take and pass the MSF course on the P150, etc., etc., etc. – I have no regrets at all about having taken the course of action that I did.

Yes, I had to buy and sell scooters. So what? (By the way, this can be done in creative ways that won’t necessarily end up costing any more money at all than if you’d bought the bigger bike first, and very possibly LESS, as in my case). The dealer also said something that makes sense to me, after having lived it: he’d rather see a person start off at a level that they’re comfortable with, gain good experience, and move “up”, than see people – which he has seen – start out with something too big for them, have a bad experience or two (like dropping the bike, or being intimidated, or losing control in some significant way, maybe even getting hurt) and giving up on riding altogether.

So……..if you factor in elements other than just purely price, and even THAT shouldn’t necessarily be a problem, there are good reasons, in my opinion, to start out smaller and move up if you want to. For me, it’s all been part of the fun of getting involved in scootering.