5 Biggest Problems w/ Royal Enfield Himalayan at 15,000+ Miles. Ride of the Week 4 Wahoo!

all right y'all fuzzy biker here it is about two o'clock in the afternoon 47 degrees on a Sunday we're in the Royal Enfield Himalayan 2021 I think we are gonna let's go this way today we're gonna take a ride and I'm gonna tell you all about the problems I've had with this bike I've got almost 16 000 15 700 something like that on it hey it's slick out and uh anyway I want to tell you about some of the biggest problems I've had with this bike I've had a few this is a beautiful bike but it's got some Morts and uh I think there's five major ones if I remember right hey let's not get ran over by that hot rod and I think I have a bonus one at the end so we'll uh we'll figure all that out nice day for a motorcycle ride wahoo one of the versatilities of this little motorcycle is you can run you know it's renting 15 16 miles of pavement to get to this gravel and then you just hop right on the gravel and go got a walker down here with the dog so I was going to talk about the five problems the biggest the biggest one I was probably the biggest one when I picked the bike up we had a it had the stalling issue the uh Infamous stalling issue everybody talks about hey husband and wife out with a pup anyway uh that means you get on the bike you start to go you pull the clutch in for some reason or another you know stop sign whatever and the motor just dies you have to hit the start button and go first day I did that within the first 100 feet it did that a couple times and uh talked to the dealer they said it'll come out of it just ride it I did that and it did come out of it within a couple days it was almost gone but it was still there and it seemed to just it was a constant and uh it wasn't enough on it but it wasn't enough of a nuisance for me to go back to the dealer specifically for that reason look at these elk here on the side whole herd of elk oh man I didn't mean to scare you guys isn't that pretty it's amazing this guy raises these out here uh about 30 of these got loose one day and they were all female anyway they got they got all them all back except for about three nice little boy he's got quite a Shangri law out here doesn't he look at those horses and anyway uh the three that were the three that never made it home I don't know whatever happened to those but there's uh they were all females so there's no chance of them breeding in the wild get back our native Iowa elk population right look at that Isn't that cool anyway so uh finally the stalling problem I took the bike back into the dealer they uh immediately those backs recycled they immediately rushed into the back did some sort of Hocus Pocus brought it back out and the bike ran like a whole new motorcycle it was awesome um about 90 of the problem was gone now they had told me if the problem persists come back hey big dog so uh you know it wasn't much of a problem it was barely there at all and I put up with it for a while and I brought it back finally and uh they ran in the back room you know like I said it was just every now and then I'd come to a stop sign pulling the clutch thing or just die anyway they ran in the back room did some sort of Wizardry half an hour later stalling problems gotten it's never returned gone never to return just gone and uh you know I appreciate that good service so when you buy a motorcycle from a dealer you know find out what kind of service you're gonna get from them that's a pretty important thing you know you're buying more than a motorcycle you're buying a mechanic service and all that neat stuff uh so that's the stalling problem issue what did they do to fix it I don't know what they did to fix it to be honest um I know they hooked it up to some computer gadgetry and uh adjusted this and adjusted that and all that kind of stuff stuff beyond my capabilities uh what did I do to fix it I didn't really do anything at all to fix it I keep my bike well maintained I I pull one of those iridium spark plugs in not that that made any difference I don't think it did but uh makes me feel better anyway it's been a great bike since then in that sense other problems isn't this just beautiful countryside this is gorgeous Guthrie County I think Guthrie County is one of the prettiest counties in uh Iowa and it's one of our hidden secrets um you know all the beauty is rugged in Guthrie County and you have to work to see it so uh you know to somebody like me it's just awesome and it's a great place to ride motorcycle for sure if you if you have an adventure bike a Himalayan it's better to be in particular this uh this is where you want to be Guthrie County anyway uh second big problem I had with the bike with vibration now this is a big single 411 CC single cylinder it does have the uh kind of rotating shaft so when I say vibration I don't really mean in the pegs or in the seat or in the uh handlebars uh what I had was I had to buy for quite a while and uh look at that Hawk and I started getting I started getting uh well let's see do we go straight here that is uh I'm anti-mud so I think I'm going to skip the mud today but anyway I started getting uh rattling in the front end of the bike and I drove it down to my good friend everetts and he's got a little machine and we looked we use that look at it and we found the uh in the front end in the headlight there is a uh I know it's like a passing light or what it is but it had cracked and that's actually a known issue so we glued it back together and I drove it like that drove it up to Baxter cycle and they offered to replace it and I said just give me a new bulb so they gave me a new bulb and I replaced it at the same time when I got the new bulb I got myself one of those wire grilles to cover the headlight and I got the basic one you know and I wish I'd have paid more money and got a better one but what I bought when I got that was uh some rattling problems and it's pretty common among Hemi riders with that kind of a head that kind of a grill cover maybe I'd get a picture of that and put it on here somewhere but uh so I put rubber tubing around the edges and that cured that you know pretty simple fix you know a dollar and a half to fix it and that took care of that vibration problem um I got a new windshield for the bike which had its own problems unrelated to the Himalayan and uh then related to Himalayan the mounting brackets this is a very large the biggest windshield I could find these the mounting hardware was not sufficient for the windshield and it deteriorated and the windshield started rattling and I tightened it up and the very next day was loose again I called the uh calci I think it's a brand I called them they gave me some options told me they chipped me out some Hardware well the hardware was just a little bit longer bolts and some lock nuts so I just went and some pan washers so I just went down to the hardware store and got myself some of that stuff that cost me you know two or three dollars and uh this guy here usually has some old cars sitting out back let's see what he's got today yeah there's some he looked like he cleaned up a little bit out here I wonder what the deal is there anyway put that Hardware in and that took care of that problem so stalling problem number one biggest issue I think that is uh most prevalent the 2001 model that's what I ride a 2001 I think by 2002 it was gone I hope it was anyway I don't hear very much about it do you have a 2002 or or newer 2003 uh let us know what your experience has been with the stalling as far as the vibration goes I don't know what to say about that um you know it's not a rider vibration problem it simply was a front-end vibration problem and I don't know if I aggravated it by putting on the bigger windscreen or the uh you know the cover that I put on but uh either way I've got it solved for now anyway you know uh it says fifteen thousand seven hundred miles so I must I must be doing something right right okay where are we at we're deep in the heart of Guthrie County one of my favorite haunts for motorcycle riding by the way I just love these roads back here I think this is the old I know this is the original but I think it's one of the old sheeter sheeter Prairie Cedar Farms cheater was a one of the Pioneers early families that came into Guthrie County and uh I think this might have been either original Farm or you know one of the original ones that building there used to be all wood on the outside now it's all steel they build it up you don't put Steel in these old buildings or they're really too hard to maintain they're very expensive to maintain it's really about the only way you can save them but look at all these cows that's what hamburger looks like before it goes in a package beautiful man beautiful all right problem number three ahead and I kind of went back and forth on what to make number three I'm gonna say the seat number three was the seat and the seat that comes to the bike I feel is a very nice comfortable seat um about 8 500 Miles actually well before that but by about 8 500 miles that had enough of it it uh it had literally the foam had just broken down and it gotten soft and you'd sit on it and you go right you know right to the right to the bottom so I bought what they call a touring seats I got that it's a Royal Enfield version touring seat and it worked great it was more comfortable it was a little firmer I think it was an improvement over the stock seat and I think if you rode you know most people don't ride their bikes as much as I do most Himalayan owners ride a couple thousand miles a year I I would guess or less but I think if you did that you'd be fine um in my case I broke the seat down again it started getting soft and I just opted for the uh I think it's uh seed Concepts is the name of the seat company so I I'd written a few himalayans with that particular seat I had not ridden any other brands there are other brands out there I'd love to have tried those but I didn't have that option I rode three or four bikes with the high seat concept seat and I liked it I wanted to hire C because I wanted to look over my windshield a little better this is a very tall windshield and I want you know I want the high seat was supposed to raise the seat height by an inch and a half so I got that seat I got on their website you know to ask you what you want firm soft high low blah blah I got I got firm it's firm I got extra firm and I got the high seat you know the high seat so a couple weeks later her package arrives in the mail and I knew it would be like this was a kid it wasn't actually the seat it was a check of foam a seat cover and a protective water cover and some directions now I talked to a couple guys about putting it together and you know had a rough idea um read the directions you had to get some adhesive to glue the foam down you had to get some a staple gun to staple it together and you know there's a little bit of anxiety on my part and uh so I got that stuff and um you know literally within half an hour I had it all done you you take these old seat you pull the foam off it literally comes off on one big chunk they glue the new foam on let that dry and then you put the plastic over it then you stable the new seed cover over it and you're done and uh you know easy peasy as my grandson would say easy peasy and what I like about the the seat concept seat is not only is it taller excuse me but it's very wide in the bag it's substantially wider in the back and I'm substantially wider in the back than I used to be so I appreciate the uh substantially wider seat but no it's it's taller it's firm it's comfortable I've got a little over 100 miles on it but I suppose by now uh yeah if you counted today for sure and uh no regrets I like it so the seed was number three problem number four what would be that what would that be well I uh went to put gas on my bike one day and it turned the key in the gas will just popped right open pop big old pop did that a couple times and I thought well what the heck you know I ride quite a bit sometimes you know two one or two tanks a day at least and uh some days more than that the summertime anyway um went out to my bike one morning and there was a little trickle of gas on the floor below it and took the seat off and there's a little crack in the tank and it was just oozing out barely so I took a bar of soap and I sealed it up and uh ran it in the Baxter cycle and they said oh man EVAP system is plugged up so the unplugged my EVAP system and they uh ordered a new tank a week later had a new tank they put it in I just left my bike there they gave me a bike or ride that I ended up buying I think they knew what they were doing when they did that anyway um so that would be problem number four right that that was one of the few warranty issues isn't this just beautiful the beautiful area here just gorgeous there's an Old Sawmill here somewhere we'll try to find that uh let's see uh something to look at if you're a car guy is on the right side of the road here there's an old Monte Carlo was that a turtle back there yeah right there uh we've tried to buy that a friend of mine tried to buy that and the owner just would have nothing to do with it apparently it's anyway um I think there's a sawmill right around this corner to see find that real quick that's the bones of 100 year old sawmill I don't know if it's 100 years old but that's the bones of a sawmill anyway pretty cool huh hey this pin lock is just not working I'm not happy with this at all anyway so uh problem number four was the gas tank on the right here is sheeter Prairie and uh a friend of mine used to own this all her father did actually and he bought it in the 50s and it became a park here in Guthrie County he was quite a characterize my understanding I don't really remember him he was my father's best friend but uh let's see if we can find this place I want to turn around and go back the other way oh I don't have to go back there's a road Over Yonder anyway there it is oh sud Cliff Sutcliffe Cedar's where we were before there's a pond up yonder a nice little walking trail around that about half a mile I suppose okay so we talked about the uh we talked about the tank already so we've got stalling vibration the seat the tank and uh now this one is really not a problem this next one this next one is more of a you should be aware of it if you own a motorcycle with one giant cylinder like any big single cylinder motorcycle you should know this one and the reason I'm bringing it up is because I think in this Modern Age people forget about this one um himalayans use oil hey look at that deer look at that deer where there's one there's usually more I don't see more and away he goes I uh swerved to miss a deer last summer and ended up in the hospital for 10 days so I'm pretty leery of deer right now I did that on my Triumph I've got a beautiful 900 Triumph anyway so oil level um if you own a motorcycle like this you should check your oil regularly it's very easy to do I just put it you know in my garage I got a flat floor I put it on the center stand got something in my eye here I just put it on the center stand and there's a side window on the side um if you ride your Himalayan hard a lot and hard you know a lot of guys will buy these I got a friend in particular I'm thinking of band you know who you are and he uh you know he's open up on the highway all the time when he's on it and it'll use oil and you got to keep track of that you know this motor only uses only has a quart and three-quarter of oil I think in it so uh on this particular motorcycle I change the oil by 3500 I have to add you know a tenth or two a couple tenths two or three tenths of oil to get her back to uh to high so when I when I change the oil I put it to the top of the line and by 3 500 up at the bottom of the line I can't decide if I should check right now we'll go forward and so by 3 500 Miles I'm probably at the bottom of the line so I add a couple of uh you know tints of oil and bring it back up to normal and uh that'll usually hold me until I get to 5000 miles and that's when I usually change my oil about 5 000 miles the book says six thousand but that goes five um but that's something you really need to keep track of on Himalayan these big single cylinders you know uh if you run them especially if you run them hard you really need to keep track of uh oil consumption on them it's just good good uh especially with the very low amount of oil in the engine case you know if you're only running like I said a cord three quarters of oil if you lose you know three tenths of a quart of oil you're down pretty low and then if you run hard on top of that and cause the problems for yourself so I'm just saying that's something you should be aware of when you have a motorcycle like this like I said another great thing about this bike is you can hop on the pavement with no trouble okay last thing to think about in a motorcycle like this I don't know this is really not a problem I think this is a problem in terms of when people go to buy this motorcycle they look at this and they think oh well I can't buy it it's only got 24 horsepower how can a motorcycle with 24 horsepower be any fun so what I'm calling that a problem I'm calling that a uh it's more of a psychological problem if you plan on buying this motorcycle to drive Paving all the time then you're buying the wrong bike and this is a problem if you're buying this motorcycle to do like this Adventure ride or you know Grandma Road ride or back road ride or go camping and you know rough roading it if you're gonna be on roads like this 50 of the time or more or even 40 of the time or more it's got plenty of power I you know it's got 24 foot pounds of uh torque I think about might be 25 foot pounds anyway it's got about as much torque as it has horsepower look at these old the bones of an Old Farm here but uh I think a lot of people go to buy this bike or go to look at this bike and they see the low horsepower number and they think there ain't no way you know I gotta have more power and uh what I'm saying is you're missing you're missing an opportunity if you do that if you go that route because uh usually I would take this road to the right here but I am just not even gonna I don't want to play with the mud and uh so we'll just go this way no so I think uh horsepower is an issue for a lot of people and that number is an issue for people they say oh get a little horsepower how can that thing be any good uh What I will tell you is this this bike has more fun per horsepower than any motorcycle I've ever owned I've owned a lot of bikes I've got some really nice bikes in my garage right now uh I ride a lot of bikes I ride you know the most powerful bike I rode last year at 178 horsepower and I'll tell you the funnest bike I ride is this particular this hey look at that this and I'll tell you the funnest bike I ride is this Himalayan it's it's the motorcycle I just enjoy the most it just seems to do everything I like to do it fits my you know it fits me well basically um if you want to go racing with your friends it's the wrong bike if you want to use it as a true dirt bike it's the wrong bike if you want to uh you know like I said it'll do anything except if you want to go fast it's the wrong bike if you want to enjoy motorcycle riding on pavement and on roads like this and maybe a little back roading or you know that real dirt dirt biking but uh you know single tracks and things like that this is a great bike for that this is a wonderful bike for that um it's got eight inches seven or eight I think it's seven inches on the back eight inches on the front suspension travel it's got eight and a half inches over eight and a half inches of ground clearance it weighs uh I think it's 440 pound stock it's got excellent fuel mileage it's over over a four gallon fuel tank and it gets you know I get consistently over 50 miles a gallon that's 200 mile range and by the way 200 miles in a day on this bike is a pretty good day if you've done a lot of riding um so the idea that you know a 24 horsepower motorcycle can't do it is just wrong it it's uh go out and ride one um try to ride one more you know 20 miles go to the dealer see if you can get him to let you ride it for half a day or something if you're serious about buying one and uh what you'll find is it's just an absolute Joy particularly on gravel if you had a dirt bike growing up I had a dirt bike when I was growing up I had a little uh Kawasaki ke-100 I drove the snot out of that thing all over these these kind of roads and this bike really reminds me of that but growing up and what I really like about this bike is I can get on the pavement and go 70. you know I can get on the interstate and go 70 75 you know up to uh I never go more than 10 miles of Interstate but you know it can do just about everything and it does it well longest day ride ahead on this bike was 377 miles which by the way was far too many miles on this bike in one day um I think 250 miles on this bike in a day is a pretty darn good day but no so that's those are the uh those are what I would call the problems with this bike you know uh the good parts of this bike are I've got just watch any of my other videos I just gush about how much I love this motorcycle so if you are on the fence about buying a particular bike you know on off bike I consider this bike I did look at many other motorcycles including the KTM 390 um Husqvarna 401 the KRL and I decided against all those for particular reasons I think those were all Grand motorcycles very good bikes uh I just felt that this one was better for my purposes which is this kind of riding the uh other reason I really went with this bike is the dealer Network um I shouldn't say dealer network but I should say Baxter cycle my experience with that bike shop has just been top notch in every way buying experience warranty work um just every way they're friendly they answer the phone they take care of the people not just me but everybody so uh that's one of the you know that and the other other big reason I bought this bike and this was a really big reason was the Simplicity of it it's an air-cooled single with two valves you know single cylinder with two valves an intake and exhaust I can do my own maintenance with ease literally it takes longer to pop the tank off this bike than it does to actually adjust the valves for instance Ah that's not it's it's closed it's closed I I don't you know it's uh that's probably an exaggeration but it's really close it's just a very easy thing to do you know maintenance on this bike is a is a who is a snap you know oil changes absolute Breeze but it's got a center stand I can adjust I can adjust my chain lube my chain change the oil with these because it's got a center stand uh you know adjust the valves and probably I can probably change the oil and adjust the valves in 45 minutes so you know that's just a doddling old man doing that so it works very well uh upgrades to the bike that I've done I think you can see them I did the seat I told you about that I put the bigger windshield on because I wanted more wind protection I'm running uh Dunlop Trail Max Mission tires front and back and the reason I did that was I ride a lot of miles the original Fiats that came with this motorcycle were very good tires at a great feel however I wore the back one out in 4 400 miles then I got a big Staple in it and I wanted a more aggressive heavier Duty Tire with more longevity and that's where I got the trail Max Mission I ran the seat out on the front for about 12 000 miles I think it was 12 000. and I got a trail mag commission for that on there now and I expect that to just go forever you know at least 10 000 if not more the back the back tire on this bike has got uh well over 11 000 miles on 11 300 miles on it and I just ordered a new back tire for this a new Trail Max mission so anyway the conclusion does this pig have warts yes it does and I told you about the five worst ones and I gave you the bonus one which uh is a perceived problem not a real one in my opinion anyway um is it a great motorcycle to me it is I ride a lot of bikes uh it fits my riding style very well and uh having said all that this has been uh fuzzy biker ride of the week and uh I'm gonna shut this camera off and enjoy the rest of this beautiful Guthrie County check that out huh all right y'all life is good get out there and ride wow all righty a little addendum to the whole thing uh first off about 70 miles of riding hour and 45 minutes a lot of good stuff there really enjoyed the ride uh other one is uh I've got this incredibly comfortable and warm and I really mean that comfortable and warm Royal Enfield jacket on I just love this thing I can't say enough good about it I'm actually amazed at how how well it works and on top of that it's got abrasion of resistance it's got armor plates in the elbows and shoulders and yada yada yada just love it next one is uh Steve I met you last last week or a week or two at Max recycle you had a Himalayan you're from Omaha that Himalayan yours is equipped in a way that I like and I'd love to do a video of it get a hold of me would you let's do something hey guys life is good get out there and ride wahoo

Channel: Forgotten Motorcycles

Views: 36,683

Keywords: problems with Himalayan, problems with Royal Enfield

Id: 0vgrM8WZUFs

Length: 28min 6sec (1686 seconds)

Published: Mon Jan 16 2023