First service of my first motorcycle, a Hero HF100: Overall experience

After returning home I realized that there was smoke coming from around the engine bay.

BHPian MVM recently shared this with other enthusiasts.

The First Service

I dropped the bike off for service on Monday at 12 PM. The service advisors were courteous and took note of the issues I had mentioned. The 2 major issues I had with the bike were:

• The bike shuts off while going down a steep slope. (I realized that this issue was probably due to the low amount of fuel I had kept in the tank but I told the advisor just to be safe).
• The paint damage on the tank.

The advisor asked about the damage on the seat and I told him how it had occurred and that since I had installed a seat cover the factory seat would not have been damaged. The senior advisor asked me if the damage on the tank might have been caused by the same cat and I told him that it wasn't the case since I had a tank cover on the bike too. They agreed to paint the tank under warranty and told me that the bike would be ready at around 5 PM on Tuesday.

I was given an estimate of Rs 750 after which I returned home.

My father received a message at around 4 on Tuesday saying that the bike was ready for pickup. Upon going to the service center I was asked to see the bike before I made the payment.

Instead of doing a thorough inspection I just focused on inspecting the issues I had highlighted. One of the helpers in the workshop brought me the bike and removed the oil dipstick to show me that the oil had been changed. I looked at the oil and confirmed that it had indeed been changed and gave him back the dipstick. I then proceeded to check the paint on the tank upon which I found that instead of adding paint some paint had been scraped off. Upon asking I was told that they had used rubbing compound on the damaged area instead of applying paint.

The paint damage before the service.

The paint damage after the service.

When I asked the service advisor about why the tank hadn't been painted, he told me that since the weather was cloudy the paint wouldn't dry and asked me to bring back the bike when the weather was sunny. I agreed and took leave of the service center.

I did not thoroughly inspect the bike before returning home. If I had I would've noticed that the person who showed me the oil hadn't screwed back the dipstick properly. After returning home and I realized that there was smoke coming from around the engine bay. Upon inspecting I found that oil had come out of the engine through the dipstick port and poured onto the hot exhaust. The whole engine was covered in oil.

This photo was taken after I had put back the dipstick correctly.

Luckily since the service center wasn't far from my home I hadn't lost too much oil. I made sure to check the oil level multiple times to make sure the engine hadn't run on low oil. I was lucky that I had lost only a small amount.

This was an important learning experience for me to always inspect any serviced vehicle thoroughly before leaving the service center.

I started to clean the engine and during that process, I found that the rubber cap that covers the lubing hole in the chain case hadn't been replaced after lubing the chain.

I will be going back to the dealership to replace the rubber cap and to add any oil if required.

I feel that the quality of service offered in Hero Service centers is pretty good. Mine was just a special scenario. They are humans too and hence will make mistakes.

Mechanically the bike felt much better than earlier. The free play in the throttle and brake had been adjusted leading to a more engaging riding experience.

I now know to thoroughly check every vehicle that I pick up from a service center henceforth.

Check out BHPian comments for more insights and information.