I own a 350cc Royal Enfield Thunderbird of 2006 vintage. In an earlier post, I commented that, “it’s frankly one of the worst bikes to maintain.” Since 2012, I have been tracking how much I have been spending on regular maintenance and repairs (might have missed a bill or two). And below is the breakup.
In total I have spent about Rs.33,600 for the service visits shown above and each visit sets me back by about Rs.2800 on average and Rs.3580 if you exclude visits for minor problems. My bike, I realised, typically needs about 2 such visits every year. The above is data from 2012 alone and I suspect, I spent as much in the first 6 years as well. That’s close to 69% of the bikes original cost (and bought it when it at a tad below Rs.1 lakh) in repairs and maintenance in 13 years.
I don’t know how it compares with other bikes. But, my take is that Enfields, in general, are poorly engineered bikes mad with bade quality material (definitely the spares) and hence require high maintenance.
