I collected my bike this morning from the local bike mechanic's workshop. It's been there for a week, having been booked in two weeks earlier. It hasn't been touched, and I was told it wouldn't be done next week either. So I took it home. That wanker wont be seeing me again.
Back to square one!
But when I rode it over there last week, and again today, I noticed a new noise, more sinister than the racket from the valve train. It's a knocking and it occurs under load, ie when the throttle is opened from low speed. I'm hoping it's not the first sign of a bearing on the way out, but I'm suspecting it might be!
At the local bike night last week I met a bloke with a nice old Bullet 500, and asked him if I could have a listen to it. It ran as sweet as a nut - and no taps clicks or rattles. It turned out he's been in business as a motorcycle mechanic for 40 years, specialises in Enfields, and is based just 15 miles away, so that's where I'm taking the bike next week.
My feelings about this bike have now swung round past 180 degrees, from full love, to ambivalence & forgiveness, and now to dissapointment and dismay. Like all of us, I love the ride. But unlike many of us, I can no longer sustain the level of denial required to keep on insisting these bikes are ok if you just tend them a bit. Whether or not you have a Royal Enfield which is "OK" depends solely on the luck of the draw. I seem to have got the friday bike, assembled by the pissed off apprentice!
If I hadn't bought the W650 at Easter, I'd have had virtually no motorbiking since March. Watsonian had the bike for weeks, and it came back just the same as it went in, apart from yet another new sprag! Since then, they have ignored every email I've written them.
If I hadn't spent £4000 on this machine less than 18 months ago, it would be at the local breakers yard. As it is, I shall have to pay whatever it costs to fix it, minus parts I suppose, after which I will sell it for whatever I can get and cut my losses.
I apologise here publicly to anyone I may have helped persuade to buy one of these bikes, but I spoke in good faith. I was wrong. Royal Enfield are nowhere near competent to produce motorbikes of consistent quality. And as more and more of these bikes begin to fail after a few thousand miles, the facts will be harder and harder to cover up. I for one will bullshit no more when asked about these bikes. And I often am asked.