Aftermarket crash guard brand's take on Himalayan 450 chassis failure

The company has released a video showing how its crash guard is mounted on the Royal Enfield Himalayan 450.

BHPian Zoro007 recently shared this with other enthusiasts.

Team Zana has posted the above video explaining their side, folks.

Royal Enfield said it happened because the aftermarket crash guard had messed up with the engine bolt-nut but it seems they never touched it.

Let me know your thoughts, folks.

Also, I'm using the Himalayan 450 with a Moto Torque crash guard and I'm in a dilemma now, whether I should buy the rally OEM crash guard and waste/throw away Rs 5k spent on the Moto Torque crash guard or should I still run this aftermarket Moto Torque crash guard.

Here's what BHPian mercedised had to say about the matter:

Can the experts throw some light on whether the issue was really with the crash guard after watching the video posted by Zana? If what Zana says is true then it looks like a complete design failure by RE. There are no two excuses for such a critical failure, especially repeating the same mistake they made with the RE 411.

Here's what BHPian BullettuPaandi had to say about the matter:

Few things:

To begin with, this crash guard looks like the one in the first incident & not the second incident. Quoting @IamAsHter here, "That looks like the same crash guard from LC that I was talking about in my previous post. A small video is attached in the zip file."

I'm stating the obvious just to be clear that this discussion doesn't apply to the second instance.

Now to the actual thoughts

• I feel when they were evidently showing how their product doesn't mess with the engine mounting bolt from the factory & that they had thought about this issue while designing their product (props for both!), they could've gone ahead and explained how mounting the crash guard where they do DOESN'T cause any issue. Ultimately, their guard shares a mounting point with another component of the bike - albeit, a less critical tank guard. It's still arguable that this is part of the problem; so, they could've explained why they think, say, their mounting bolts won't come loose over time.
• RE themselves have not used that mounting point for their crash guard; they've used it only for the tank guard; which raises the question of whether this in fact is an effective mounting point for a crash guard. Let's suppose it is for the sake of argument. Now why would RE ignore this mounting point mere inches away & choose to mount their crash guard with the engine mount, which complicates the problem and demands 'specialised' hardware to solve it? I don't know; only RE does. I also don't know if the same nuances of the engine mount bolt also apply to the bolt they've used just above that - again, only RE does & perhaps the owner of the bike in the first instance if they had inspected those bolts; if anyone reading this does, kindly clear the air on this.
• They could've also gotten into why they think a bike with their crash guard on broke. I'm slightly sceptic of the fact that they didn't even hypothesise anything; would've been so easy to blame RE again for anything - it's not as if they haven't given enough reasons with their proverbial QC issues.

From where I stand, this raises more questions than it answers. If someone is just looking at this thread, here's the bottom line: The Himalayan 450 broke -> we blamed RE -> RE blamed after-market crash guards -> one of those crash-guard makers showed that particular blame doesn't apply to them -> end customers remain just as confused.

There's really no best advice, but this is what it seems to me, as things stand now: as counter-intuitive as it sounds, you are better off without a crash guard than with any! Yes, the OEM ones haven't broken the chassis yet, but no, you can't bet on it. I would, but that's only because I haven't spent the 3L on the bike in the first place. Besides, what good is a crash guard that doesn't inspire confidence?

If you/your friends/relatives happen to know someone from RE, who is both knowledgeable and isn't incentivised to up-sell a crash-guard to you, ask for their advice.

Here's what BHPian ebonho had to say about the matter:

I'm just wondering out aloud here.

After all this noise on social media about aftermarket crash guards, suppose a rider has fitted an aftermarket crash guard, and suppose his bike breaks, and suppose he hurriedly removes the crash guard before taking the customary photos and videos and posting them on social media, and presenting his case and warranty claim to RE, how would we or RE ever know that an aftermarket crash guard had been fitted earlier and then taken off?

Point to ponder…

Check out BHPian comments for more insights and information.