Upon giving some deep thought I decided to go for a pre-owned route instead of new one because, firstly I would get an experience of a motorcycle
BHPian Tony2298 recently shared this with other enthusiasts:
Hello all
As much as we all love cars, we have to agree at some point of life all boys have a strong desire to ride a motorcycle and I personally feel I’m not a complete man if I’m not owning and riding a motorcycle, movies like Dhoom and games like Road Rash only strengthened these feelings in my growing years!
For long enough time now buying and riding a motorcycle was in my bucket list of things although I could never give it a priority due to some reason or the other since my primary means of transport are my cars and scooters. However since past couple of years the itch to ride a motorcycle grew really strong and I couldn’t resist myself from visiting showrooms and checking out some swanky new motorcycles.
Some of the motorcycles I did check out were as follows
- Kawasaki Ninja 300- Even though a dinosaur in terms of its age, the jewel of an engine Kawasaki has given to this bike makes this a very desirable and enjoyable machine to own and enjoy. The twin cylinder engine is creamy smooth and man when you open the throttle, you experience some real adrenaline rush, gearbox even though lacked slipper clutch was really nice to operate. Overall a very enjoyable package IMO. However the pricing was just too much and I didn’t wanna spend so much for motorbike as of now and plan to directly upgrade to something like ZX6R when I’m experienced enough.
- Yamaha R15- This one wasn’t planned as such, I had placed an order for some apparels(I somehow love collecting official apparels of different automotive brands), went to the showroom to collect my order, during the billing they had some issues with the server and asked me to wait upon which I asked for a TD of the R15 to kill some time. Sadly I didn’t like the bike all that much, yes its very light but that highly committed posture wasn’t to my liking, also even with the VVA tech, a 155cc can only excite you that much. Therefore decided R15 was not for me, collected my apparels and quietly left the showroom.
- TVS Apache RR310- I really appreciate what TVS is giving us at a reasonable pricing, the RR310 with its BTO package was very desirable to me, also really appreciated the fact that TVS provided Michelin Road5 tyres as OE fitment for their flagship bike. However upon some research I found that TVS service was a hit or miss and I didn’t wanna gamble as I’m not having experience of maintaining motorcycles. Therefore dropped it from the list.
- Hero Karizma XMR- This is one of the bikes which is really close to the hearts of those who grew up watching the legendary ad of Hrithik Roshan with the yellow Karizma, also Hero really touched hearts of people like us when they called him again for promotion of new Karizma in that terrific yellow shade. TBH I was really SOLDfor the bike even before I saw it in flesh.
Therefore as soon as it hit the showroom I checked out the bike, I was rather impressed, yes its a completely different kind of bike as compared to its predecessor much like the new Tata Safari but I was fine with it, also I really appreciated the fact that Hero engineered a brand new 210cc liquid cooled DOHC engine with Slip&Assist clutch for the Karizma. However again like TVS the service is a big miss, I personally own a 2017 Duet scooter, the experience has been subpar, both with the quality of the vehicle and the service, in comparison my 2012 Honda Aviator is GEM of a scooter IMHO, I really love using it even today and maintain it meticulously as much as possible and its very much user friendly for my short commutes within the congested city. On the other hand Duet has not been that good, the engine is definitely inferior to the Honda’s while the quality is also not that good, the service experience is also quite meh, also considering all the tech Karizma is packing I don’t think the ASCs are competitive to maintain it, therefore with a heavy heart dropped it.
Apart from all the above mentioned bikes I checked some other bikes viz Harley X440, Honda CB300F etc too and as you can understand I didn’t have a specific segment or body style which I had in my mind while choosing a motorcycle because honestly speaking, I just checked them out on the basis of whichever bikes I liked in terms of look irrespective of whether its a cruiser, naked or faired one and whether its a 150cc or 400cc. I just wanted something with 2 wheels that I could make of my own and fulfil my childhood desire of owning a motorcycle.
Therefore upon giving some deep thought I decided to go for a pre-owned route instead of new one because, firstly I would get an experience of a motorcycle, build experience of riding and maintaining one which would help me understand better when I upgrade to a higher capacity, more sophisticated machine and secondly, a lot less damage to my wallet since there a thousand things more important in life which one needs to spend upon.
While going through the pre-owned route I fixed upon my own set of non-negotiable rules, first the bike should not be more than a couple of years old, owned by a single owner only and preferably less than 10k kms clocked on its odo, plus the service history should be thorough and clean.
While there are infinite second hand dealers of both cars and bikes in my town, most of them I will raise my head and say, are fraudulent, for the lack of better words. They hide many a things, deceive you into believing they are selling you a genuine vehicle and its only when you take your machine home, you realise you’ve put your hands into a can of worms and upon complaining to the same very dealer who was once so polite to you suddenly becomes totally ignorant to you and show their true colours. Don’t go by their Google reviews since most of them are made by them and their close circle only.
Still, after a lot of online research and in-person visits zeroed in upon a store which seemed genuine enough, was run by the owner singlehandedly, a nice chap and frank enough about everything.
He had some good collection of motorcycles too which matched with my criteria. Among all the bikes shortlisted two options, the Hero Karizma XMR and the Suzuki Gixxer SF250, both the bikes were MY2023 models, the Karizma was almost factory fresh with just 2000kms on odo while the Gixxer was a shade under 5000kms. Since I already mentioned the big disadvantage with the Karizma, selected the Gixxer, also the dealer himself said Suzukis are more in demand while Karizma is sitting idle with ZERO enquiries for it even after discounted prices.
Took a short TD of the bike, everything felt alright, at least according to my limited knowledge, just observed some debris on the chain, requested him to get the chain cleaned and lubricated, do some final touchups and make it ready. While conversing with him, the discussion quickly changed from bikes to cars as I mentioned I’m a BHPian.
Even though I paid the non-refundable token and despite the dealer’s reassurance of 6months warranty I decided to get the bike checked thoroughly before going ahead and also get my hands on the service history report. For the former, I took help of Droom’s Eco Bike Inspection service, I chose the premium package which costed just 300Rs incl. GST. Initially I didn’t get any confirmation about the service except for my token number, also Droom’s customer care number was defunct, and their WhatsApp support was useless. I thought I lost my money, disheartened, left a couple of mails to their customer care email ID and gave up.
In the meantime called up Suzuki ASC, shared the vehicle number, asked for the service history and credit where it’s due they quickly sent me a PDF with the complete service report, which thankfully was clean and regularly carried out at the same ASC.
Later during the day, received a message from Droom conveying me about the date and time of inspection along with contact details of the technician. Called him up, explained the whole saga and sent him the location of the dealer, asked him to carry out the inspection in my absence and inform me about his opinion about the bike since I personally had some work commitments and won’t be able witness the inspection to which he agreed. Subsequently, called up the dealer to inform him about my inspection request by a 3rd party independent mechanic via Droom to which he was totally cool, a big green signal IMO.
The mechanic reached the place on time, carried out the inspection and even took a TD of the bike. He informed me the bike was in absolutely perfect shape with aspects like engine oil, battery and exterior in excellent condition. I even got a thorough PDF report of the inspection soon and bike was rated a good 8/10 rating. A huge sigh of relief and IMO these kind of inspection services are totally justified of their nominal costs especially when its a question of parting with substantial amount of your hard earned cash.
In the following couple of days arranged the required cash, asked for some last bit of negotiation and closed the deal. I requested him to drop the bike to my residence as the showroom is located 20kms away and I wasn’t confident of bringing the bike home myself navigating through the nasty traffic and worst of all, the bike has just a 3rd party insurance as of now though I will be applying for a zero dep policy ASAP.
The dealer to his credit, arranged a Porter cargo van which carefully packed, transported and dropped the bike safely to my residence, also he was kind enough to accompany himself with the cargo van and as a token gave the bike with a full tank gas!
Even though the day was very exhausting, I woke up very early next morning to just see the motorbike, and it still gave me chills that I FINALLY bought my own motorcycle!
Took it for rides multiple times throughout the day just to enjoy the machine and carried out a small puja during the evening.
While its too early to review since I myself feel incompetent as of now to judge a bike I intend to keep this thread active as I spend more time with it.
Still, have planned some upgrades in the following months
- Zero Dep Policy- As stated the bike has just a 3rd party policy now and since I’m a novice in motorcycling, things could go wrong and its better to be protected with a good nil dep policy, have shortlisted ICICI Lombard which has zero dep policy with good IDV and decent premium, will be applying in a couple of days.
- New Tyres- One good thing which I really appreciate of Suzuki is they have equipped the Gixxer with wide 110/150 section Radial tyres and not generic cross-ply nylon ones which means it opens a lot of options for me to get some high quality rubber. The stock MRFs even though seem to have good enough life left I’m not too sure about its braking and grip characteristics and I feel it would be prudent for me to get some richer rubbers which I intend do so in a couple of months. Have shortlisted the Michelin Road6 tyres, which are available on an order basis according to the most prominent Michelin dealer of the town and the Pirelli Diablo Rosso, both of these tyres are Z rated and I feel they’ll be the best tyres I can get for my bike. Any BHPians having experience with these tyres can share their opinions about the same, will be highly appreciated.
Looking forward to lifetime memories as I enter into the world of 2 wheel motoring!
Some pictures of the bike, still can’t believe I have finally owning a bike now!
At the showroom along with the Karizma and RTR310
Along with my Duet
During the daylight, the silhouette is very reminiscent of erstwhile CBR250R which IMO was the best quarter litre sports bike India got along with the Ninja 250.
Another closing shot
Thank you for reading my post! As of now I’m still in an awe that I OWN
a bike, sorry if it sounds repetitive but please try to understand my excitement, its my childhood dream come true!
Thank you
Tony
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