[sumanthkr]

Well and off motorcycling for a few years now, getting back into it hopefully from June.

Am 180cm tall but weigh just 60, so 195-200kg bikes especially long wheelbase are out of reckoning atleast for now

So I shortlisted a few, will write about it In detail after I lay my hands on Hunter 350 (almost decided, sorry for the spoiler!!)

To cut the chase, I just showed interest in RE and boom 5 showrooms around me followed up for TD

On the contrary, I walked into Jawa showroom which is just 600meters from my Apartment, they did not show any interest, did not take my name, number nothing.

Said TD may take few days. So this is their way of saying tata see ya bye bye to.a prospective customer! Give me a break.

Feel sad that their dealer network is so much lacking in motivation.

I do like the bike though, haven't driven it much but looks real stuff. They themselves need to believe in it, seems that is what is lacking. Maybe the product in itself is pretty good I feel.

[neil.jericho]

The failure of Mahindra Classic Legends is down to
1. The company
Any successful business knows that they have to follow the Crawl - Walk - Run principle, for sustained success. Mahindra thought that they could bolt out the door, without even getting their business basics in place. They fell for their own hype. The market has taught them a valuable lesson.

2. The showrooms
Does anyone remember the swagger with which the sales people used to talk to potential customers, when the Yezdi triplets were launched? It was as though God's gifts to motorcyclists were being sold exclusively through Jawa dealerships. Test rides were nothing more than straight - u turn - straight - u turn - enter showroom. If you want the test ride, take it. If not, we dont care. Today, the same sales people encourage riders to take slightly longer test rides, in order to sample the motorcycles.

3. The products
The bikes felt half baked, then. They still feel incomplete, now.

Recently, I dropped into the Jawa showroom to check out the offerings. While testing the suspension on the motorcycles in the showroom, I found that on a brand new Scrambler, the compression at the front end was unusually slow, while the rebound was non-existent. The sales person was quick to point out that this is how new motorcycles are When I showed him that the Scrambler which was right next to it, had normal suspension behaviour, they wheeled the bike out of the showroom and into the service center. Does Jawa not have any factory QC processes in place

Anyways, since I was there took a test ride of the Scrambler and Adventure motorcycles. These were 2022 bikes.

I was expecting to find the rear suspension of the Scrambler to be rock hard with ungainly rebound (as was pointed out in multiple reviews). However, the suspension was fine. Im guessing that the showroom folks had softened the preload, to ensure that this behaviour wasnt evident. I found myself with a legs up position, which took some getting used to. The engine refinement could have been better. Its hard for me to say why I wasnt happy with the steering feel but it felt rather vague, for such a compact motorcycle. Overall, this was a very unimpressive test ride experience.

The test ride of the Adventure, left me even less impressed. The legs up position felt the same as the Scrambler. The engine wasnt really refined. However, what shocked me the most was the completely misaligned parts. The tank was tilted to the right. The crashbars above the tank were tilted in the opposite direction. And worst of all, the dashboard was also tilted to the right. The sales person tried explaining to me that the bikes have taken a lot of abuse at the hands of stunters etc and hence, were in this condition.

I have asked the sales team to call for me a test ride of the 2023 test ride bikes. Lets see if Mahindra Classic Motors is making year on year improvements to the quality of their motorcycles. As things stand, are these motorcycles really worth north of Rs 2.5 L on road? I dont think so.

[s_pphilip]

We have a 2020 Java 42 and a 2013 CBR 250R ABS Repsol at home and despite the CBR being a decade older platform, it's so obvious that Honda is a better finished product feel and finish wise. I'm not referring to sporty riding or speed but just feel.

CL has a jaw dropping beautiful design, a balanced chassis, low cg, well sprung, a strong platform in the form of Mahindra engine to build on but they failed to perfect it, it's like someone hurriedly wrote the code and launched without beta testing, as someone said above, it turned out a half baked effort. It's like the DDIS tuned by Maruti was far superior vs the Multijet tuned by Fiat or Quadrajet by Tata.

The gear ratios are inappropriate, the fueling isn't smooth, unlike Honda's, has stupid flat spots, clutch action doesn't feel linear, and though they claim it's a torquey engine, regular Bajaj's and Hero's have better low ends and Java is just annoying below 30kmph where riders spend half their time in cities. Obviously it ain't great above 80 either, so basically it's good for someone riding at 60 all day but then you don't start off at 50kmph or need a Java to ride at 60kmph, they should have perfected the low speed character and given a linear experience. Something Bullets excel at. Of course Java needn't compete but could create its own niche. It's more refined.

The Mojo engine has no doubt, potential, is well balanced and smooth but either CL doesn't know how to make a finished product or they aren't great at tuning or ironing out flaws, maybe they didn't connect or collect rider feedback or have user test scenarios. They thought they could be the one eyed emperor in the blind kingdom but they didn't realize competition was progressing.

This product is on paper a strong initiative but lost steam at 70% product finish when other products are 90 to 95% and that extra 20% is what makes the difference in terms of user friendliness and feel. Even the simple Apache mechanicals feels predictable, well set up and engaging.

Another case is their uninspired service, my bike had rusting issues right from the word go, however the service center didn't acknowledge the same, I was later told by another out station service center much later that instructions were out to everyone to honor rusting issues within warranty period and my service center was just too lazy to put that effort. As a result I've adviced at least 4 of my friends to pick the Honda CB350 instead of the Java cos I didn't want them to be unhappy. Not good if an owner can't endorse.

This is a product that needs a community and gathering, ask RE, ask Thar, ask Mahindra, CL has put abysmal efforts to build one. A community could sway opinions. Somehow they don't get it when even Redmi had community's when scaling up.

[windiesel]

Originally Posted by shortbread

CL scrapes the barrel with a piddly 3k approx. units monthly. !

RE is like Harley Davidson of India, it resides in the psyche of Indian riders. Honda too tried to grab a slice of the RE pie with the absurdly named ' Hiness' and today sells an equally piddly about 3K a month, and this, in spite of the famed Honda engineering and financial muscle. RE is just too damn hard a nut to crack.

[Senotrius]

Bigwing only sales model to be partly blamed for the comparatively low volumes for the hness. Plus they wont be updating the engine or adding newer features in typical honda fashion. Looking at the honda model one can only think how much worse it is with the limited amount of jawa service points.

[srkriz26]

This is due to Mahindra and its way of things more than anything else. If there is one thing that Mahindra is poor at, and never even looked to improve, it is the DELIVERY

All products have shortcomings. RE is the best example. None of their bikes are perfect. Their service quality is nothing compared to Hero or Honda, which sells bikes and scooters in volumes that RE can't even imagine. RE's components failure is a regular phenomenon. I have close to 10 REs in my family and friends list. Still, they are a hit because people saw the difference this bike gave in a vast pool market, where every bike was similar.

The same worked for Jawa when it was launched. I was hell-bent on booking. What stopped me was not the issues or quality, but the delivery. The first set of bikes was never delivered before 6 months. Even after that, delivery wasn't guaranteed. When you launch a product, it has got to be aligned with the delivery schedule. After that fiasco, they never came back.

[sagsaw]

Have they wound up operations???

Frankly, I really liked what they did with the resurrected brands Jawa and Yezdi. Looked aithentic and good. I liked their BSA resurrection too.

Yes, quality issues were there, but the RE made huge blunders and bog quality issues with Himalayan too.

Happens.

They tried to play niche with pricing. Jawa is fine to be niche but Yedi should have been more price friendly and 200cc engine making it more efficient yet similarly torquey and decent power.

[Fishy]

I am currently in a sticky situation though.

I am about to purchase my first bike ever. After test rides of many many bikes that I can afford, all under 3 lakhs, I have decided to go for either the Honda CB 350 H'ness or the Yezdi Adventure 2023. Will probably make my first comprehensive post on this forum when I get a bike.

The thing that bugs me the most is that the more I ask around, the more people seem to show their hate towards the Yezdi brand. Most of the people who haven't even ridden the new 2023 models are plainly passing judgments based on 2 years old experiences and goof-ups. Every time, Yezdi is compared to RE, people will keep praising RE like they're getting paid for it. I genuinely didn't like any of the Royal Enfield offerings! They felt slow, overpriced, unrefined and unmanageable. I thought the new Yezdi Adventure was a much more fun and peppy bike than the RE Himalayan, or Scram 411. I enjoyed myself on the Yezdi thoroughly! the sound, the grunt, the feel of the engine, the availability of ride modes, the instant power you get when you twist the throttle, it's all so much better than the REs.
Moreover, the rusting issues people were facing, I feel like it's blown out of proportion. The new models don't rust one bit. it's just the accessories which the company puts on the bike that get rust spots on the bolt or whatever. that's all. I've seen much worse on the new REs. Heck the showroom people themselves were so nonchalant about the horrible state of their trial bikes. at least the yezdis were well maintained, lubed and clean.

I don't really know if my comment is violating any rules and regulations of the forum, if so, I apologize. However, I feel that people just criticize brands without really thinking rationally, and they also have huge double standards for other brands. That's one thing I wanted to call out.

I am not saying Yezdi is a flawless manufacturer of motorcycles. But even the BMWs and Triumphs of the world are not perfect. Brand loyalty is subjective. No need to preach or bad-mouth other brands IMO.

Sorry for the rant.

[Abi5hek]

Originally Posted by Fishy

. Every time, Yezdi is compared to RE, people will keep praising RE like they're getting paid for it.

I'm with you there! Was in somewhat of a similar situation earlier this year. I have been using my RE CL500 for about 6 years,and have faced all the issues mentioned in the classic legend bikes reviews ( poor weld quality, rusting: not just nuts and bolts but body panels as well and much more) in my RE as well. But no one seems to bring these up when reviewing RE's. It's all about 'how riding the bike is an emotion/ feeling' , 'you will learn to live with the flaws and learn to love it over time' etc when it comes to reviewing RE's. Don't get me wrong, I do love the bike but I feel like the courtesy should be extended to other manufacturers as well. I loved how the 42 felt when I test drove it earlier this year! It felt like a perfect city bike. Peppy engine, brilliant throttle response, right mix of tech and retro. The 42 bobber too with a similar powertrain (although I felt it was too stiff for my city's roads) has so much character.