Technically speaking the ZMA wont run properly without the battery. Reason being its DC CDI unit. Though many ZMA owners have ridden alot without batteries at all.

On a lighter note, how many P220's did you use to declare it as infamously unreliable?? and then you say consider suggestions from those who actually used the bikes . ok, i'll stop it here, don't want to make this another p220 vs zma thread.

TS, as someone pointed out, a bit of reserve in power is always good to have on highways. It makes your life that much easy/safe while overtaking. It's upto you, if you are good with less power & more mileage. That's not a bad choice in these times of high petrol prices, expect them to go up by another Rs. 10, this year.

Agree with you that the quality has improved, but what is my major concern is unpredictability. Some P220s run good for years with minimal issues making us believe they are reliable, but some P220s get continuous niggles and make the owners fed up with it. If somebody asks me about a P220 or avenger, I just tell them if they are ready to spend more frequent visits to service center (in case if they are not lucky), then go ahead and buy.

On other hand, the Probiking service center at Hyderabad is the worst of the country. They don't do proper service due to heavy work load. They haven't expanded the service center for the past 5 years.

I strongly pray for the success of P200NS and hope the quality is in a different league than P220.

Most of the bikes are the same. You can kickstart only in neutral gear. I am curious to know what Yamaha bikes allow you to kick start in all gears.

You are right, technically you can't run Karizma without a battery. Without battery it will run for some 10-15 kms, but it will not go after that. Once I experienced that. I heard that running the bike without battery will harm the bike.

I don't want to count and tell you what happened to whose bike. I have used P220 for considerable amount of time and I have few friends who had P220 and we toured for many thousands of kilometers.

Oh, I 'm not asking you to do that. But it's quite possible that they were badly maintained or may be there really are niggles. But the point is why mention that with only Pulsar, we know Karizma has also got them. Quite a few P220 owners were dissatisfied zma owners. So, why this bias?

I fail to understand why people support Honda or Hero even when they experience serious problems with their engines and criticize Bajaj for niggles, which can be easily rectified or even prevented if you take care of the bike. Besides, they go on forums and talk about bullet proof reliability, question is where is the reliability when you are facing problems with engine itself? As a matter of fact, you could see engine seizures & various niggles reported on R15/CBR250 threads. So, why this infamous unreliability tag to only Pulsar. To me it looks more like perception problem with peole exposed to earlier pulsars back in 2001/03 & then P220DTS Fi. My experience with Puslar has always been pleasant, whether it was with my friends ride or my own ride.

Talking about the niggles of ZMA, here my experience.

When my bike was close to 3K or so, I've felt something to be wrong. I kept taking the bike ti every bike mechanic and SCV I came to know about, and everyone said the bike was OK, even fellow xbhpians said the bike was ok, but I was'nt satisfied, so took the bike to the place where I bought it and went on strike till they opened my engine, mind it! the bike was brand new. Even the SVC mech's tried to dissuade me by saying that the bike will loose its resale value and all, I didnt listen to anything, all I wanted was to see my bore, so they finally disassembled the bore and was shocked to see that it was scratched up like hell, and that too on a new bike. The issue was identified to be a manufacturing defect present in some of the 2011 batch bikes. And my cylinder kit was replaced on warranty. Now my bikes close to 10k and still running strong.

Now the point of me pointing this out is cause, there are still many 2011 ZMA owners riding their bikes thinking that everything is ok, they dont realize somethings wrong. The reason I knew my bike was'nt upto the mark was cause I felt a kind of odd sound coming from the engine that everyone else failed to notice, and I was able to notice it only cause the bike was smooth and grunt free, just imagine me owning a grunty P220 with the same issue and not ever noticing it.

Every bike has issues and thats something you get along with the bike on purchasing it, be it P220 or ZMA or any machine for that fact. What makes a difference is that it doesnt affect you in ways that would leave you stranded in the middle of nowhere.
With my faulty bore the bike would do a top speed of 120Kmph on speedo and showed no signs of any issues to everyone who inspected it except for myself - Now, Now, If thats not RELIABILITY then what is???

Please try to say that to yourself in mirror. Just like ZMA, P220 has certain engine character, when something goes wrong with it, any person used to it can easily identify the difference. In your case, probably the svc guys were bluffing you, just to avoid replacing cylinder kit. Your bike, if not replaced with cylinder kit, would've left you in the middle of nowhere like every other engine seizure reported on other threads. Don't please yourself by saying that everybike comes with a problem!! this is what I mean when I said in my post about bias. You had a bike with a manufacturing defect, fortunate that you got it replaced by persisting with your opinion. And still you say it's reliable blah blah. Let me tell you reliability is not defined by smooth engine, it's problem free ownership. You clearly lack that, as your bike already had a heart transplant. And your zma is not the only bike, forget 2011, there were number of instances where this was done to a zma. And some of them did end up with P220. So, when someone talks about reliability after changing cylinder kit, you know how it sounds like.

^^^
I get what you mean, but yet persisted on using the term reliability, because there was not even a single sign of a partial seizure. Not even oil in the plug.
And am not the only one to replace it, based on my writeup another 2011 ZMA owner who just for the sake of it took it to the SVC and he too was surprised to find his bore scratched up. Just like myself he too had it replaced under warranty. And he had already done a good number of KM's unlike me and still faced no complaints from the bike i.e while riding on the defective cylinder kit. The thing is the bike didnt demand for an overhaul we the riders insisted on one, the bike didnt stop in the middle of nowhere.

Here are the reported issues so far in the ZMA thread.
1. 2011 Model Partial Seizure. - What I was talking about.
2. Transmission Blow Out. - One user after experimenting with the BBK rode the bike at WOT and experienced a tranny blow out.

Now take a look at the P220 thread. There are literally DOZEN's of issues that the riders report which have left them stranded in the middle of nowhere. Here are a few examples.

1. Complete seizure.
2. Partial Seizure.
3. Transmission Blow out.
4. Sparkplug popping out while riding.
5. Malfunctioning Tilt sensor. etc.... If you have the patience go through both the threads and you'll realize what am talking about.

I'm well aware of problems reported on P220, just like that of Karizma. By no means those problems make P220 any less reliable than a Zma. Yet, people not using Pulsars, so often take particular liking to associate unreliable tag with Pulsar as though it's the only unreliable product sold in India. But the same problems on a Honda doesn't make them say that these bikes are equally unreliable, instead they say "it's a Honda" & use terms like "bullet proof reliability" and I really don't understand what they mean by that, does that mean it's equally unreliable or does it mean it's a given that it will also have same problems? or that you should not mind even if problems come, coz "it's a Honda".

Actually people in India confuse reliability with refinement to be true. It was quite amusing for me when I read an ownership review of P180, P220 of a few Indonesian Pulsar owners and they said the best part they liked about the bike was its reliability and performance

Would you be kind enough to point me to these instances on the P220 DTSi thread?
Because AFAIK, there have been 1 instance of #1 zero instances of #2, #3, #4 & #5 on P220 DTSi. (not Fi) Since I am a 1st batch owner of a P220 DTSi, I have been following that thread since it has come into existance. In fact, if there is any way to check this, I will be having the highest no. of posts on that particular thread, more than any other member. And since the bike has been around since mid 2009, its not like I am limiting the dataset too much.

Now that you yourself have given me a partial seizure instance of a 2011 ZMA. Use google and do whatever you can and point me to a partial seizure instance on a 2011 P220.

Edit: I am not even telling you to point me to a Dozen instances.

Edit 2: The only way you can consider you own Karizma as reliable is if your user manual specifies changing Cylinder kit at 3k km. My manual did not specify it, so I am still running stock cylinder kit even at 36k.

Phew!! It started again.

Aswin, I am requesting you not to waste your time. It will go on endless. Utter waste of time arguing.

Naah, this is different. This is not a Pulsar V Karizma. This is about Karizma owners wrongfully claiming that post 2009 Pulsars are unreliable. Nothing to do with the Karizma here. Nobody is throwing potshots at the Karizma. Only the facts were quoted. Its about trying to spread the correct knowledge.

You know why it is a waste of time? Because you will not even be able to find a single instance.

You are around here for quite good amount of time on the forum. Do you think this argument is right in this thread?

What happens ultimately is a dogfighting, nothing else. I am retiring here, please don't quote me again.

Yes, this discussion was very much relevant to this thread since the thread starter has been misled with wrongful info spread by Karizma owners. Dogfighting is just an after effect of such baseless accusations. If there is in fact basis to these accusations, I am ready to eat my words.

I am not trying to push a Pulsar down the TS's throat. If you look at my earlier recommendation on this same thread, I had recommended him to buy a ZMA (Assuming he had already rejected the P220 due to some unknown reason). It is when some people started making their wrongful claims that I had to step back in with some facts.