RE Himalayan failures have ensured disappointing sales of the motorcycle…
It is almost given that Royal Enfield Himalayan, their first grounds-up motorcycle after a long time, will go down in history books as one of the most sub-standard commercial bike to be available to the masses. It is a wonderful concept, is purposeful but the implementation was completely messed up.
It has suffered almost every problem a motorcycle can go through, some of which were not known to mankind! It was almost after a year of its retail sales that Royal Enfield realised that the motorcycle needs to be stopped! They halted sales/production for 5-6 months to work on the pile of issues.
Siddharth Lal Speaks on Himalayan failures
And probably for the first time the dynamic Siddharth Lal, head of RE, has accepted ‘failures’ on Himalayan. In an interview to Economic Times, Mr Lal responded to the question of ‘quality’ by saying that they had issues and failures on the Himalayan but they have been rectified on the new BS4 version. He goes on to say that the updated Himalayan has ‘zero’ issues now and passes off by saying that this (transition from BS3 Himalayan to BS4) was a learning curve for them!
We are 100% focused on improving quality. Of course, we had early issues and failures on the Himalayan. Every single problem is being directly addressed with the customers. The new BS-IV product is absolutely fine, there are zero issues now. These have all been learning curves. I can say with confidence that we are on the improvement path.
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What we agree with is when he said that the problems with older Himalayans are being addressed directly with customers. It is an absolute fact that almost all brand new products report minor niggles and issues for the first few production batches but the nature and magnitude of problems reported for the Himalayan were of altogether new levels. It was a question mark on their quality check teams and how could they pass a motorcycle with such severe question marks? It is very difficult to find a BS3 Himalayan which did not go to the service station for rectification of issues – lot of them had to be carried on truck-beds because of mid-way break-downs! The problem became graver because it was promoted as a go-anywhere motorcycle!
Also Read: Bigger, More Powerful Himalayan Twin Confirmed: But Issues…?
With this let us hope the Himalayan BS4 is, indeed, a niggle-free motorcycle… Owners can please chip in if they are facing any serious issues with their new steeds.
