This is my second pre-owned purchase after my
Palio 1.6 GTX. Did I set myself a goal to buy a pre-owned bike - No! We'll come to it in a bit.
Need for a bike:
Have to say that the Palio was indeed the cause of buying the new bike. Palio gives a meagre 6-8 kmpl in B2B traffic conditions and being in Mumbai for sometime meant I felt the pain in finding a parking slot within the city for short drives. I thought a bike will be easier for parking and better short trips at a lesser cost.
I picked up a job in Chennai later and life was going normal. I got an Activa for a weekend and I loved the ease of taking it for short spins, making getaways faster in the dense traffic and I found myself a lot more often wanting to go out and not sit in the room over the weekends.
Now, my biking was restricted to some very short rides in the last 10-12 years and on a Hero Honda Passion and some short spins on a Unicorn. The Unicorn felt so good compared to Passion after 80 kmph but I was never bothered about the tech specs.
Criteria:
- ABS - MUST, This is something which the bike had to have
- Faired bike - I have been a fan of faired stylish bikes from my childhood; high on priority, but could compromise
- Reliable - MUST, The Palio religiously visits the workshop 2-3 times in a year for repairs / replacements based on tantrums. The bike couldn't be one like this
- Comfortable Cruiser - MUST, capable of cruising at 100-120 kmph with least strain
- Refinement - MUST, the ride has to be smooth and less vibrations
- Cost : Upto 2.5L, OTR
Probable List:
- Pre-Owned (Habanero RED) CBR
- New Gixxer SF
- Dominar
- New CBR 250
- TVS Akula
- RC 390
- Ninja 300 &
- Yamaha R3 - Both didn't have ABS, so wasn't serious about it.
Vote of Thanks:
Aargee, PrasannaDhana
During the whole journey, I had bugged Prasanna to the core and aargee to a good extent. Both of them were very helpful and always answered my questions and provided some very knowledgeable inputs.
The selection journey (over a year!)
By now, some of you have realized something wrong with the shortlisted vehicles and comment written against it. It's true, because
I took a whole 1 year to purchase my bike.
I did put a query in the "What bike" section and keep getting confused on the inputs. I started reading on some of the ownership threads and Prasanna's thread gained a lot of interest since he used to update it on a regular basis. From someone who wanted a black CBR (if it's the one), I made up my mind to buy a RED one, if it's a CBR 250. That shade grew up on me every time I went through his
ownership report.
I started asking a lot of questions to Prasanna and we shortly became buddies and a lot of pics / info shared over WhatsApp. When I almost made up my mind on the CBR 250, he dropped a bomb stating the Gixxer is an extremely fun to ride machine. So, from a pre-owned bike, I started to think of buying a brand new Gixxer SF, for almost the same price (of a pre-owned CBR 250). Again, when I started thinking about it, there was no ABS, but they soon (over the course of time) added a single channel ABS.
I went to the showroom (Maya Suzuki) and they didn't have a TD vehicle even after a month of launch, neither they seemed excited about a sale.
In the mean while, I came across a nice 2013 CBR for an asking price of 1.2L or so and told him I am ok with a 85K. Guy says he's ok and rides all the way from Trichy or so to show me the vehicle. The vehicle was a well maintained one and then he rolls his eyes when I mention the price. It also was in fact a 2nd owner with the ownership not transferred. I raised my price to 90K but he said he'll find another buyer. The guy was still running on stock tyres and even advised me to continue so as to save on the expense.
Now, it was almost 2018 and the Auto Expo was on cards - I hoped Honda will re-launch the CBR 250 and Yamaha also might launch the R3 ABS version. I was also very closely following the TVS Akula as well. However, the prices of both CBR & R3 was on the higher side to me and even the RR310 launched with a higher price than expected. Plus, I was advised by many not to buy the TVS from the initial batches. The waiting periods because of controlled delivery quickly shot upto 3-4 months for the RR310.
Now, I started my search back in OLX & Quikr and one thing I noticed was the snobbish attitude of the sellers. It's as if they were doing a favor by parting with their bikes or giving it for free - most of them didn't bother to post full details or even bothered to respond to queries. And I wasn't going to let go of my ego either; after all, I was "paying" for the bike.
Over time, I realized that finding a nice, well maintained, reasonably run CBR 250 with ABS was a task in itself. And when you find one, the price was always on the higher side and the owners willing not to negotiate.
I was so frustrated that I included "Black" color into my list along with Red and shortlisted two bikes on OLX. Went to TD the black bike in the morning, but I quite didn't like it. The owner was also not very keen on reducing the price by much. Told him I have another TD in the afternoon and will get back after riding it.
In the afternoon, the other bike was brought to my place and I started it and moved - boy o boy, was I smitten!!!! I knew this was the bike for me - it imeediately made a connection to my heart and I was all grinning. The owner was a nice guy and told me I don't even have to pay the token and I can pay the full amount when I take the bike. He was also ok to get it checked completely though it was serviced just that month.
I got the bike on 7th May 2018 and paid the full amount. The owner, Mr. Praveen had already got his RR310 as his new vehicle. I took the bike early in the morning as I didn't want to face the traffic and wasn't so accustomed to regular riding. The bike was easy to ride and came back home happily without any incident. Was quite happy with the smoothness and power on tap for an almost newbie rider.