[abdriver2000]

Gentlemen,

Thanks a lot for all your responses. Just wanted to re-iterate, Engine and Gearbox is NOT going to be touched during this refurb. Thats the reason, I wanted to know how long it will last without any tinkering.

Would love to know your thoughts.

[aaggoswami]

Originally Posted by abdriver2000

Gentlemen,

Thanks a lot for all your responses. Just wanted to re-iterate, Engine and Gearbox is NOT going to be touched during this refurb. Thats the reason, I wanted to know how long it will last without any tinkering.

If there is nothing wrong with powertrain, then there is no need to further go for refurbishing. Just not NEEDED.
Your father's principle is right here.
About how long it will last. Just go ahead for regular servicing, oil changes, etc and the powertrain will be trouble free for atleast 30,000 kms more.
And regular wash ( may be once a week ), etc will keep the chassis and paint intact for at least two years.

IMHO, you need not refurbish your bike if its serving fine.

[Mpower]

Originally Posted by aaggoswami

There is no point in opoening a 111.6 cc engine and extracting more life. Till around 1 lakh or somewhat more than that if the bike is not losing on power or torque, then no point in opening the engine. As soon as the problem starts, sell it off and buy a new one. And moreover even the availability of quality parts remains a question at least in my city.

Are you saying that its worth opening up a 150 cc but not 111 cc engine? Curious to know the logic?
The question asked in the title is about the life of an engine. Replacing piston rings in essensial part of it. Its kinda understood that rings will be changed only if they are needed. A simple compression test should answer the question.

Its not a big deal to put new rings. I have myself done it in the racetrack pits on a 2stroke in-between two sessions... plus it was an LC engine.

[deepclutch]

re-boring was the norm. now, it is new cylinder+piston kit.
the problem is the quality of the spare and the availability too :|

[phamilyman]

Chill. Most of this thread is about ruminating about evils which may never happen (not in the next coupla years atleast, if not more!).

[aaggoswami]

Originally Posted by Mpower

1) Are you saying that its worth opening up a 150 cc but not 111 cc engine? Curious to know the logic?
2) he question asked in the title is about the life of an engine. Replacing piston rings in essensial part of it. Its kinda understood that rings will be changed only if they are needed. A simple compression test should answer the question.

Its not a big deal to put new rings. I have myself done it in the racetrack pits on a 2stroke in-between two sessions... plus it was an LC engine.

1)I have in one of my replies in this thread, said that there is no point in opening the engine. I dont support this activity in most of the Indian bikes because of reasons like quality.
PS: If in any of the replies I had mentioned opening of 150cc is OK and not good for a 100-110cc bike, then I am sorry.


2) Yes opening a 100cc or 111.6cc or 150cc is useful and can surely serve a long term, but that is an ideal situation.
The real problem is the availability of proper i.e. quality parts and workmanship. Thats why I recommend never to open an engine of bike.

This is from my personal experience.:
I had Bajaj spirit bought on 29-June-2002. Due to rough use and various other parameters the engine was losing on power after an year and half's use. I decided to open the cylinder. Opened the cylinder, changed piston and piston ring. Did not change the block. But again it was meaning less as during my test ride after this fitting I was not good on power. Moreover one of the cylinder stud gave way ( I overtightened it ) and so went to dealer for overhaul.
During the overhaul I visited the dealer ship and saw the quality of work being done. It was surely not good. And after that job of overhaul that costed Rs. 7000/- approx, within next 5K kms the problem of powerloss reappeared.

In March-May 2007 I was keen on overhauling my Caliber ( 7.7 bhp ) engine, but the quality of parts were not good. So went in for Zeus.

So fromt my above experience I can surely say there is no point in overhauling any engine of bike in India. Quality of parts and human labour are both bad or one of them is bad. In any case its not worth.
Overhauling a typical four stroke engine of 100cc can cost to the tune of 8-10K rs. And the value of that bike ( assuming it is three year old ) in resale market wont be more than 20-25K. So its better to sell of and get new one.

[Mpower]

10K seems like a lot of money for a topend job (rings w/ first oversize piston..sometimes only rings). Pls check. You can buy a Chinese 100 cc bike for 19,000rupees.

Guys, whats the highest mileage bike that you ahve seen. I have seen several hero hondas do well over 1.5lakh kms with rebuild.

Originally Posted by aaggoswami

1)I have in one of my replies in this thread, said that there is no point in opening the engine. I dont support this activity in most of the Indian bikes because of reasons like quality.
PS: If in any of the replies I had mentioned opening of 150cc is OK and not good for a 100-110cc bike, then I am sorry.


2) Yes opening a 100cc or 111.6cc or 150cc is useful and can surely serve a long term, but that is an ideal situation.
The real problem is the availability of proper i.e. quality parts and workmanship. Thats why I recommend never to open an engine of bike.

This is from my personal experience.:
I had Bajaj spirit bought on 29-June-2002. Due to rough use and various other parameters the engine was losing on power after an year and half's use. I decided to open the cylinder. Opened the cylinder, changed piston and piston ring. Did not change the block. But again it was meaning less as during my test ride after this fitting I was not good on power. Moreover one of the cylinder stud gave way ( I overtightened it ) and so went to dealer for overhaul.
During the overhaul I visited the dealer ship and saw the quality of work being done. It was surely not good. And after that job of overhaul that costed Rs. 7000/- approx, within next 5K kms the problem of powerloss reappeared.

In March-May 2007 I was keen on overhauling my Caliber ( 7.7 bhp ) engine, but the quality of parts were not good. So went in for Zeus.

So fromt my above experience I can surely say there is no point in overhauling any engine of bike in India. Quality of parts and human labour are both bad or one of them is bad. In any case its not worth.
Overhauling a typical four stroke engine of 100cc can cost to the tune of 8-10K rs. And the value of that bike ( assuming it is three year old ) in resale market wont be more than 20-25K. So its better to sell of and get new one.

• Bajaj spares and service network is one of the best in the country. Bikes like RD350 are still running today because their engines can be rebuilt again and again. Even an expert outside mech can do this. No idea about your city
• All work needs to be done by a qualified mechanic. If you tried rebuilding your scooter yourself then the results will depend on your mech skills
• Bajaj spirit was a basket case vehicle. Million things were wrong with it. Caliber is not so.

[aaggoswami]

Originally Posted by Mpower

1) 10K seems like a lot of money for a topend job (rings w/ first oversize piston..sometimes only rings). Pls check. You can buy a Chinese 100 cc bike for 19,000rupees.

2)Guys, whats the highest mileage bike that you ahve seen. I have seen several hero hondas do well over 1.5lakh kms with rebuild.

3) Bajaj spares and service network is one of the best in the country. Bikes like RD350 are still running today because their engines can be rebuilt again and again. Even an expert outside mech can do this. No idea about your city.

4) All work needs to be done by a qualified mechanic. If you tried rebuilding your scooter yourself then the results will depend on your mech skills

5) Bajaj spirit was a basket case vehicle. Million things were wrong with it. Caliber is not so.

1) I talked about complete overhaul, but agree with you that just topend job will cost much less. The point from my side is quality.

2) Highest seen 3 lakh km from Bajaj Boxer from A'bad. A medical representative used this.

3) I was/am speaking from my own experience. Here at one Bajaj dealership I had physical brawl with service head as he tried to call me I dont know and how I am supposed to talk with him. He did not have spares for Caliber and when I said when will they be available, he used foul language and it ends rough. This was the final blow that made me decide not to work on Caliber engine and rather buy a new bike.

4) This job was done at Bajaj dealership and the mechanic is qualified, but lacks professionalism. I have seen a washer fell inside the engine when the cylinder was removed, but they did not care to see this. Informed them but no work was done to remove it.

5) The continuous oil bath transmission was the automatic that felt like manual geared scotterette. The clutch was different than used in CVT fed Scooty or Activa, etc. When I twisted the throttle at 40, the response was instant and my right hand was almost connected with rear wheel. CVT has irritating character, but this was breeze.
Caliber spares are a problem as I have told you.

We had three bajaj two wheelers
1) Feb 1999, Bajaj Caliber ( A.S. Motors, Vadodara )
2) Feb 2000, Bajaj Spirit ( rectangle headlamp version ), ( A.S. Motors, Vadodara )
3) June 2002, Bajaj Spirit ( smiling headlamp, but still 60cc ), ( A.S. Motors, Vadodara )

And now we have
4) Bajaj Kristal. ( BAC Vadodara ).

From my experience with above vehicles, spares is always a problem along with quality of job done. I am not known to how the job is done in other cities, but what I have posted is from my practical experience.

Sothis is the reason why I still recommend not to open the engine.

[sreerama]

If there is no smoke & performance is good with FE i think u could do more without opening engine.
If u feel somewhat rough use 20 50 oil as its good for older engines & i think Valvoline premium takes care of the whole job.

[Raccoon]

Quality of work done in most service centres is REALLY appaling! My last experience was with Hero Honda... you need to just observe how they work on bikes! Wont get into details here, but it should be good enuf to give anyone a stroke or something.

With that kind of work, I wouldnt even want to give my bike for servicing, forget about refurbishing, overhauling. It is really sad that most customers dont even see things which are so obvious and continue to give their vehicles to such service centres. And as long as people contine to patronise such low quality work, things wont change.

As for the oil changes you guys have mentioned above, I observed (in the above case) that they dont even use the right grade of oil! Low grade oil of wrong viscosity is used and the amount charged is higher than bottle of premium brand of same quantity.

The less you let them touch your bike, the longer and better it will perform. Just do things like air filter cleaning, oiling, oil change, plug cleaning and adjusting yourself. Of course for stuff like oil filter cleaning (4 strokes), front fork oil change, etc., you might want to give it to them to do... better get it done in front of you. Take it for washing to some wash shop. If you can just do these things properly, you should get the max from your bike.

[abdriver2000]

Thought I would post an update.

The bike completed 1lac on 7 January and still gives me about 55kmpl at highway speeds for a daily commute of 64km.

1 lac mark came in about 93.5 months.

I am keen to upgrade to a Fazer in March this year. Any ideas?

[Bluengel180]

Our unicorn has done 1.3lakh kilometers without any refurbishing/rebuild

Normal service every 3000 km. no change in parts except for filters and nor has the service center ever adviced me to

is a rebuild/refurbish necessary after 1lakh+?

[prajwalkashyap]

Originally Posted by Bluengel180

Our unicorn has done 1.3lakh kilometers without any refurbishing/rebuild

Normal service every 3000 km. no change in parts except for filters and nor has the service center ever adviced me to

is a rebuild/refurbish necessary after 1lakh+?

Simply crossing 1 lakh kms is not a parameter for a rebuild/refurb of the engine. Only when there is a problem, like loss of power, overheating, etc. will need a closer look at the engine.

Most engines nowadays are built with quality to last for 1.5 lakh kms at least. Well maintained and decently used engines will last even longer. I know of a classic pulsar that was running on stock engine at 1.8 lakh kms and all it needed was a replacement of the cylinder head since it had begun to lose power. Its back to normal running now. The owner religiously changes engine oil at 2000 kms and gets the bike serviced at 4000 kms without exception. The only things that have changed are the wear/tear parts like the chain/sprocket set, spark plugs and tyres. There is not a single bend on the original spoke wheels even now!

A Honda should last the same or even longer.

Prajwal

[mithun]

Originally Posted by rranjith_kum

Are you sure !! AFAIK a quite well maintained so classic pulsar's engine became coarse after the 60000 kms mark.

I've seen a 1.75 Lakh run DTS-i going fine and I've also seen Unicorns going for full engine overhaul at 60K.

[amit_purohit20]

My friends Unicorn is going for a overhaul at 30k bcoz of drinking lot of engine oil. He is not a rash driver and maintains the bike very well. Only thing he does is use it for long touring rides.Somehow I dont feel that there is a vast difference between the life of Honda engines and TVS engines.