[CountryDriver]

This incident seems beyond scary. Thank god the rider was going at a slow speed. Such chassis failure repairs ought to be done for free as a goodwill gesture by the company for risking the man's life. I can't understand why the dealer and the company is just trying to shift blames on each other.

[Candy$Cars]

Wow! He should sue Royal Enfield as this was a fatal failure! What if it happened at highway speeds.. Royal Enfield should give him a new bike at the least and some hefty compensation for the ordeal he had to go through and the lack of trust he will be having now onwards..

This is something that no one imagines happening and shouldn't happen even 1/100 or 1/100000 time!

[Latheesh]

That failure is due to stress concentration and the reason for it is poor quality welding. Better RE replace the frame for free including labor cost.

[Kosfactor]

@OP - Did this vehicle have a bad landing or some air time after taking a bump at high speed?

[matizcrazy]

My personal experience with the Himalayan has been awful. The quality of the bike seemed abysmal; left me stranded on the highway in the rains in partial darkness. One doesn't experience such things even on a Platina or CT 100 if it is reasonably maintained.
My Himalayan had just gone for a full service.
My commiserations with the owner of the motorcycle. Hope he is compensated in full for the shoddy product and the ensuing agony.

[SoumenD]

2018 should be the Gen-1 himalayan right? Quite a few reports of Chasis snapping has been available online for this generation. This is something I never knew was even possible only to become aware after the himalayan incidents.

We have another thread from 2019 discussing a similar incident. Link (Royal Enfield Himalayan - Broken into two pieces)

Gen-2 onwards however we didn’t get to hear of this issue. Hopefully it’s sorted as this is really alarmingly scary. Its an adventure tourer for god’s sake. Imagine this happening while you are in a trail at some offbeat location

[LoneTraveller]

Update: RE agrees to replace the chassis and all damaged parts, free of cost

Yesterday afternoon (28th August 2021), my friend got a call from Royal Enfield's Chennai Head Quarters. The caller identified himself as the Decision Maker for resolving this particular incident. He said that they would be replacing the chassis and the damaged parts free of cost. My friend also received an email regarding the same.

Later in the evening, my friend went to the Koramangala service center and met the manager. The manager showed him the email regarding the approval of parts. The manager said that the Chassis would reach the service center in 3-4 days, and the chassis replacement needs another three days.

Originally Posted by neil.jericho

LoneTraveller, based on the facts that you have shared, it is pretty surprising to hear about Royal Enfield's lack of support on this issue. How many kilometers has the bike run so far? Has it been regularly serviced at the company SVCs?

Hi neil.jericho, thank you for your extremely detailed replies. The bike has run 30,000kms and is regularly serviced at Royal Enfield Koramangala. It is a 2018 BS 4 Himalayan.

I really hope this incident is a one off issue and no other Himalayan owner has to ever face this agony. I also thank each and everyone who has been active on this thread for their support. Once the bike is repaired, I will be posting it's pictures here

Regards,
LoneTraveller

[piiyush21]

This is a bad mark on Royal Enfield. It probably shows how RE has moved on from the era of being unbreakable. This is not a wear and tear part nor is it electronics for which there's always a reasonable apprehension of going bad. Chassis is equivalent to the spine in the human body and we all know what happens when it snaps!!!

Although, it isn't as easy as it sounds but the owner should sue RE because it could've led to some serious consequences, had the chassis broken down at high speed or anything above 60 on a busy road.

[amvj]

RE should recall all those old Himalayans (BS3?) and replace the chassis free of cost. Why are they waiting for the customers to bring their bikes with a snapped chassis.

[SidharthaN]

Originally Posted by LoneTraveller

Update: RE agrees to replace the chassis and all damaged parts, free of cost

I assumed RE would replace the chassis free of cost and thats what is finally happening. I had a free chassis replacement provided on my 2016 TB which had cracked at 90k. Hope the current gen RE are free of these issues.

[abhishek46]

In the olden days, owners of ambassadors used to get chassis painting and welding works done every 2 years.

I presume, RE is also expecting its owners to do the same.

[Engine_Roars]

In this time and age of social media, I don't understand why companies would take a chance and deny such genuine warranty cases and earn the bad press.

They are doing what exactly was requested by the owner and have also taken a hit on the image. Had they changed the parts without any fuss, this thread would have not even existed.

Bad move, RE. High time these organisations start giving respect to Indian consumers.

Way to go Team-Bhp!!

[MaheshY1]

I'm not surprised. Heavy motorcycles need heavy-duty parts, which makes them even heavier. The Himalayan's weight has only gone up since it went on sale. I'm assuming that their solution to every problem is "add more iron." Instead of "let's use high-strength steel and re-engineer it to handle more stress."

I say, sue them for selling a product with life-threatening defects. If you don't do any off-roading on the vehicle, then this is a serious problem. If you do off-road, then you were using it for the intended purpose. Blame it on RE if it breaks while doing what RE claim the vehicle can do in their adverts.

This isn't new. You have a good chance of walking away with profits as this is not the first time the Himalayan is snapping. There are many records of this and still they haven't fixed it.

Straight up negligence.

[HTC]

Just few days back, I referred Himalayan for my 6 foot friend. Today forwarded him this link and asked him to consider used kawasaki 650 or bmw GS 310.

This may be one in a lakh case, but you never know it may not happen to you. What if you are on highway carrying decent speed and chassis decides to give up. The way the metal is sheared at breakage points, clearly shows metallurgical failure. It is not able to bear the stress owing to combination of factors like speed,vibration etc.
Definitely, enfield needs to do thorough testing and get it done by industry experts.

I always tell my friends that quality doesnt come cheap. Imported exotic bikes are expensive. Reason being the effort of engineering gone into building them, the high grade alloys and metals used in every part.

I realised this in a hard way when I had a sliding crash on highway. This was to avoid couple of juvenile cows who decided to jump onto highway from median where they were grazing so far. I will save the details for another thread. But what amazed me was the fact that, after taking a slide at that speeds, bike was back in action in next 10 mins. Nothing broken. The amount of thought that goes into selecting each component material surprised me.

When the bike slid on to right side, none of the parts that came in contact with tarmac broke. They all got shaved by friction. I got up and thanked my stars as no other vehicle was tailing me. Put the bike on the side and parked it for 10 mins. Notieced that, except for the gear shifter tie rod little bent by the impact of my riding boots, remaining of the bike was perfectly ridable. The foot peg was shaved off, right foot brake lever also shaved but perfectly in usable condition. And the bike started without any drama and ran another 800kms till I gave it for repair.

Flip side is the pain of going through the expensive repair cost. I got an estimation of 1.3 lac . Imagine the foot rest cost was INR 5k+. But insurance came in handy and I had to pay some 20k from my pocket.

I do own a cast iron electra. Love it to bits. And I like the practicality that Himalayan offers at that price point for true adventure seekers. Hope enfield sorts out their quality issues sooner than later.

[doga]

Given the consumer protection and vehicle safety (or lack thereof)norms in our country, I'd doubt any data is available on this. One'd expect a recall would be enforced once the number of incidents/accidents cross a (very low) threshold based on sold numbers. Although I'd not go so far as blaming RE for poor workmanship as these things happen to best of names.

The K5 GSXR1000 and the 2004-2005 ZX10R(especially the US bikes) had frame cracking issues. The Suzuki frame in fact, failed pretty much same as the Himalayan on this thread. Poor welding between the headstock and the main beams was the culprit due to which the headstock would snap away possibly under hard landings after wheelies. The ZX10 wasn't as extreme, haven't seen cases where the frame has snapped clean, may be more due to the fact that the cracks were easy to spot due to them being on the outside of the main beams near the engine mounts.

Another case in point is the BMW 3 series E46 models. Numerous cases of the subframe cracking can be found on the internet.

Of course all of this doesn't condone any lack of ownership on RE's part.
If a frame is snapping that clean on a bike in normal sedate road riding which is made for off-roading then RE should issue a recall and provide frame bracing or change the frame altogether. I remember the bad press the Himalayan got at time of launch due to the snapped footpeg in the promo video-unbelievable that!- and if RE is not proactive in fixing this issue then they'd quickly lose all the goodwill and trust they have gained globally due to the 650 twins and Itchy Boots!