Team-BHP - Himalayan 450 Chassis Frame Breaking, multiple instances! After-market crash guards to blame?

Quote:

Originally Posted by gharika (Post 5782333)

Seems like people are quick to jump on the RE bashing band wagon and not considering that our after market accessories are worst than Chinese plastics with lead paint.

Well, we don't know yet if the aftermarket crash guards are the reasons. But even if that's the case, one can also blame RE for not making the crash guard readily available at a reasonable price. Well, if they can't even provide the configurable low profile seat as promised, we don't have much hope for these.

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Originally Posted by neil.jericho (Post 5782372)

In a thread full of unproven suppositions and speculation, here is some more 1 more unproven supposition and bit of speculation that might put some worried minds to rest. Like everyone else on this thread, I dont know the truth, one way or the other.

Attachment 2613203

Good to know more about the second incident in question. It might be legit as the bolts are missing in the photos after the crash and strangely there are no crash guards installed. Not even the OE ones. But the first incident still remains. The crash protection was still attached to the first Kaza brown bike so the aftermarket protection/bolts are not still out of the suspicion. And we may never know if the crash structure was removed afterwards the mishap so it doesn't come into the picture later. I'm still having a hard time believing a garage didn't install the most important engine mount bolts back and the owner rode it without any worry. Something is off here. There is no real proof other than this chap's insta comment.

I am not at ALL surprised by the aftermarket guards theory. Most of my close friends and co-riders know that I am extremely skeptical of attaching (bolting, clamping) these to different parts of the bike frame. In trying to save your tank and panels, you are putting the frame at serious risk. Just never sounded right to me. Told this to rb2399 more times than he'd likely want to remember.

Then again, the old Bullet frames, where again the engine was a stressed member, for over 50 years, ran on aftermarket crash guards like Turnrite and Swastik, and never broke like this. So I'm not convinced one way or the other on this developing story.

Cheers, Doc

This happened to a couple of my friends on their Triumph 900s too (a gt and a rally)
Both had aftermarket crash guards on from Outback mototrek. And both bikes had their front engine mount bolts shear off. The engine was basically hanging from rear mounts. One idiot continued riding the same way (gt guy) and the other promptly switched to oem crash guards (rally guy). Guess what, the Gt guy one day finds his bike is a couple of inches lower at the handlebars than before. Turns out the tube connecting the headstock had bent due to the forces. Triumph then denied warranty due to it being an aftermarket crash guard (not surprising) and our man had to shell out a whopping 4L to replace the frame and get the whole thing assembled back again.

I see so many folks even over here put on some random crash guards on all kinds of bikes. Some of them even look dangerous to me with some questionable protrusions close to the rider's knee! What happens during a frontal impact in this case have you considered that?

Besides that many of them seem to be designed unscientifically with arbitrary connections between engine/chassis mounts without paying any heed to stresses and forces that go through. Of course, there is no way to find out which will surely work and which wont without actually crashing but, I'd say stick to oem ones as they know the stress points and weaknesses. or get from reputed brands that have been in the game for years (unlikely for the him 450 as its a new bike).

Stay safe peeps and put in some research before buying accessories, at least for crash protection!

Quote:

Originally Posted by b16h22 (Post 5782379)

I'm still having a hard time believing a garage didn't install the most important engine mount bolts back and the owner rode it without any worry.

I think it's possible that the mechanics made such mistake - letting an intern do the simple job, multiple people working on the same job leading one to think the other bolted everything up, etc. I mean, it wouldn't be the worst I've heard, if true. What I have a hard time believing is the owner rode without any worry. Especially in bike where the engine is a part of the frame. But I'm just imagining; never sat on or rode a bike (thankfully) without proper mounting. So, I could be wrong & can't dismiss it's possibility.

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Originally Posted by ebonho (Post 5782403)

In trying to save your tank and panels, you are putting the frame at serious risk.

Never thought of it in this perspective! Makes the sense & potential stupidity immediate apparent to think of it this way. :thumbs up

My new Himmie is on the way (on registation desk now). I thought of taking aftermarket crash guards as they are half the price of RE crash guards. My customer executive (he did not push me at all) suggested that either I put RE Rally Crash guards or don't put any crash guards. I don't think he was being pushing to sell his parts as it was me who asked about crash guards.

Opted for the rally crash guards and at least I have some peace of mind.

Will keep the thread posted.

I have the RE large engine guard installed on my Himalayan 450. The rookie mechanics at the showroom (not the service centre) did a ‘hit and trial’ plus ‘phone a friend’ kind of installation and they were not amenable to being told that they were doing a shoddy job. On returning home I took a printout of the installation instructions from the RE GMA website and returned to the showroom to get it installed correctly. Going entirely by my experience, I think that it is quite likely that the engine guards in these unfortunate bikes were not installed correctly, what with different sized spacers and fasteners.

I am also inclined to think that the aftermarket engine guards are over-engineered where the design philosophy appears to be that it is essential for the guard to retain its form after an impact rather than to minimise the effect of the impact. Ergo the heavy gauge build, sliders and what not. Couple this with the practice of tightening the fasteners as much as you physically can and you end up with much higher risks than a bike sans an engine guard.

The other day, I was trying to mount a OEM saddle stay on my hness. Just couple of mounting points.

There was a very minor alignment issue, and need a bit of muscle-ing in.

These "large" gaurds are far more rigid. If each and every mounting points don't align perfectly and the bolts are "muscled" in...! It will then be anybody's guess.

The bike chassis is not expected to take stress from any other direction, than what it is designed for.

RE not offering engine guard as standard is news to me. I thought people replaced a factory guard with an after-market unit, which by the way, sounds like a stupid thing to presume, but it happened with the XPulse. It came with a decent guard, but people still bought such after-market units. I just mistakenly assumed that the same is going on here.

In case this thread comes to RE's attention, kindly ask yourselves whether it was worth not including the 'Rally Protection' as standard. Other than my personal opinion that engine guard & skid plates are essential for this kind of bikes, here are a few reasons as to why I don't think so :

1. It's not particularly an inexpensive bike. There's no argument here for having to cut cost to launch at a cheaper price. Rs.2.85L is not that much cheaper from Rs.2.95L. Also, having to design & manufacture the 'standard' skid plate must have their own costs, so it's not strictly from Rs.2.95L to Rs.2.85L. Also also, if it were offered as standard, there would probably have been room for a slightly lower price than 10k - you'd be pushing your own product in a much larger volume.

2. Going by the pic in post #35, the bike actually looks much better with this engine guard. The design goes well with the rest of the bike & skid plate actually looks functional. (Correct me if I'm wrong, but it looked like it had metal shroud just for the exhaust pipe & plastic underneath the engine in pics of the stock bike). There has been no issues yet with bikes with the factory engine guard. So, if you've already done the research and testing to design a good product, why choose to potentially allow room for third-party options, when there's clearly a huge market even for poorly designed ones!

3. Adding to the last statement, even if the larger profit margin brought more than the damage control expenses now, the reputational risk is unquantifiable. People may just not want to deal with this going forward; it is also arguable that people might prefer a more "forgiving" design to after-market accessories.

TL;DR : Sensible package > Damage control > Losing reputation.

Agree to your points. RE has become this behemoth with eyes solely on profits. This leaves a gap for everyone to enter the fray. Another instance; I had to buy better seats from RE paying close to 10K, as they are not comfortable over long distances, and the old seats are just lying around. They're not thinking about the end consumer.

Quote:

Originally Posted by BullettuPaandi (Post 5783552)

In case this thread comes to RE's attention, kindly ask yourselves whether it was worth not including the 'Rally Protection' as standard.