[Redline6800]

Originally Posted by Cyborg

You’ve spoken about the holy grail but Honda doesn’t and has never really cared about their customers in India. It’s only now that we are seeing a flurry of launches - otherwise there was nothing for a long time and even the models being offered were not delivered to customers after full payment. Quite a few posts on our forum are testament to that.

The Honda doesn't care view is something very interesting for me as I felt the same way during ownership of my CB 350. Mind you I love Honda as a brand, it is easy to have posters of European exotics in the bedroom, but I would rather have a Japanese machine in my garage for the long-term (10 years plus ownership).

It is incredibly frustrating that Honda which has such a long history in India and transformed the 2 wheeler industry in the country with the Kinetic Honda, CD-100, Splendour, CBZ, even Karizma (such an unfortunate name), Activa, Unicorn et all, has not focussed on its top-tier portfolio.

After all Honda has sold 70 million in India of its total 500 million units till date!

So surely there is a market for its bigger bikes and it should have taken the lead in growing this market rather than letting Royal Enfield, Bajaj-Triumph and TVS get a head start. Honda's apparent disinterest has cost it a lot of customers for sure and some may never return to the brand.

Considering Honda's global portfolio, it would have been easy for it to bring in a bunch of bikes in the 300 - 650 cc class than turning up with a warmed up RE 350cc copy. Maybe it focused all its energies on toppling Hero from the top perch and did not want to be distracted ? who knows?

That said, my own big bike showroom experience (in last 2 years) with Big Red here in BLR was not amazing but was not terrible either. But I can understand what a turn-off a poor showroom experience can be to some.

This coupled with often infrequent supply of large capacity motorcycles, poor visibility on new launches and infrequent updates once customers trump up the moolah for their big bikes is something they really need to focus on.

There is also the crazy situation where despite customers saying take my money, the Africa Twin hasnt been made available for a couple of years now (aint coming this year again sadly). On the flip-side resale values are nuts, with 8 year old DCT ATs going for approx 13.5L in BLR and that is considered a good deal ! These bikes cost around 16 L new if I remember correctly.

It does appear to me that the other bike brands do seem to do more in building that customer connect.

However, I learnt a long time ago that you engage with the showroom folks far less than the service centre guys and it is the latter experience (competence of mechanics, cost of spares, ethical practises, etc) that is much more important to me.

What is of some consolation is that Honda's big bike customers 500 cc plus are largely a very very satisfied bunch. It is early days for my bike (only 5000 km) but I have heard nothing but good words from the 20-30 owners I have met at the service centre, especially those who have had their bikes for more than 5-6 years. Often goodwill warranties have been provided by the dealer, years after the warranty had expired.

While Honda may not have appeared to care in terms of models brought into India, those that have been brought into India all have an excellent reputation in the market and have been supported well (there may be some exceptions of course) and this is borne out by happy owners, and high-resale values. I've seen CB 650s on their 5th, 6th owners in the service center !

Whatever happened in the past, I think when Honda does get its act right in the big bike space it will be great for the Indian customer, especially those who want to retain their machine even after expiry of the manufacturer warranty.

Honda is stepping up for sure with 8 models now available ! the CB 650 twins, Rebel 500 and NX-500, X-ADV 750, Hornet 750,1000 and TransAlp.

Now imagine if Yamaha and Suzuki did the same

[loki]

Originally Posted by sane_traveller

The Hornet surely is a great VFM motorcycle. But, I'm not sure if I end up buying one, I would turn back and look at it once parked. The exhaust is an eyesore, the side profile looks basic with the all black paint scheme, and the design lacks depth. The headlight would always remind me of the Streetfighter.

Looks like the old Kawi Z1000 and the current Ducati Streetfighter had some drinks and spent a long night together This design theme looks almost generic for the class now since Kawasaki have been using this for a while - Z1000, Z800, multiple iterations of the Z900 now...

Still doesn't take away the fact this is still a great package for the price - although I feel Honda should have indexed it to the Z900 in India as well. The Hornet 1000 undercuts the Z900 in western markets. And its nearly 2.5L OTR more here in India.

The exhaust will be the first to get binned. Other than that, I feel Honda should be able to sell every kit they import without too much fuss.