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Old 28th November 2017, 11:23   #421
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re: Royal Enfield Continental GT 535 : Ownership Review (32,000 km and 9 years)

The last couple of weeks had been busy on the personal front and that meant that the Continental GT hadnt really seen any action except for being idled every couple of days. So this past Saturday, I decided to head out on a ride with Yercaud being the initial planned destination but when I realized I only had time for a half day ride I decided to go with the flow and figure out the route on the fly. After breakfast, I ventured off into Shoolagiri and landed up on what probably was a state highway. The route was very picturesque and I enjoyed riding the bike at a leisurely pace as I was in no rush to get back home. I ended up stopping ever so often to soak in nature's beauty and click some pictures as well.

Royal Enfield Continental GT 535 : Ownership Review (32,000 km and 9 years)-img83711920x1080.jpg

Royal Enfield Continental GT 535 : Ownership Review (32,000 km and 9 years)-img8375.jpg

Royal Enfield Continental GT 535 : Ownership Review (32,000 km and 9 years)-img83861920x1080.jpg

The road eventually got me to Krishnagiri and from there I toyed with the idea of returning through the same newly discovered route or joining the boring straight highway. I decided on the latter and returned to Bangalore in good time with the overcast skies and cool temperature providing fatigue free conditions. All put together, I did just over 200 kms and I will definitely have to revisit the same route in the near future.

Royal Enfield Continental GT 535 : Ownership Review (32,000 km and 9 years)-img8409.jpg

Royal Enfield Continental GT 535 : Ownership Review (32,000 km and 9 years)-img8415.jpg

Now that Bangalore is settling into a cold winter, commuting to work on a motorcycle is proving to be a viable option. Oh and the traffic snarls due to the metro work werent doing my patience any favours whenever I drove to work. So the GT is back to work commuting duties and yesterday I realized the bike had two issues

1. The bike refuses to shift from first to neutral unless the bike is turned off. Then it slides into neutral with the lightest of toe flicks. On the rare occasion that it does grudgingly budge from first while the bike is still on, it effortlessly bypasses neutral and goes straight to second.

2. On my return commute, the engine was getting a little hot in peak stop, be stationary and go traffic conditions and after turning the bike off, it would take a couple of attempts to come back to life with the electric start. This unfortunately would give other motorcyclists behind me all the time in the world to easily move ahead of me by the time the bike got moving.


Now that Im almost at the 20,000 km mark, I think I will get go back to the stock handlebars and lower them a bit to see how the bike behaves. I did 10K on the stock setup and the next 10K with the raised handlebars. While the raised handlebar has done a great job of easing the ride experience, the it has slightly off a perfect setting by a tiny bit from day 1. Lets see if I last the next 10,000 kms with the lowered bars or have to further experiment with the settings.


Mileage: : I tanked up at the Essar pump in Koramangala after the 200 km Saturday morning ride. Distance covered : 221.8 kms. Petrol consumed : 7.78 litres. Mileage : 28.51 kmpl which is a little low for a highway ride. Mileage since day 1 is 27.41 kmpl.
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Old 9th December 2017, 19:56   #422
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re: Royal Enfield Continental GT 535 : Ownership Review (32,000 km and 9 years)

While most ownership threads in the motorcycle section of TBHP are filled with exciting posts about the adventures from weekend rides (especially the active Versys ones!), this thread unfortunately now has updates of things not going too well and how my plans for a short weekend ride last Saturday got shelved. So where do I start?


Horn (falling) not OK, please
A couple of weeks ago, I had gone down to my building parking lot to start the bike and leave to it idle for a few minutes when I realized to my dismay that one of the two horns (as rarely used as they are on my bike) had fallen down onto the engine. Now how does a horn fall down, you might ask? Well the clamp that holds up the horn had rusted at the base of the horn over time. I had noticed that the horn was sounding a little feeble when I had last used it (a month ago?) but didnt really pay too much attention back then. Since I didnt want it dangling and falling off at the earliest available opportunity I have unplugged it but at the cost of having the other horn not working. I checked with the Koramangala SVC for a spare clamp but they dont have it in stock. That's one item to be added onto the checklist for the 21K service.

Royal Enfield Continental GT 535 : Ownership Review (32,000 km and 9 years)-pb1404651920x1080.jpg
Minda horn

Royal Enfield Continental GT 535 : Ownership Review (32,000 km and 9 years)-pb1404871920x1080.jpg
The rust is clearly visible

Royal Enfield Continental GT 535 : Ownership Review (32,000 km and 9 years)-pb1404791920x1080.jpg
Here's the other one, Im not holding my breath on this one

Quote:
Originally Posted by neil.jericho View Post
2. On my return commute, the engine was getting a little hot in peak stop, be stationary and go traffic conditions and after turning the bike off, it would take a couple of attempts to come back to life with the electric start. This unfortunately would give other motorcyclists behind me all the time in the world to easily move ahead of me by the time the bike got moving.
(S)parking woes!
I took the bike to office to see if the above issues were still there and I had a hard time getting the bike to start in the evening. Unpleasant memories of struggling with the kick start of the bike at 22:00 in the office parking lot flooded my memory far faster than I would have liked and worse still the bike displayed the low battery warning as well. Once it started though, it was sputtering a little and I had to ride it with a slightly heavy hand to ensure it didnt stop on the way. Despite the low battery sign trying to throw me off, my keen investigative skills helped me deduce that the issue was with the spark plug. That and the fact that my bike had exactly the same issue when I went to pick it up from Indimotard after the recent track day and they had replaced it then.

Royal Enfield Continental GT 535 : Ownership Review (32,000 km and 9 years)-img8437.jpg
Old spark plug (above) vs new one

I purchased the spark plug and an additional accelerator cable as well as clutch cable. The Koramangala SVC confirmed that the GT gets a set of 2 spark plugs and I got it replaced at a friendly neighbourhood garage. The bike is working fine after the change and starts up as normal on the second or third attempt. While inspecting the new plug, I noticed that it is quite different in size to the one that Indimotard had put in. After checking with friendly fellow TBHP biking enthusiasts, I looked up the owners manual and found that Indimotard had replaced the earlier one with a plug that exactly matched the specifications listed by Royal Enfield. The inscription on the spark plug is WQR8DC INDIA 658. The new one though has the inscription UR6DC INDIA 757.


Here are the 2 plugs side by side

Royal Enfield Continental GT 535 : Ownership Review (32,000 km and 9 years)-img8438.jpg

TBHPian theexperthand pointed out that Adrian had spotted the difference in spark plugs some time back and had shared it on the forum so it looks as though Royal Enfield is slowly moving towards the new ones nation wide. Here is the breakup of the bill for the spark plug, clutch cable and accelerator cable. The total tax for CGST and SGST is 14% each.

Royal Enfield Continental GT 535 : Ownership Review (32,000 km and 9 years)-bill.png
Tiring Times
While using the bike for my most recent office commute, I felt that the tires werent providing the same level of grip that they used to. My initial suspicion was that the front Pirelli Sport Demon was coming to the end of its useful life after having done a good job over 12000 kms. However on closer inspection, I found that the rear Ceat Vertigo Zoom visually looked to have worn out more the PSD and needed replacing as well. For regular users, the Vertigo Zoom provides similar levels of grip to the more sticky OEM Pirelli Sport Demon but its only on the track that I have felt that last 10% difference in grip with the Ceat complaining about the unreasonable demands being made by my enthusiastic throttle wringing.

Royal Enfield Continental GT 535 : Ownership Review (32,000 km and 9 years)-img8459.jpg
Pirelli Sport Demon - Front tire after ~ 12,000 kms

Royal Enfield Continental GT 535 : Ownership Review (32,000 km and 9 years)-img8457.jpg
Ceat Vertigo Zoom - Rear tire after ~ 13,000 kms


Long time readers might recall that I had used a Ceat Vertigo Sport front tire for a while before Royal Enfield managed to source a replacement PSD front tire as part of the warranty claim. That Ceat Vertigo Sport tire was lying around unused at home and I got the PSD replaced with it after putting in a new tube. The tire shop that I had gone to did not have stock of the same Ceat Vertigo Zoom but instead suggested the new offering from Ceat - the Zoom Plus in the same 120/80 18 specification. Here is what the Ceat website has to say about the tire.

Royal Enfield Continental GT 535 : Ownership Review (32,000 km and 9 years)-zoomp.png


From the looks of it, the tire has a very rounded profile as compared to the outgoing Vertigo Zoom and the tread pattern is quite different as well with deep treads. Dare I say, it looks a little sporty, even?

Royal Enfield Continental GT 535 : Ownership Review (32,000 km and 9 years)-img8473.jpg

Royal Enfield Continental GT 535 : Ownership Review (32,000 km and 9 years)-img8486.jpg

Top speed is rated at 150 kmph but would scarecely be a problem with Royal Enfield owners I hear you say mumble! The tire comes with a free tube as well from Ceat though the one on mine had a small hole in it so the dealership had to put in another one. The tire was filled in with way too much pressure at first and the bike felt skittish to ride. I got the pressure corrected from 38PSI (!!!!) down to 30 PSI and its a lot more stable and composed after that. Visually though, with the rounded profile, the tire does look a lot smaller when the bike is viewed from behind though I would gladly trade that in for good grip and reasonable longevity. I will share feedback on the new tire combination once Ive done a 1000 kms on them.
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Old 13th December 2017, 12:48   #423
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20,000 kms up!

Since there wasn't really any planned group ride this past weekend, I opted to tag along with TBHPian shan_ned who was riding to his home town, at least until breakfast and then decide on whether I would continue riding with him or head off elsewhere. We met up at the end of the Electronics City flyover and quickly made our way to Shoolagiri where we stopped for breakfast. Since neither of us were in any hurry, we ended up chatting for quite a while and this gave TBHPian shaikhmimran more than enough time to catch up with us after he had made a late start.


This led to an even more engaging conversation as the three of us were meeting up after a really long time and we finally decided that shaikhmimran and I would explore the route that I had discovered last week while shan_ned would continue on with his ride. With shaikhmimran leading the way at a fair clip, we both enjoyed the route quite a bit and shortly before reaching Krishnagiri we noticed a signboard which said that the dam was just 10 kms away. Not wanting to miss out on that, we took the narrow winding road and just kept riding on until we realized we were probably lost.

Royal Enfield Continental GT 535 : Ownership Review (32,000 km and 9 years)-img8498.jpg

A quick Google map check followed by a U turn and we were on our way to the dam which as it turned out presented a mesmerizing and yet pitiful sight. On most of our rides to the dam, we had been welcomed by high water levels but on this occasion, all that we could see was a semi dry lake bed with very little water. If someone who was unaware of the fact that this was a dam, had seen this while driving by, they would have sworn that it was just some empty field with a large pond.


Being in an adventurous mood, we tried to make our way to the water side as we noticed that there were a couple of people who had managed to take a bike till there but while the lake bed was mostly dry there were a few deceptively slushy sections that we had to keep an eye out for. At first the CBR got stuck, or so we thought. So I had to park my bike on some firm ground and go lend a helping hand.

Royal Enfield Continental GT 535 : Ownership Review (32,000 km and 9 years)-img8500.jpg

Royal Enfield Continental GT 535 : Ownership Review (32,000 km and 9 years)-img8501.jpg

We took two different routes in our attempt to reach the massively shrunken water body but eventually decided to call it off and head back. As I was taking a slow turn to return, I found that I had lost all traction at the rear wheel and the bike was firmly embedded in the slush! The new Ceat Zoom Plus stood no chance as the weight of the bike (OK so maybe my 80 odd kilos might have played a significant role as well!) was the deciding factor in this situation.

Royal Enfield Continental GT 535 : Ownership Review (32,000 km and 9 years)-img85051920x1080.jpg

Fortunately shaikhmimran was well aware that technique would be the only way to get the bike out of trouble and it took a bit of hoisting and pivoting to finally get the bike in a position to extract itself with sufficient grip. While I have been able to live with the weight of the Continental GT in the day to day commute and on the track, in these treacherous conditions, every kilo made its presence known and I was struggling in the slushy conditions to help pivot the bike while trying not to fall over and hurt myself.

Royal Enfield Continental GT 535 : Ownership Review (32,000 km and 9 years)-img8517.jpg

We then focused on getting the CBR onto safer ground and that experience was a breeze with the light weight of the Honda being a welcome relief.

Royal Enfield Continental GT 535 : Ownership Review (32,000 km and 9 years)-img8528.jpg

After finally extricating ourselves out of trouble, we pulled over onto the main road which was when shaikhmimran pointed out that there was another route just 50 metres ahead of ours, which would have taken us straight to the waters edge! I just couldn't stop laughing when I saw that. On our return we stopped for some refreshing tender coconut water which helped hydrate us before we returned back to Bangalore. While we maintained similar cruising speeds, the one noticeable difference between the CBR250 and the Continental GT was the way the Honda was able to pick up the pace whenever we had to slow down for traffic which really improves the average speeds over longer rides and is a lot more stress free for the rider. The Continental GT in comparison, needs to be really pushed to come back up to highway cruising speeds and this is where I believe the new 650 twins will strike a winning combination.

Mileage: I tanked up at the Essar pump in Koramangala after the ride with the low fuel warning coming up at around the 260 km mark on the tip meter. Distance covered : 295.3 kms with around 70 kms coming from the crazy Whitefield office commute. Petrol consumed : 9.94 litres. Mileage : 29.71 kmpl brings mileage since day 1 to 27.44 kmpl.
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Old 8th January 2018, 13:13   #424
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re: Royal Enfield Continental GT 535 : Ownership Review (32,000 km and 9 years)

Hi Neil,

How is your new battery holding up? I think it is time for me to replace mine as well. The self-start won't fire the engine most of the time and I have to use the kickstart instead.

I had the service center guys check the battery when I took it for service last time and they charged it for 24 hrs and gave a green signal to use it again instead of replacing.

Ride Safe,
R-Six
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Old 15th January 2018, 16:45   #425
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A happy start to 2018, or maybe not

It's a glorious new year and what better way to kick start the 2018 riding season than with a memorable day long ride through twisties and empty highways, past scenic vistas and through verdant green forests? Well unfortunately my bike refused to start in the office parking lot at 22:30 on Friday night and that put an ignominious end to all riding plans for the weekend. But first a little bit of a context before we delve into the character building traits that Royal Enfields are renowned for.


After returning to Bangalore from my annual Christmas vacation, I had used my bike on a couple of occasions and both times it took a bit of effort to get the bike started. Though I'm a few years into my motorcycle ownership, I am however yet to master the art of the Royal Enfield kick start (7 years of Yamaha R15 ownership probably has probably done that to me) though Im sure Royal Enfield's faithful are tsk-tsking at reading my statement. As usual the battery warning indicator popped up when I tried to start the bike on Friday morning but since it is apparently linked to a random signal generator (and not actually the battery), I paid no heed to it. After a few vigorous attempts at kick starting it and then resorting to the electric start, I was able to get it started and rode comfortably to work. In the night though, it refused to play nice but the battery seemed to be fine so I put it down to a spark plug issue and left the bike overnight in the office parking lot. It's a good thing that there was a line of cars parked between the security guards and me as I'm sure they would have been snickering to themselves and saying that this is the second time that the yellow bike has left the owner stranded at late night. On the plus side though, my character level did go up substantially. Well, so did my BP but that's irrelevant when you own a Royal Enfield cause you know its a Royal Enfield and macho. And stuff.


So on Saturday, I watched a couple of videos online on how to change the spark plug on a bike and after 16 years of riding, I guess now is as good a time as any to learn. I carried the second of the new spark plugs that I purchased from the Koramangala SVC and after removing the one in the bike, I was astonished to find that it was the same size as the older one that was removed and hence the second new one was actually a full size smaller and would not fit the Continental GT. The 2 month old spark plug looked well used and after cleaning it, the bike started up on the third or fourth attempt so I knew what the problem was. But why on earth would a 2 month old spark plug look like a grizzled veteran that hasn't seen sunlight for several years? Cue another increase in the character level.

Royal Enfield Continental GT 535 : Ownership Review (32,000 km and 9 years)-img8672.jpg


Royal Enfield Continental GT 535 : Ownership Review (32,000 km and 9 years)-img8673.jpg

To solve the mystery of the smaller spark plug and buy a replacement, I left for the same Koramangala SVC and shared my experience with the staff there. Fortunately I still had the spark plug box which does state Spark Plug Kit BU500 Carburetor rather explicitly on the side. As per the RE folks, the spark plug used in the 500cc engine is the same as that of the 535cc engine in the GT but I had been sold the twin spark plug set with the smaller spark plug (UR6DC INDIA 757) being the second one for the 500s. I should have double checked it while buying so it was a mistake from both sides.

Royal Enfield Continental GT 535 : Ownership Review (32,000 km and 9 years)-img8682.jpg

Royal Enfield Continental GT 535 : Ownership Review (32,000 km and 9 years)-img8683.jpg

Since the GT only has a single plug, the smaller one is of no use to me so I gave it back to them to use on somebody else's bike. The SA was nice enough to clean the older plug put in by Indimotard (they have a nifty machine to do it as well) and he showed me that the plug was working fine after checking the same on a GT that had come in for service. I showed him a photo of the 2 month old plug and he confirmed that the engine needed to be checked to identify the issue. This meant another trip to my office and after using the cleaned up spark plug, the bike did finally start up and settle into a steady idle and I was able to ride it back home easily, thanks to the empty Sunday roads. Now to get the bike to Royal Enfield for the 21K service and unearth what is causing the spark plugs to misbehave. Ooooh, I can see it already, my character levels are all set to go shooting through the roof on this one.

Quote:
Originally Posted by R-Six View Post
Hi Neil,

How is your new battery holding up? I think it is time for me to replace mine as well. The self-start won't fire the engine most of the time and I have to use the kickstart instead.

I had the service center guys check the battery when I took it for service last time and they charged it for 24 hrs and gave a green signal to use it again instead of replacing.

Ride Safe,
R-Six
Hi R-Six, wish you a very happy 2018. So far so good on the battery front. I would suggest you get it changed as the Exide's arent really known to be very reliable and might suddenly give up the ghost when you least expect it.
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Old 16th January 2018, 17:23   #426
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Re: A happy start to 2018, or maybe not

Quote:
Originally Posted by neil.jericho View Post
I would suggest you get it changed as the Exide's arent really known to be very reliable and might suddenly give up the ghost when you least expect it.
A very happy new year to you too!

I had Exide on my avenger and it never really gave me too much trouble. I was always skeptical about the battery on it since it did not even have a kickstart.

Though I'm kinda used to the kickstart - self-start combo these days, I'm planning to get it checked and replaced when I take the GT for the next service which is about to be due.

On another note, what frequency do you follow for the service? And apart from not being able to use the self-start, do you envision any other issues that might crop up if we continue to run on a weak battery?

Ride safe,
R-Six
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Old 19th January 2018, 19:37   #427
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The 21,000 km Service update

The first thing on my agenda for Tuesday morning was getting the bike to the Koramangala SVC for the 21,000 km service (it had done around 20,350 kms by then) as well as getting to the bottom of the whole spark plug issue. The main things that I had listed out to get checked, to the best of my recollection, were
- the starting issue which has been well documented already
- excessive front dive while braking (this is something I had mentioned at the last service as well). There were no visible oil leaks but I wanted it to get checked.
- replacement of front brake pads as the braking was quite lacking
- Chain sprocket and chain check since the chain slack was becoming increasingly noticeable
- Wheel alignment
- non functioning single horn


The service advisor (SA henceforth) mentioned that since Monday was a holiday, they werent sure how many of the mechanics would come in so the delivery of the bike on Tuesday wasnt guaranteed. Some time later another SA called me to tell me that the breather pipe had to be changed and that the cone set was on its last legs and hence needed replacing as well. Strangely enough, the bike wasnt ready by Wednesday evening either but I didnt need the bike for my office commute so it didnt really impact me. I picked it up yesterday evening and straight away I found the idling very inconsistent which I pointed out to the SA. While taking a short test ride, I realized that the rear brake had less retardation force than Fred Flintstone's feet which was a rather disconcerting. The SA did a quick test ride and felt the cone set needed some adjusting as he could hear some sound (I honestly didnt) and they said they will adjust the idling as well. The barely functioning rear braking was put down to the polish that they had applied prodigiously and inconsiderately.


This time the bill was a whopper by Royal Enfield standards but I felt they had done a good job on everything except the idling / starting issue regarding which I was asked to ride the bike for a day or two and check if the issue persisted. Here is the breakup of the parts bill.

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Here is the breakup of the labour bill, I just realized that the numbers dont match so I need to go back again to the SVC tomorrow to understand what variant of maths was being practiced in their billing system .

Royal Enfield Continental GT 535 : Ownership Review (32,000 km and 9 years)-2.png

Mileage: After picking the bike up from the SVC, I tanked up at the BP pump on Inner Ring road since the bike was already indicating that it was low on fuel before I had given it for service. Distance covered : 216.5. Petrol consumed : 10.33 litres. Mileage : 20.96 kmpl which can be forgiven given that there was a lot of fuel wastage in high revving and getting it back on the road. Mileage since day 1 stands at 27.35 kmpl.


So after spending a tidy sum on getting the bike up and running, I started making plans for a weekend ride and things started falling into place until I tried to start the bike today morning. No luck the first time. Or the second time. Or the third. I must have made at least 8 to 10 attempts before the bike finally started properly and before it could sputter and die, I gave it a few revs and managed to ride to the Koramangala RE SVC. By then the engine had warmed up and the manager there said that it was probably a cold start issue (the same as what was told to me yesterday by the SA) and pointed to the random signal generator, aka the battery warning indicator, saying that since the bike wasnt used for 3 days, the low charge might have also been responsible. Anyways, I decided to ride the bike to work and see if things improved but when trying to return in the evening it took me another 8 to 10 attempts to start the bike in my office parking lot. Luckily I have a thick skin and by now the guards are used to seeing me struggling with the bike so they no longer get their kicks out of the GT's misbehaviour. Those with fragile egos should probably stay clear of the Royal Enfield offerings, Im just saying .....


Also once I was on the road, it sputtered a couple of times which threw me off guard and to pile on the misery, the idling went back to being inconsistent whenever I was waiting at the long patience building signals that Bangalore has made its own. So now, Im the jerk on the Royal Enfield who gets disapproving looks for occasionally revving his bike while everyone else has switched off their motorcycles and cars while waiting for the elusive signal change !


So off I went straight to the RE SVC where the service manager checked the idling and found the bike was sputtering and switching off after a couple of minutes. Apparently in Bangalore, only the RE company SVC in Madiwala has the required diagnostic tool to check the 500 cc engines, so they will take it there on Monday and try to identify the problem.

Royal Enfield Continental GT 535 : Ownership Review (32,000 km and 9 years)-img8720.jpg
The GT trying to blend in

Im disappointed that the SVC did not thoroughly checked the bike given that I had gone through the whole spark plug exchange episode and they had kept the bike for 3 days as well after knowing there were issues to be rectified. The last few years have seen me enjoy a surprisingly positive ownership experience with Royal Enfield's top gun but these last 8 days have soured the journey to an extent. Hopefully the Koramangala SVC team is able to get to the bottom of this and the next dent on my wallet isnt going to be substantial, fingers crossed!

Last edited by neil.jericho : 19th January 2018 at 19:42.
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Old 19th January 2018, 22:39   #428
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re: Royal Enfield Continental GT 535 : Ownership Review (32,000 km and 9 years)

Hi Neil,

That's said man.. I mean after giving the bike for 3 days, they didn't get it fixed!!

I'm worried that my GT is showing the miss fire and spluttering symptoms. I experienced it for the first time when I tried to start my bike after office on Thursday eve. But it came back to life once I switched off and started after a minute.I need to get this checked too.

I'm travelling from tomorrow so won't be able to take it to SVC till Feb. Going to keep an eye out on your thread to see what your guys are going to come up with. If they managed to get it sorted I will direct them to your thread for diagnosis.

Last edited by R-Six : 19th January 2018 at 22:42.
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Old 20th January 2018, 02:42   #429
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re: Royal Enfield Continental GT 535 : Ownership Review (32,000 km and 9 years)

Niel

Have you put any fuel injector cleaner into your fuel?

A dirty fuel injector tip can easily cause starting issues and the only way to clean it is to use some fuel injector cleaner added to the petrol.

A dirty fuel injector can also cause some carbon to build up on the spark plug.

This happens because rather than spraying the ultra-fine mist of fuel into the intake airstream, it sprays globs of raw petrol.

Raw petrol doesn't ignite easily and it does not totally burn so carbon remains after ignition.
It also can decrease the fuel mileage your engine can deliver.

I don't know if it is available in India but Chevron Techron is one of the best cleaners I've found. If it isn't available, buy one that is made by a major oil company.
Some of the "off the wall" brand fuel injector cleaner is little more than diesel fuel mixed into some petrol and it will do little or nothing to clean the injector.

Also, if you add fuel injector cleaner to your fuel remember, the bottle is made for use in automobiles so it contains enough cleaner to add to a 50+ liter tank.
Reduce the amount of cleaner to match the amount of fuel in your tank.
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Old 30th January 2018, 22:00   #430
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re: Royal Enfield Continental GT 535 : Ownership Review (32,000 km and 9 years)

Quote:
Originally Posted by neil.jericho View Post
So off I went straight to the RE SVC where the service manager checked the idling and found the bike was sputtering and switching off after a couple of minutes. Apparently in Bangalore, only the RE company SVC in Madiwala has the required diagnostic tool to check the 500 cc engines, so they will take it there on Monday and try to identify the problem.
Last Monday, I received an update from the service adviser that the issue had been narrowed down to a spark plug adapter and that the bike was working fine. I picked it up from the Koramangala RE SVC on Saturday after I got back to town and straight away I could see that the idling from a cold start was erratic with the occasional misfire but once it warmed up it settled down into a steady idle. When I enquired about getting the cold start idle back to its steady old ways, the service adviser recommended that I go to the company SVC in Madiwala and hook it up to their system and get the re-mapping done. So that's item number one on the checklist for the the 24K service.


The spark plug adapter is an L shaped unit that connects to the spark plug and the faulty unit on my bike was not allowing sufficient current to pass to the spark plug thereby causing the sputtering (or at least that's how I remember it being explained verbally to me). The adapter was replaced free of cost so the SVC gets a thumbs up from me. Maybe its some good karma for giving them the spare spark plug.


Ive used the bike for the office commute over the last 2 days. The bike now starts at first crank, something which makes me let out an involuntary Hallelujah that Corey Graves would be proud of. Monday had the absolute worst post holiday traffic we have seen recently in Bangalore recently and at least half of my 35 km office commute was in first gear crawling. The big gave no problems whatsoever except for the brakes which I will address later in this post.


Quote:
Originally Posted by R-Six View Post
On another note, what frequency do you follow for the service? And apart from not being able to use the self-start, do you envision any other issues that might crop up if we continue to run on a weak battery?

Ride safe,
R-Six
Apologies R - Six, I had missed out on your earlier question. I just follow the recommended maintenance instructions (km wise) given in the service booklet except for the oil changes which I track separately. The bike usually has the mechanical equivalent of small aches and pains as the odometer inches closer to the next service which means I usually take it a few hundred kilometers before the actual recommended limit.

Quote:
Originally Posted by neil.jericho View Post
The first thing on my agenda for Tuesday morning was getting the bike to the Koramangala SVC for the 21,000 km service (it had done around 20,350 kms by then) as well as getting to the bottom of the whole spark plug issue. The main things that I had listed out to get checked, to the best of my recollection, were
- the starting issue which has been well documented already
- excessive front dive while braking (this is something I had mentioned at the last service as well). There were no visible oil leaks but I wanted it to get checked.
- replacement of front brake pads as the braking was quite lacking
- Chain sprocket and chain check since the chain slack was becoming increasingly noticeable
- Wheel alignment
- non functioning single horn
I was just going through the posts in the last few pages and realized that at the 18,000 km service I had asked the company SVC in Madiwala to check the braking and they had recommended that I change the brake pads at the front which I had done. I had completely forgotten about this! In the last couple of months, I have found that both the brake feel as well as the braking have been majorly lacking. Hence I had asked the service adviser to get the pads replaced. So I have essentially used the last set of brake pads for 3,000 kms only


Since I have got my bike back, I have found that the front braking has vastly improved and braking distances are definitely down. The feel though is still not there and mirrors what I had written exactly a year ago on this thread - "Despite getting them bled recently, the front braking has gone back to feeling 'spongy' at best. It does it's job no doubt but that ability to stop on a dime has gone missing somewhere along the way."

Quote:
Originally Posted by neil.jericho View Post
Here is the breakup of the labour bill, I just realized that the numbers dont match so I need to go back again to the SVC tomorrow to understand what variant of maths was being practiced in their billing system .
I checked with the gentleman at the billing counter regarding what I understood to be incorrect totals. Apparently the Rate column is for the cost of the labour per hour and not the total cost of that line item. So they have multiplied the (assumed) hours with the Rate to arrive at the total cost for each line item.


Quote:
Originally Posted by R-Six View Post
Hi Neil,

That's said man.. I mean after giving the bike for 3 days, they didn't get it fixed!!

I'm worried that my GT is showing the miss fire and spluttering symptoms. I experienced it for the first time when I tried to start my bike after office on Thursday eve. But it came back to life once I switched off and started after a minute.I need to get this checked too.

I'm travelling from tomorrow so won't be able to take it to SVC till Feb. Going to keep an eye out on your thread to see what your guys are going to come up with. If they managed to get it sorted I will direct them to your thread for diagnosis.
Hopefully its nothing serious R-Six. Maybe the solution that worked for me will be applicable in your case as well.

Quote:
Originally Posted by ArizonaJim View Post
Niel

Have you put any fuel injector cleaner into your fuel?

A dirty fuel injector tip can easily cause starting issues and the only way to clean it is to use some fuel injector cleaner added to the petrol.
Hi ArizonaJim, thanks for your useful post once again. I have tried out Liqui Moly's injector cleaner once or twice based on positive reviews that I had read. I had followed the reduced amount corresponding to the smaller fuel tank technique. Honestly, I couldnt really make out much of a difference with the bike after using the injector cleaner but I suppose it helps in its own little way.
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Old 2nd February 2018, 11:10   #431
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re: Royal Enfield Continental GT 535 : Ownership Review (32,000 km and 9 years)

Quote:
Originally Posted by neil.jericho View Post
Hopefully its nothing serious R-Six.
Picked up the bike back from the service today. It turned out to be a cracked breather pipe and cracked PAV Hose Air Filter.

Another thing that I noticed while inspecting the vehicle with my service manager was a lose TPS sensor above the throttle body.

Replaced both the pipes and had them fix the TPS sensor set up and it runs smoothly. Haven't taken it for a long ride to test, but the problem seems to have gone now.

Ride safe,
R-Six
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Old 6th February 2018, 22:40   #432
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re: Royal Enfield Continental GT 535 : Ownership Review (32,000 km and 9 years)

Well well well (in my best Joel Gertner impression), where do I start with this round of updates? First things first, kudos to the Service Advisor from the Royal Enfield SVC who called me mid week to find out how the bike was performing and whether I was facing any other issues. I spoke to him about the overall braking sponginess even after changing the brake pads and he mentioned that they have found other Continental GT users complaining of the same issue as well. This is down to the front disc wearing out and needing an eventual replacement though it isnt cheap at around Rs 10,000 (for the part and labour IIRC). Sigh, it looks as though my next service is going to be an expensive one but the brake pad replacement is a much needed change for sure. He also mentioned that the braking sponginess could be due to the ever so slight play in the disc brake that should be fixed by welding it (this is something they had told me about last year as well). Anyways so thumbs up to the service experience at RE for their proactive follow up.

Royal Enfield Continental GT 535 : Ownership Review (32,000 km and 9 years)-img87671920x1080.jpg

Since I havent been able to do a long ride for quite a few weekends now, I finally decided to do a relaxed late solo ride on Saturday. I was happily exploring the picturesque state highways of Tamil Nadu and content that everything was back to normal on the biking front.

Royal Enfield Continental GT 535 : Ownership Review (32,000 km and 9 years)-img87811920x1080.jpg

Out of the blue I realized that the accelerator cable was stuck and the bike was revving like crazy. Fortunately for me this happened on an empty stretch of the state highway and I was able to pull over to the side safely. After confirming that I had not unlocked some secret cruise control feature on the Continental GT, I did some poking around and realized that the throttle release mechanism (Im sure there is a technical term for the part below), wasnt falling smoothly back to its regular position after releasing the throttle. I did try and adjust it to some extent so that I was able to slowly ride back to, you guessed it, the Koramangala SVC. Now bear in mind, I was 130 kms away from Bangalore when this happened, so my return ride was long (mentally that is even though the distance was obviously the same) and tiring. (Un?)Fortunately for me, my bike has given me far worse problems than this in its attempts to build my character, so I wasnt really too annoyed.

Royal Enfield Continental GT 535 : Ownership Review (32,000 km and 9 years)-img8784.jpg

Back at the SVC, I asked the team to replace the accelerator cable and they agreed to do so despite me coming in the late afternoon but informed me that I would be getting my bike only by the end of the day as there were lots of bikes in queue to be serviced (which is absolutely fair so no complaints). Here is a breakup of the bill.

Royal Enfield Continental GT 535 : Ownership Review (32,000 km and 9 years)-1.png

The worst part of this whole episode? Knowing that I proactively replaced the accelerator cable at the 10K service which means the blasted cable had a life of only around 10K kms. If nothing else, it reinforces my belief that I need to change the accelerator and clutch cable every third service (or 9000 kms). Hopefully this is the last of my on-going troubles and corresponding visits to the RE SVC for the near future.

Quote:
Originally Posted by R-Six View Post
Picked up the bike back from the service today. It turned out to be a cracked breather pipe and cracked PAV Hose Air Filter.

Another thing that I noticed while inspecting the vehicle with my service manager was a lose TPS sensor above the throttle body.

Replaced both the pipes and had them fix the TPS sensor set up and it runs smoothly. Haven't taken it for a long ride to test, but the problem seems to have gone now.

Ride safe,
R-Six
Glad to hear that the issue has been diagnosed and the issues have been sorted out.
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Old 7th February 2018, 03:34   #433
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re: Royal Enfield Continental GT 535 : Ownership Review (32,000 km and 9 years)

Niel:

Glad to hear you got it fixed.

To anyone else who has this happen:

The part that failed is the throttle return cable broke.

If you look at the bottom picture in Neil's post, you should notice the throttle return cable that comes in below the center of the throttle "wheel" looks like it has a lot of slack in it. It is not going directly towards the bottom of the throttle wheel and it is somewhat looped downward.

This lower cable is there to close the throttle in case the spring doesn't have enough power to close the throttle.

In this case, the cable broke somewhere up inside the sheath and the end that protrudes outside the sheath is hanging rather slack.
Not only is it hanging slack but because of this, the throttle spring cannot shove it back into the sheath. That is causing the throttle to fail to fully close.

If something like this happens to your motorcycle, use a pair of pliers or something to pull the broken end of the inner cable out of the sheath or pull it out at least far enough to get it hanging downward.

Once this is done, the end of the cable that engages the throttle wheel can be rotated counterclockwise and the cable will line up with the slot in the wheel.
With the cable aligned with the wheel slot, it can be pulled out of the wheel.

Once it is out, the rest of the broken inner cable can be pulled out of the outer sheath.

Without this throttle return cable, the throttle spring will be enough to close the throttle and normal riding can continue so riding to the shop or home won't be a problem.

In my opinion, it is important to get both throttle cables replaced because it is possible that the throttle spring might fail, leaving the throttle open. (Even parts on a Rolls Royce or Mercedes fail).

Happy riding and keep it rubber side down.
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Old 6th March 2018, 17:03   #434
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re: Royal Enfield Continental GT 535 : Ownership Review (32,000 km and 9 years)

It's been exactly a month since my last update and in most cases on Team BHP, no updates to ownership threads usually mean good things and correspondingly trouble free riding. Not so in my case as the Continental GT put me through another annoying experience in its never ending quest to help build my character (and I will admit, its doing a good job).


A few weekends ago, I was on my way to the Triumph showroom on an early Saturday morning and decided to tank up at the Shell petrol pump near UB City. After topping up the bike, I was amazed to find that it point blank refused to start. Pressing the electric start resulted in nothing. Zilch. Kick starting didnt help either, though in all fairness it has rarely helped with my bike. Since it was early morning and traffic was negligible, I decided to try walking the bike down to the Triumph showroom and after covering around 50 metres or so, I tried again and it started off perfectly as though nothing had happened. I poked around trying to do some basic investigating and found that during the last service, the mechanics had yanked out the wiring for the auxillary lighting though that was easily plugged back. I wasnt sure what else could be the issue.


A few hours later, I tried starting my bike in the parking lot of the Triumph showroom and once again, it refused to start up. Push starting didnt work and then the sales advisor just tried the electric start and by some miracle, it started without a hiccup. The next stop was at the Royal Enfield service centre in Koramangala (where I seem to be spending far too much time!) and the same friendly service advisor took a closer look but we were unable to replicate the problem. Egad! Anyways, he said that it could have been due to one of the following
1. This unit (dont know that name of it) which is on the left handlebar could probably have been loose which resulted in the electric start not functioning. This might have got dislodged during the service.

Royal Enfield Continental GT 535 : Ownership Review (32,000 km and 9 years)-5f6c0a636f754583bf947eda80a6cf76.jpg

2. There was some 'switch' beneath the clutch lever which could have also been the issue. They cleaned the unit and returned the bike to me quickly.


Since then, I have hardly had time to use the bike so running has been very limited in the last one month. The onset of the summer months coupled with the worsening Bangalore traffic have ensured that I head straight for the car keys every morning as I head out to work. Hopefully this is the last of the headaches associated with the Continental GT and its stress free riding in the days to come.


Mileage: After a couple of low value mileage tank ups, finally here is some good news. Distance covered : 233.6 kms. Petrol consumed : 6.67 litres. Mileage: 35.02 kmpl. Mileage since day 1 stands at 27.31 kmpl.
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Old 7th March 2018, 00:28   #435
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re: Royal Enfield Continental GT 535 : Ownership Review (32,000 km and 9 years)

The connection you show is the clutch lever grounding switch.

To understand how your starter motor gets electrical power, I'll describe the flow of power just in the starter circuit.

From the battery + terminal electrical power goes to the keyed ignition switch.

If the ignition switch is turned on, power goes thru it to the red "run/kill" switch on the right handlebar.

If the run/kill switch is set at the RUN position the power goes thru the switch to the starter button on the right grip housing.

When the starter button is pressed, power goes thru the switch to the Starter Relay (solenoid). At this point the power must be grounded to the negative side of the battery for the Starter Relay to operate.

Two grounding paths are available and both of them are "normally open" unless certain conditions exist.
Being "normally open", the electrical power at the Starter Relay can not get to ground unless,
1. The transmission is in neutral as indicated by the Neutral light on the dashboard.
2. The clutch lever is pulled in to release the clutch. Pulling in the clutch lever closes the grounding switch and provides a path for the power at the starter relay to get to the negative side of the battery.

If either or both of these conditions exist the power goes thru the Starter Relay, energizing the electromagnetic coil. When this happens, a large electrical contact inside the relay is closed and large amounts of power flow to the starter motor causing it to run and start the engine.

Normally, this grounding system is reliable but I know of cases where the neutral light is lit but the grounding path is making poor contact even though the transmission is in neutral. Often this is shown by the neutral light becoming very dim or even turning off when the starter button is pressed.

The clutch grounding switch is also pretty reliable but if the wiring is poorly connected (as it seems to have been in your case) the starter may refuse to operate.

Happy riding and keep it shiny side up.
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