I am a big hypocrite. I have advised my friends from getting Royal Enfield bikes for years now. They usually have many problems requiring servicing, lack power, have vibrations at sub highway speeds and no power to overtake. I hated any one who said You had to experience a royal enfield ride to love bikes. When everyone said it is a looker I have pointed out it is only because it makes so much noise and not because it looks good. It just grows on you and you tend to live with its problems, that is what I have been told by folks I could get through to.
Didn't I say I was a hypocrite ? Yeah. I did. Royal Enfield then launched the Himalayan. Raving reviews. Everyone was talking about it. I took a test ride. I did like the feel of the bike and was super excited. The Engine sounded good and it had a nice feel to it. Totally new stuff from RE. I booked it immediately. A big mistake.
I write this right now sitting in the waiting room of the service center knowing very well that my bikes problems have not been solved. It has been two months since I got this bike And here is how it stands right now.
1. I have ridden a total of 600 kms and my bike has already spent 10 days of the 2 months at the service center
2. My Engine wouldn't run at idle speed and will get cut off if I switch gears.
3. Engine has terrible knocking and can't slow down at any speed or gear without knocking.
4. My Battery has died already at 580 kms.
5. It Heats up for no reason ( It heats up enough to affect the ambient environment temperature sensor to show 48 degrees )
6. And nobody at the service center has any clue as to what is wrong with the bike.
After waiting for more than 3 months for getting the bike, even though I booked it on the very first day, I got the bike. The sales people at the Legend Motors showroom didn't care about the bike. They just sold it had no clue as to what they were selling. I was advised to kick start the bike every morning before I started using it for the day. I mockingly asked them to show me a demo of kick start knowing very well that bike has no kick start. As soon as I started the bike it switched off. I was assured that it takes a week for the engine to settle down. Knowing RE idiocrasies, I drove away on the bike which switched off many times before I reached home. A very sad feeling to have a new bike fail on you so many times :( .
After riding for about 250 kms , I gave up . The engine was still problematic . It kept switching off at low speeds. It kept knocking if let go of the accelerator. I took the bike to the service center way ahead of the scheduled time. After the bike spent 5 days at the service center and replacing a bunch of wires. I was assured that the bike problems will sorted out now. I tested it and was not satisfied. The folks at the service center unlike the showroom folks were nice to me, but they had no clue what needed fixing. After arguing with them for while . They assured me they will have some one from the factory take a look at it the next week. I also mentioned that the knocking problem existed ( there was news about a faulty part that need to be replaced. ). I had been assured of my bike being one of the lots that had fix from factory itself. I took the bike and rode it with great regret .
How does a bike get off the factory line without being tested for something as basic as idling speed / idling run? How can the engine not run for a whole 5 secs when you turn it on?
Problem existed still. Every RE owner I talked to told me such problem with the bikes will always exist. It just goes away with time. They described this as a character of the bike . I could not digest it that such sub standard bikes were so popular. They were describing each bad problem as a character of the bike. So many people acknowledge this cold start problem and that engine will die on you at low speed as a common phenonmenon. But I came to terms with the engine problems like others.
Now I stared experience new heating problems. The engine heat was crazy and I couldn't even ride with jeans on. It would heat up so much that the temperature indicator on the dash would shoot from 36 degrees when I start the bike to 48 degrees when I have ridden it for half hour to an hour. It is supposed to show environment temperature so the engine heat was just affecting the sensor. This did not exist before the first service. And Engine still had a knocking problem.
What use is a bike if you cant cruise at 50 -60 kms without knocking up ?
Then in 2 weeks times It died out on me again. I started the bike from office , rode 25 kms home. The battery low indicator was on when I halted to open my gates. I killed the engine hoping the indicator was wrong. Well damn me, cause the battery had already died out on me and the bike wouldn't start .
A whole of 600 kms and the battery had already died out on me . How the hell is this bike supposed to scale mountains ?
The bike stands in the service center right across me as I write this. It still can't idle. I am pretty sure I can't ride it smoothly until the engine heats up. I am not sure if the knocking is solved. I hate my situation. So I write this blog cause I don’t want to agree with all those die hard fans out there that RE bikes are great. I may have got 1 bad lemon out of 1000 bikes and this is just an anomaly among other himalayan bikes. But that is a very low standard for a such a highly valued company. If something cant be fixed and I have to live with that bike for the rest of its life, I refuse to accept the Himalayan is a great bike. I reject all good reviews of Himalayan out there.
Update 1 : I have been contacted by Royal enfield to resolve the issues with the bike. It has gone back to a service centre.
Update 2 : My bike has spent about a week and it still can't idle. I have a new problem of bike now shutting down as soon as I touch the throttle. The knocking is still bad if not worse . However, the heating issues have definitely been resolved although the service engineer would not say anything about what was fixed. I have just accepted my fate and decided to just live with it. Can't give it for service just to get it back with different problem because they don't seem to know what they are doing ( Best Engineers promised by the Tamilnadu Sales head for my problem)
