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My Triumph Tiger Sport 660: Regular maintenance & upkeep after 20000 km

1st October 2024, 12:28 by Utkarsh Chaudhary

I had a better experience earlier with the EBC brake pads on the Kawasaki Versys than the Nissins, hence, I ordered them ahead of the year-end service.

BHPian CrAzY dRiVeR recently shared this with other enthusiasts:

20,000 kms update

The Tiger Sport 660 crossed 20k kms on the odo today.

Since I took delivery when at 2,288 kms on the odo - 17,712 kms have been under my ownership of 501 days (1 year, 4 months and 12 days) at an average of 35.35 kms per day.

Shot yesterday while heading back from work -

Ordered a few goodies for the man and the machine recently, although nothing fancy - mostly just for regular maintenance and upkeep:

1. Tyres - TVS-Eurogrip Roadhound (120/70 R17 and 180/55 R17)

The current set of Michelins has served me well for 20k kms, and these include some hard riding and even three days of CSS track riding! Very much impressed by the capabilities of these Michelins. Why not just get the same set then?

Because the Michelin Road 6 comes in at 48k for the pair! And at that rate - my mind started calculating the economic viability of it - with the Eurogrip tyres costing 21k a pair - anything above 9k kms is a bonus, even considering 2k for an additional tyre change in case of the TVS as compared to the Michelins. Not bad math then! But the quality?

Co-incidentally, this was the same time fellow moderator libranof1987 attended the track day conducted by Eurogrip tyres and came out impressed. Full report here. Fellow BHPians have also had only good things to say about the TVS Eurogrip Protorq Extreme tyres, and the Roadhounds are supposed to be better than the Protorq range. Based on all these factors, it looked like it couldn't be a bad idea to give these tyres a shot!

The tyremarket.com debacle

The tyres were cheapest at tyremarket.com and I have had good experiences with them in the past - so went ahead and placed the order. Couple of days later - I get a call from their customer service that the tyres had not been launched only (!!!) and I can opt for the Vredestein instead - which I completely denied. They said they will process the cancellation, and also take action against the seller who has listed the "unlaunched" product on the website. The mail was more formal and cited they were unable to source the tyres -

We would like to inform you that we tried sourcing the above product from all possible sellers at our end and found that none of the sellers has the stock for the product.
We understand that our system lets you place the order. This was due to the wrong inventory updated by our sellers. Please accept our sincere apologies for any inconvenience caused We would like to inform you that necessary actions will be taken against the seller who had not made the timely changes in the inventory though the product was not available.

But the lack of ethics is what I'm more pissed about! The tyre is not even launched? What an absolute lie when BHPians have been running on these tyres for months now.

I'm still waiting for the refund!

Please accept our apology for the delay in refund credit.
We would like to inform you that your payment has been delayed due to unforeseen circumstances. It should be credited shortly, as the confirmation received from our payment gateway

The Torque Block secrecy

With Tyre market out of contention, I reached out to Torque Block who initially quoted 23,500/- for the tyres. Now what I don't appreciate about Torque Block is all the need for WhatsApp conversations and the 'bro talk' to purchase the product from them. Anyways, after quoting the tyre market prices - they quoted 21,150/- a pair and had it delivered home the same day via porter.

That's 26.8k saved compared to the Michelins - now fingers crossed on the performance.

I would have preferred a more transparent approach for the purchase, but anyways - good experience overall and glad the stock was readily available when needed.

Why not Vredestein?

Because of poor feedback from BHPians about the Centauro ST and the lack of stocks of the Centauro NS. Still early days for the Eurogrip Roadhound - but I felt it is worth a test.

The earlier Vredestein discussion here.

2. EBC Brake Pads - FA226HH and FA140HH

Brake pads were last changed at 13k kms with the OEM Nissins, but look to have worn out rather faster this time around - probably due to the track days. The OEM Nissins are rather expensive and I had a better experience earlier with the EBC pads on the Versys than Nissins, hence ordered them ahead of the year-end service.

The stock Nissin pads costed 9590/- for the dual front pairs and 4620 for the rear set - totalling to 14,210/- for just the pads. In comparison, the EBC FA226HH*2 sets for the front was ordered from Bikester Global for 6800/- and the EBC FA140HH for the rear was ordered from Moto Usher for 3200/- bringing the total to 10k.

That's a cool 4.2k saved just on the parts - and I hear prices have gone up ever since!