(recent) Royal Enfield Bikes

[alphashifter]

I wanted to get some comments from anyone who's had experience with the more recent (2001 and up) Royal Enfields -I understand these bikes are intended for low-speed, short radius putting and require some tinkering. That will fit my purpose for this bike, but if anyone has comments or opinions about Enfields in general, I'm interested.
Wondering about relative ease of maintenance, parts cost and availability, short trip reliability when properly sorted and maintained- anything you can offer is appreciated.

I rode a 2001 Bullet 500 yesterday that will need some work (and may well have been abused and looks like it's been wintered outside). Book is only $1250 on a solid one, so I'm going to work the price appropriately. Once sorted out, I think it may be a good pre-classic-airhead bike for my wife to learn on since it's light, small, has choke and kick start, and is pretty fun for putting around the neighborhood. (She's infatuated)
I'm obviously not asking about this specific bike since I haven't provided enough information, but I'd like to get an idea what kind of time and money pit recent Royal Enfields tend to be.

Honestly: are they crap?
How well do they tend to survive abuse?
Are they worth the effort of replacing cables, sprockets, seals etc?
Any specific stuff to look for on these, beyond the usual compression, shift, bearings etc?

 

[sedanman]

I work with a man who was born in India and came to the U.S. when he was in his 30's. We talked about Royal Enfield a few times. In India these are highly regarded as "big" reliable quality motorcycles.

 

[32232]

Ten or more years ago I test rode a 500 Bullet when a local shop carried them. A brand new, 500cc motorcycle could not do over 60 mph with rider in full tuck, down on the tank. Not long after, the Canadian distributor gave up on the brand due to quality control problems. I wouldn't touch one with a ten foot pole.

That said, some of the UK bike mags said the trick setup was to send the cylinder heads to Fritz Egli and have them reworked. Apparently it was all that was needed to achieve reasonable performance.

 

[JoeDabbs]

you can go to the Royal Enfield site and they have a community forum with some pretty candid remarks. From what I can gather, the quality has improved. These are not freeway bikes, but can be a lot of fun. There's a good article there about proper break-in. A friend from England went to India and they went on a tour-all with a rented fleet of Bullets.

 

[tinboatcapt]

RE Quality

I am a former employee of Classic Motorworks, the USA importer of the Royal enfield. I have wrenched on and ridden all three itterations of the bike. I have since retired but I keep in contact with the people there. They heave a strong customer service ethic and a large parts inventory in the USA..

The latest form, the UCE (unit construction engine - Engine transmission as a single unit) is the best and up on par with much of the Japanese product. The chassis is upgraded but is still a simple, solid unit. The bikes are a blast to ride. Especially for those who remember "how it used to be" but want some of the modern reliability and convenience. Like anything mechanical reliability is a function of maintainance and use.

An interim design, the "Electra" or "AVL engine" was an attempt to improve the bikes performance and reliability. To some degree it did that. This bike can be identified by the transmission bolted as a separate unit to the engine.

The "Iron Barrel engine" that the die hard RE fans covet is the oldest design. It will require the most hands on tinkering to keep them running. Think points, condenser. oil quantiy of one quart. plug fouling and with the electric start units, occasional sprague clutch failures. I think that has been largely fixed however.


The website: http://www.enfieldmotorcycles.com/forum/ is a great place to get specific answers. The members are quite honest about the bikes and don't hesitate to point out the warts.

jim

 

[alphashifter]

Thanks for all the replies.
We grabbed the bike for 1100 and I spent yesterday (and a good chunk of the evening) in the garage de-greasing, cleaning, tuning, polishing and assessing what lies beneath.
For now, the repair list looks like about $180 and we should have a pretty solid bike.