Why do you compare Bajaj with Honda or Yamaha

Tell me HONDA & YAMAHA have been making bikes for decades now... And Bajaj is company who have done loads of things on their own in pst 10 years... When Honda or Yamaha makes small capacity bikes... they can take loads of help from old expert Honda (Yamaha) people who work on litre bikes... cruisers... moto sports... Moto GP... etc etc... So for Honda & Yamaha everything is at their disposal.. And honestly NO R&D is being done over here in India... its being done in Japan.. in the most sophisticated laboratories of Honda & yamaha... which has taken years for them to build.

for Bajaj its not... they tear apart the engines... study the designs.. do loads of R&D and then come up with their product... which in my view is much more comendable in comparision to Honda's effort.

P.s - Bajaj is not having the most sophisticated labs... On top of that... Bajaj is doing loads inhouse... not like other indian manufacturer... TVS taking help from AVL.. to design their engines...

So when you compare Bajaj with Honda.. its comparision of 5-6 decades of experience.. to 1 decade of experience. (Yamaha's launched their first bike in 1958.. And Honda made their first bike in 1950s again). Is it really logical.

Man HOnda & Yamaha have been participating in Le mans race.. Moto Gp... and what not... Honda has been making cars too... so the kind of expertise they have inhouse.. its out of the world... I have personally spent a good time in Honda.. witnessing how good they are at making engines... (Honda Cars - greater Noida)..

Race - where you develop engines which have to run at their peak loads... continuously... There are tremendous amout of stresses on engine at high rpms... and yet deliver the best performance... where a micro second delay can be a reason for you loosing the title. When you develop Racing engines... you use the best technology to develop them and take your R&D to next levels... And R&D budgets for racing bikes is much more huge than budget for street bikes. More budget means.. you have the freedom to experiment and test more... there is liberty to creativity... when you experiment more... you learn more... You use best manufacturing processes and commit mistakes.. and then learn from them... and deliver the best next time. You use manufaturing processes whihc you cant think of using in mass production. You need accuracies where difference of a micron can lead to drop in pressure from Combustion chamber... etc etc... and when you get expert in making the race engines... making street bikes are a game for you. Look at it this way... When any new class litre bikes are launched it always said - This bikes takes its character from Moto Gp version. That means.. guys from racing team worked with team working on street version... slipper clutch... forged pistons... ceramic brake pads... etc.. etc..

Bajaj is not developing racing engines... cars or bikes.. whatever... so they dont have the capability what Yamaha & Honda has.... they make autorickshas...
And despite that.. they have managed to give an awesome competition to both Honda & Yamaha... And thats why I respect...

To tell you guys... Yamaha was actually scared to show FZ16 in Auto expo.. Yamaha was cared of Bajaj.. coz somewhwre they thought that... Bajaj is the only company... which can spoil the game.. what if.. bajaj comes out wiht a bike better looking than FZ16.. They know.. bajaj is aggressive. And this real incident came from my source who was actively involved in Launching of FZ16.

When you compare Bajaj with Yamaha & honda.. its like comparing a man with his grand father... And I bet... as a Man.. Bajaj is going good. We will see 10 years down the line...

When Yamaha or Honda product fails in India.. they have the backing from HONDA or YAMAHA Japan.. their parent company... I remember when i was in yamaha.. doing my training (2004)... they recieved 200 Crores.. from Yamaha Japan.. coz Yamaha was not doing good... And loads of their bikes were returned from showrooms.. coz the showrooms shut down.. or showrooms were not able to sell Yamaha bikes for months. A lot of 400 bikes was recieved by Yamaha from some state.. including Enticer... Crux. Even now when yamaha launched R15.. they had been granted fund mounting to 800 crores (if I recall it correctly)... So Yamaha japan has its hands over Yamaha India. Similarly Honda Japan.

BUT WHEN BAJAJ FAILS... they have to pay their own bills. There is no parent company to support bajaj with crores and crores.. So fear of failure for bajaj is more than Honda india or yamaha india.

Speed and mileage are lapped up by customers very easily, I hope 140+ kmph is true speed and not a marketing gimmick like 109kmpl (which failed badly) and now no one believes Bajaj's mileage claims.

Well I am not one to believe motorcycling magazines! But if you are one of them, then you would have read in one such magazine about a track shootout of the R15, 220, RTR Fi & ZMA. How far behind was the 220 there, 2 seconds IIRC? Thats called 'beating the shit out of it'? Beating, yes I agree...

Thats just the track, the 220 does not even belong there. Now how about stock vs stock of both bikes? Hasn't it been dragged countless number of times by xbhpians all over the country. It din't beat the shit out there?? And it has never conclusively beaten it too in a quarter mile. Over kilometers and kilometers of road where the 15's superior topend comes into play maybe, but then thats not a drag!

Well if you put on some weight and become 80Kgs like me, then I can show it to you on the street too.

Read my above reply!


No one is getting personal over here! We are discussing the bike's and their manufacturers...not the riders!

If your bike is still stock and you can manage find me a rider who weighs as much as I do....I can show you otherwise! I know so, coz I've been doing so, for the pas 38K kms!

Anyways all this is acutally pretty much OT Land!

I agree. It was my dig at Bajaj, that's it. Its nothing personal. Bajaj has achieved and accomplished and has been a trend setter for a long time. But the competition has learned from it, and exceeded it. All i want Bajaj to do is better the competition in anyone way as opposed to trying to do it all. Bajaj and TVS are the two indian companies whom i really love to see come up and they have in the past few years. But i'm taking one aspect where i feel Bajaj has saturated. Performance biking, they coined it perhaps and for a while they aced in it. But now they are lagging behind. I want them to lead once again, set new standards for performance biking as they have before. It wont be easy but they should try and be focused on one aspect (performance) while giving attention to others (cosmetics). If im wrong, arent we the same people here who want more power, efficiency, reliability, handling etc etc.

Can u please provide me with some statistics from officially held drags, because i'm not aware of any. Pardon my ignorance here.

But if your speaking of city and drags that we all have from time to time then i beg to differ from you. I've had a different experience where my 'storm' has left the 200,Zma,220 way behind during a normal highway run from roll ons each and every time during trips, especially with the others taking the initial lead and there are some xbhpians here who have experienced this, and they are my co-riders on every trip. But speaking of personal experiences from the streets make no sense here, because to each his own. Anything can happen on the road.

So if you have any factual statistics where the p220 scores over its competition esp. R15 in this case in a drag please let me know. Not because i dont think so, im not aware of any, i'll correct myself if there is a record of such an event. Anyway this is all OT so i'll leave it at that.

Wow, by the time you reply and then come back after visiting few other sites, you already have a few replies!

Can u prove it otherwise? Am speaking about drags.

It beats every other bike on track, agreed.

Straight line speed? Nopes.

Again , this can be better proved by drag results.

Why did the R15 come into the picture BTW? I thought this thread was about the new 220.

Pardon my ignorance and please throw in some statistics as to when and where by whom? If its on the streets then please each one can have their own experiences. Mine being overtaking a 200 and a 220 when both of them were struggling to reach their top end while i was cruising past them, so to speak. One of them being friend and xbhpian himself. But lets not get there. I'm not aware of any drag/race stats so if u have any please let me know where the 220 scores over its competition.
Not self contradicting, but indulging in some comparison yet making it brief. As you can see in the past few pages that's all that has happened. No one is comparing an apple to an apple here, i don't see why i shouldn't have a bit of fun myself, but being realistic while at it. But your last line is true though.

Let me take R15 for example, it was supposed to be better than anything on our streets and though its not perfection, its pretty close. If the matter here is subjective then this argument doesn't not hold true. But the fact is R15 does beat the shit outta any bike on the track, straightline speed and performance from a tiny but efficient mill. But for some reason it does not blame it on the rider Now i wont divulge more into the 'ideal' factors such as weather,rider etc etc but from a product point of view it does what it was 'supposed to' and matches up to the claims.

But i dont deny that Bajaj has had a great run, and they have done a great job with the Pulsar platform but it seems to have come to a saturation point where they don't have anything more on offer than what they already have on their bikes. It was also the pulsars that got me crazier about bikes. I dont hate them.

Some here speak of upgrades over upgrade, if that is what satisfies you then good for you. But these are entirely subjective in matter.

And these are my take on things, so no need to get personal

Wasn't it supposedly speculated to be the best handling bike in the Indian market during its launch(rtrs, zma etc heavily disregarded at that point in time) atleast it was of popular opinion. What happens when the owners take it to the tracks or the twisties for some extreme action, it disappoints as the competitions seems to be having it easy, im not taking HH or H or TVS or Y or any xyz. Bajaj didnt claim it to be a track tool, neither did i assume. Last line, i beg to differ, The Japanese and another Indian can very well beat it at the signal light game. Depends on the rider, the bikes being more than capable at it!

Maybe my posts imply to you that i mean everything else is better than the P220,not true. But what i truly mean to say is that Bajaj needs to get back to innovating. Make a better package. Offering insane amounts of goodies does not cut it for me. Better engine, handling package is what that makes a good deal, for me atleast!. Why because that is what they are 'claiming' (faster, requires engine performance) this time around. And my arguments are solely based against their 'claims'. Not against what you have to say pal or your experience from riding the p220. Its just that Bajaj has been claiming a lot and not owning up to them that's all. Its criticism, constructive in nature, purely towards Bajaj.

But i would really love to see what extent the claims hold true with members already speculating that it will be faster. I have no issues with it being faster, i just want it to be faster this time around and not just on paper!



~peace

I doubt Bajaj is gonna pull out 200. If 180 can stay so can 200. What ever the speculations say, I would rather stick to price of around 85-87K on road in Bangalore, where the current 220 sells for 93K on road!

Overall, a nice write-up but if we look closely in our market. Who is the leader in terms of volumes- Honda...!
They are the largest sellers and by far with a 97cc engine which has not been upgraded (rebored/retuned) since 1980s
Unicorns,karizma etc all of them are way too old...but people buy those bikes....
So, you cant expect one (or two) companies to keep investing in R & Ds and the others taking the major pie of the market....!
Bajaj is moving on its own pace and I am proud to say that TVS and Bajaj (along with Yamaha) have taken our Indian biking scene to new horizons otherwise our children would have also ridden those 97cc horizontally mounted 7 bhp hondas....!







I loved these lines...





Wish ALL the other compnies also take these lines to ther boardrooms for whatever storming....
they need it more than Bajaj.....








and quite ironically....THOSE are the very people, (most of whom) have never owned a BAJAJ.......

now that the P220 fairing have come to the P200.. I wish the P220 is half fared, with a good street bike look. I feel Carb is a plus here, can do some mods easily. wish a 6th cog too.

If all this, then the touring section will get goose bumps..

Will Bajaj pull out the P200 now? Or will the Pulsar range be just extended to P250 DTS-Fi?

70k is the speculated ex showroom price. And u are comparing it wit the on road price of a 200!

Great going, both of u guys!

What is this? Checked xbhp yesterday before sleeping, and then now opened the xtacker to see this 14 pages!!

New P220 Ad : "150 posts in 12 hrs... The bike to go for...."

Hmm... 70K x-shwrm price for 140kmph speed, not bad. But hell yes, everyone's going to miss the FI.




Sad story there That's the reason I never think of investing in a bajaj



I, wonder how much can you extract from my father's passion+ then!


+1 . Nothing more to say.

Exactly. that's the reason why I respect the RTR so much.
When people say thr RTR is next to the R15 on track handling, I feel proud for TVs as its an Indian company.Same goes for Bajaj.I ain't no fanboy.

East or west for our Country the better bikes has always came from Bajaj and TVS Only......

Yami, Honda - Both are technology wise greater ---- But it is our Two Companies which make bikes - as per the Indians Likes......

Hope we get a VFM 220 this time... and yes with Carb....we can expect a powerful hassle free bike.....

Nothing against any one......No Brand Wars.....................