Well Vishal, then is it time you started bypassing the regular channels and get to the top honchos themselves.

@all: Does anyone have the e-mail ID's of:
1. Mr. N K Rattan, Operations Head, Sales & Marketing, HMSI
2. Mr. Shinji Ayoma, CEO & President, HMSI
3. Mr. Atsushi Amataka, President, Honda R&D India

You need to inform officials of this level about your problem. As a customer of their flagship model, you are well within your rights to seek help right from the top.

And if you don't get the e-mail ID's courier letters to them at the HMSI Manesar Plant. You can easily get the address form the net. Just get moving and don't expect the ones you've been in contact with till date to help you. They would have if they could.


Well, Ken...getting an entire country ready is a pretty tall order. As consumers. lets just focus our energies in ensuring that what we get as hardware is exactly what we were promised when it was sold to us. And for that we really need to be strong at follow-up with our problems. Commercial necessity will ensure that a commercial organization reacts to the raised issue. You can make a CEO to get things moving to have your hardware fixed but you can't get the Ministry of Surface Transport to fix roads as easily. The priority is first to get our stuff in proper working condition....we manage with the roads and the fuel and the general idiocy by instinct anyway

I do not understand how come a world class bike develop problems related to engine so early? Yes, I agree that roads are not in good shape in Kolkata. But still 95% of the time the blade is ridden in smooth roads. When we went to that trip blade was doing all right. Suddenly this snag developed again. As Fireblah already said he was seriously thinking of buying another sbk (2009 R1) soon. After all these headache and seeing Rossi's case I doubt he will go for another sbk. Similarly, several of us in xbhp shown interest in buying 1000RR after seeing Honda's servicing and quick responce. I am sure they will think twice before buying the blade.

You should speak to Ankush and let him know how frustrated you are and then you need to make a trip to their head office and shake them up.

There is a member here who has bought the official Intruder. Can't remember his id. Wonder if he's having such problems.

His name is Anurag ( http://www.xbhp.com/talkies/members/anuragashok.html ). And he did have problems with burnt clutch plates, altho wich by his own admission were his own doing !!

@Sukant - I have had no problems with burnt clutchplates ever ! The bike is 4500 KM old and except a puncture in the middle of nowhere - which too Suzuki was kind enough to send their Chandigarh dealer to fix, I have had no problems.

@Fireblah - Don't panic, give the distributor in Delhi a call, if not, call the main person who made you the delivery. They will send someone over to check the bike and will take care of it! THere is a two year warranty and that means something! Honda is a very good company and they are conscious of their image, that I am sure of. I do not think that you will have to push them to do the right thing!

Cheers

I'm so sorry Anurag. I mistook you for somebosy else !
There was another guy here on xBHP hu has an intruder, and he had burnt the clutch plates, by revving the engine hard and dumping them !!

i want to know how much this has to do with the fuel put in.
i think i know for sure that the bike was running fine after the initial problem,which was sorted out by honda guys to fireblah's satisfaction.and then in the road trip the bike was doing fine.then he put some fuel other than speed 97. after that this problem started.it started knocking.
so how much this has to do with a mechanical problem or sbk workmanship remains to be seen.
yes my question is is the fuel responsible for the lack of power and this behaviour of the bike?

Yes, the bike was doing all well after that initial problem. Even During the trip it ran in octane 91 as octane 97 was unavailable. In the trip the bike performed brilliantly.
During the bike's initial days Fireblah once put octane 91 (Xtra Premium to be precise) and he said he did not feel any difference with octane 91. And IMO if the fuel is not adulterate, he should not feel any difference either. Now the bike is running in octane 97 and the problem exists. So, I personally do not think oil is the culprit here.

Damn ! looks like tvs has inspired honda ! what next, bmw launches the S1000RR and it starts leaking oil a week later?

ok, so this is a new market for (legal) sportbikes but this takes the cake. we pay 2.4 times the price that everyone else around the world does and yet we get lemons ? sometimes i think that those who buy these 'official' bikes in india need to think twice. or thrice even. no offence to those who've already bought em. but seriously, a 6 lakh bike for 14 ? not to get into politics, but how is this govt. any better than the others ? they're still ripping us off the same amount...

so it's like this. we don't get proper indian bikes (they're cheap though), we don't get proper foreign bikes (even at more than 2x the price). guess, indian bikers need to move to other means or countries. (i said bikers, not commuters, for them the passion super + pro power seems to do the trick)

i can imagine how fireblah feels right now. when i ride my little 160 fi, i feel it's one of the best indian bikes. but the lack of proper service makes me wish i didn't buy it sometimes.

The Intruder is a clutch plate eater anyway because of the torque it has. If you abuse it then it will just gobble them up!

The knocking will always happen if you downgrade the fuel in a fuel injected bike because the ecu has to adjust to the lower grade fuel. Its best to use one fuel always, even if its 91 octane.

i agree....i took same 09 r1 in grey market....nywayss...im happy wid it..no issue since buyed...
n y i took it in grey have 2 reson..
1)the terrific tax ammount i have to pay
2)the white-red colour which wasnt officially available in india..

LOL Wake up buddy BTW is that pic on ur avatar ur R1? Cos i remember seeing it somewhere on xBHp

^ naah its a pic from net.whenever i try to take a closeup pic is messes up ..

Who bike or cam?

We did call up honda. And they sent an engineer. First service of the bike was combined on his visit.
The problem is that the bike on starting up/revving shows NO symptoms of anything being wrong. Okay, it might show, but only a person who is very experienced can tell... so its beyond me. Now the person who came to check the bike is a trained person on this bike. He was trained in japan.
I asked him how much has he ridden this bike. He said 5 days on honda test tracks in japan.
My concern is, when this guy is saying everything is fine, and both my bro and me are sure something is indeed wrong, can i really trust this guy. He may not be saying something wrong intentionally, but is he experienced enough to pass the bike with no problems ?
Also, they have proper testing equipments like a dyno at delhi. So i am seriously thinking about taking the bike to delhi now. Unless they have a brilliant idea and do a full diagnostic somehow in kolkata... which I am hoping they do , as it is possible... like testing air/fuel intake till injection....and proper combustion/compression in the cylinders and the exhaust system... pretty much basic ... (i hope)


wow 09 R1 in india ! cool man ... congrats !that colour is awesome too ! i think i'll go for grey as well if all this goes bad .... better to pay less than pay more and still feel there is something stuck in your throat....

Anyways, all that said, i am still hoping that honda will do something ... even though till now we haven't informed them .....
I am also out of kolkata for a couple of more days ... till then ...