[vijaythacker]

Originally Posted by jaganm

Great review and very timely. I’ve been debating between the Dominar BS6 and the new entrants (Highness/Meteor) for the past month. I took a ride in my friends 2019 Dominar for around 20km to be sure and I was convinced of it. But still the lure of the Highness with its Honda pedigree and the Meteor with its stunning looks is there. I’m around 70% for Dominar and 20-20 for the other two.

If your most of the driving is going tobe within city i would suggest you to opt for Honda eyes closed. If you love touring D400 is surely superb package.Yes bajaj ASS does need more headsup to get the things done but for bike its a superb one from them.
I own UG 2019 and very much satisfied with it.

[jaganm]

I finally ended up paying for the Highness and am expecting to take delivery in 7-10 days. I currently have a FZ25, which is primarily a city bike but I've been able to do almost 10000 km of touring over the past year on it. It has several great characteristics that are similar to the Dominar, great seat and riding comfort, good ability to carry luggage, well sorted suspension that makes 400-600 km days bearable. Where it suffers is on the wide open road as it is out of its comfort zone above speeds on 90-100. That was the gap that I was looking for the Dominar to fill. However, as I thought about it some more, I realized that is a small part of my touring which takes place on a lot of smaller back roads where the speeds are a lot lower and the FZ is easily able to cope.

Why the Highness then? I realized as my riding evolved that I am more into a laidback relaxed cruising and the Highness (and Meteor) would be ideal for it. I took a test ride of both and while I was super impressed with the Meteor, I just liked the Highness a little bit more and my comfort with Honda over RE tipped the scale that way

[MadhavNarayanan]

@mohansride, what a superb write up! I picked up my Green Dominar on the 29th of October, but before that, I had seen every youtube review, and wanted to read something rather than watching videos. And I chanced upon this write up, and decided I am going to try and convince the Team-BHP team that I deserved to be accepted into the forum! I had failed to do so several years before, and had turned into Suryavamsam Sarath Kumar senior, decided never to login to Team-BHP ever again. But again, I couldn't stop reading up articles on automobiles on Team-BHP, i gave up and tried again, and got approved! First thing I wanted to do was to congratulate you on this article! Great work indeed! Keep sharing your thoughts, they are awesome!

[aansh singhania]

Can anyone send me the 2017-2018 dominar 400 shop/ repair manual ? I need it for a friend's bike.

[MadhavNarayanan]

Originally Posted by aansh singhania

Can anyone send me the 2017-2018 dominar 400 shop/ repair manual ? I need it for a friend's bike.

Hi Aansh, I hope you have managed to get hold of the manual already, if not, it is available on a site called Globalbajaj.com I have attached it here.

[ashwinprakas]

Originally Posted by MadhavNarayanan

Hi Aansh, I hope you have managed to get hold of the manual already, if not, it is available on a site called Globalbajaj.com I have attached it here.

That's the Owners Manual, he's asking for the Shop Manual.

Speaking of which, Good luck mate! You'd have better luck finding a Unicorn.

Jokes aside it is a PITA finding shop manuals for Indian motorcycles, your best bet is getting in touch with someone who owns a Bajaj ASS.

[mohansrides]

Coming back from a ban, I thought I would update this thread with some pictures of the old lady as a tribute to Rahul Bajaj and his wonderful life.

The good news is that this bike has given me ZERO issues till date. I changed out the sprocket and cone set; but that was more a precautionary move, than out of necessity. After not using the bike for 2 months, I would walk up to it and thumb the starter; it'd bark back to life without the slightest fuss and take me wherever I needed to go.

Seriously, what an amazing machine!! Numerous OLX ads later (including one currently running), this bike remains with me. Prospective buyers encounter a curmudgeonly seller with a sabotage-the-sale attitude.

I am not sure if I will ever be able to let go of this bike.

Cheers

[Ganapathy]

Originally Posted by mohansrides

Coming back from a ban, I thought I would update this thread with some pictures of the old lady as a tribute to Rahul Bajaj and his wonderful life.
I am not sure if I will ever be able to let go of this bike.

---

Great Photographs Mohan Sir! They are indeed awesome. Honestly! I think you should retain the Dominar 400. It may not be as classy or as powerful as your latest acquisition on two wheels. However, all said and done, it is indeed a reliable and faithful old friend. Wishing you and your Dominar many more miles of cheer and excitement. Take care

[mohansrides]

Closing this thread with some final stats.

With a heavy heart, I finally sold the bike. I had it up for sale for close to an year and had been bombarded with many offers; almost all of them being abysmally low. Even when I did get the odd offer that was marginally higher, I unconsciously sabotaged the sale by being a thoroughly unpleasant person (not at all hard for me) when the buyer came to see the bike. It was just too hard for me to let go of this bike.

Once after having resigned myself to the buyer profile in the used market, I reluctantly accepted an offer for Rs 90k without actually accepting a token from the buyer. I told him I needed one last ride before concluding the sale. Knowing full well what was about to happen, the buyer tried his best to convince me to hand over the bike then and there. I refused and insisted on one more ride on my bike. That weekend, I took the bike for a 200 km ride and the engine simply sang, the chassis and suspension performed flawlessly and the tyres with over 17k kms gripped the road without the slightest nervousness. Right there in the middle of NH 48, I stopped the bike and messaged the buyer that he needed to find another bike.

Then 3 months later, a group of young college lads approached me. They ALL had Dominars and they wanted my bike for the last guy in the group. I showed them all my service records, allowed them to TR the bike, and answered all their questions. This sale too wasn't going to happen was my wife's conclusion. But, contrary to the last N sales conversations, these guys didn't negotiate at all. That was surprising. I was pondering this when their main spokesperson pointed to one of the other bikes in the group said, "we bought this bike for 75k and then 2 months later we had to spend 40k on repairs.” Oh!! so these guys had been handed a life lesson very early. Good for them.

They paid me what I asked. To keep their respect, I reduced 5k and then offered to pay for an immediate transfer of registration. They agreed and the bike changed hands.

To this day, I regret selling my Dominar. If the new Dominar is once again offered in this Plum colour, I would probably buy it again without a second thought.

P. S.

Corollary - I should thank myself for having had the foresight to pay for an immediate transfer of registration. The process took two months for the new owner’s name to reflect on the RC. I was sweating those two months despite having multiple originals of a delivery note that I had crafted indemnifying me against every possible scenario wherein I could get in trouble due to the actions of the new owner.

When I finally saw that the name had changed on mParivahan, I called the new owner and asked him for an RC copy (for my records) as he had promised in the delivery note that he had signed. No response. Then after multiple follow ups, the buyer sent me a soft copy of his new RC.

Cue the exact moment when the bike for challaned. I got repeated SMSes from MH traffic police about paying the fine and it took 3 or 4 strongly worded emails (with all proofs attached) for them to stop holding me accountable for this bike. I have bookmarked their email removing my phone number from being associated with the vehicle.

Cheers

[MadhavNarayanan]

@mohansrides, Sorry to see you had to sell off the Dominar! I am unsure what I missed. I would love to find out what made you make this decision, but would totally understand if you do not want to talk about it. The pictures are, as always, amazing. Night shots make the bike look brilliant. I am sure you will cherish the happy memories you have had with the dominar! Cheers!

[2TR-FE]

Hello Mate,

Your final post has really moved my heart. Pls. let us know the reason for your sale. My dominar has also completed similar number of kms. Expecting a tyre replacement soon.

Cheers!