[Ekatus Atimoss]

Dear forum members,
some might ask themselves why bulleteers from abroad join up with a US forum. The answer is simple: besides curiosity it is - for me - hard to believe that the experience with a product differs greatly from country to country or, in other words, your experiences with the UCE are probably also relevant elsewhere on this planet. As I mentioned in my introduction thread, the UCE does not go undisputed. Many pre-unit owners say that UCE is as bad as Royal Enfield engines of Indian make have always been. All reports about achievements like hydraulic tappers, greatly enhanced oil pump capacity, fuel injection, digital ignition etc. are an illusion as the engines are made from the same poor materials and assembled by the same unmotivated, untrained workers as before. So much for the ranting. Recently, a new voice claimed that the UCE is inherently flawed. Firstly, all automatic primary chain adjusters are assembled in a wrong way - turned by 180 degrees, leading to a misalignment of the sliding block, wrong adjustment and quick wear of the primary chain. Secondly, the right main bearing of the crank shaft is either having too much tolerance (like it was in my case) or too little, and crankshaft is prone to fail after some short life of either 5000km, 15000km or 30000km. The crankshaft bearing issue is even worse due to the material of the engine block when the engine warms up. Further flaws are allegedly extensive wear on camshaft due to insufficient oil flow. In short, all UCE suffer from this flaw and is just a matter of luck and time when the engine will blow up. Apart from having felt like an idiot for a couple of minutes, I really wonder if there is really truth in these allegations. The person making these allegations claims to be a former chief mechanic for Royal Enfield, also having received on-site training in Chennai and experience record with Royal Enfield pre-unit and EFI for about 15 years. According to him, an hard-to-believe 20% of RE engines are inherently faulty and WILL fail sooner or later. I don't want to discuss this guy here, as I cannot make any educated comment, lacking the technical skills and knowledge. However, given the amount of output of the Chennai plant per year I was anticipating, if the above was the truth, there must be a lot of unhappy UCE owners world-wide. So I started to google for keywords like "UCE, crankshaft" etc. but to no avail. No public outrage or hateful comments on UCE. Hmm....

I thought it would be a good idea to ask those who actually OWN an UCE model. In the German forum, there are two reported cases of UCE blowing up: mine and one of some other fellow UCE owner having his engine blown up after 15000km. I'd be interested to learn about your experience with UCE and the mileage you have put on your engines. Yes, I probably stick to an illusion as I love my C5 so much, deceiving myself as if the engine failure was just an exception that could have happened to anybody. Speaking of treatment: I think that carefully warming up the engine goes without saying. And that longstroke air-cooled singles probably do not really like extended operation at full throttle. My preferred cruising speed is around 90-100km/h (56-62mls/h) which is way below full throttle.

My apologies as this is not really a fun subject to talk about. But EFI owners on my side of the pond are somewhat disgruntled, perhaps for no good reason.
Thanks for reading!

kind regards
Michael
 

[Ducati Scotty]

I have 11,800miles (~19,000km) on my 2010 C5 and no problems, my engine still runs fine.  I did wear out the valve guides but that was a pretty simple fix, and I could have ridden it much longer but I figured I'd get it fixed before the warranty ran out.  I ride plenty of highway miles at 55-70mph.  I don't abuse it but I don't baby it.

While the top end was off I could wiggle the con rod.  There was no excessive play seeming to indicate that both it and the crank are doing fine.

When you say your engine is blown, what exactly do you mean?  I'm sure it's blown but what components failed?  Did you have any deteriorating performance or other indication before it blew?

Scott

[Jack Leis]

 I find the UCE statistics shocking. I cant help but think it is a bunch of scuttlebutt from a Royal Enfield employee that has been given his walking papers. I have 19,000 miles on my 2011 G5, I ride the pants off the thing and haven't had even a whimper out of my motor. The only failures I have had were a broken frame, broken top motormount and a pin hole leak on a weld on the fuel tank. They were all fixed free of charge from the dealer in reasonable time. I choose to believe  the guy from Chennai is full of s*#t.

[Arizoni]

With all of these horrendous faults in the UCE engine design I would expect to see hundreds of people ranting about their broken engines.  Especially on the forums in India where they are buying Royal Enfields at a rate of 75000+ per year.
I have seen no reports of any of the disasters your source claims to be inevitable even though the UCE has been in full production for over 3 years.
Yes, a few have had problems with their sprag clutch, their alternator and crankshaft pulse pickup but these seem to be fairly rare.
Your engine is the first one I've heard of that had a main bearing problem.

Other problems I've heard of are the chain wearing out with less than 6000 km on it(very common), electrical harness shorts (fairly common on the 2009's but much less on the later year bikes), clutch safety switch problems (common), crappy Indian made Bosch spark plug causing mis-fireing (common), sprag clutch failures (not common but enough to note), starter solenoid failures,  msc. shoddy alignment of parts and weak alternator output (often caused by people installing high wattage headlights).

I've don't recall hearing of a problem with the oil pump, hydraulic valve lifters, piston failures, primary chain failures or camshaft bearing failures.

I only have 14,839 km (9,200 miles) on my 2011 G5 and except for the original drive chain to the rear wheel getting very sloppy, my fuel level gage failing and a few light bulbs burning out I have had absolutely NO problems.

Although I ride fairly easily I run the bike up to 70 mph several times a week, I've taken two 400 mile (645km) round trip trips (200 miles each way) riding at an average speed of around 62 mph (100 kmph) with elevation changes of over 7,000 feet.  The bikes performance was faultless.

I've said it before and I'll say it again.  When I first bought my brand new 2011 G5 I had doubts about the engineering, the machining and material selection that went into my bike.
Over the past 2 years, all of my doubts have been replaced with total confidence in the design and in the bike.

After reading Jack's comments I agree.
The person making the allegations is a disgruntled ex employee who is full of crap.

[gremlin]

*** YAWN ****

[ace.cafe]

Michael,
From what I read in the UCE pages here, we aren't really seeing these kinds of things here.
From reading your report of the "mechanic's" accounts, there are some things which sound off-target.
For example, the term "inherently flawed" really cannot include things such as assembly errors, for obvious reasons. And if engine bearings are used with incorrect clearances, whether too large or too small, those are not "inherent flaws" with the design, but rather with the execution.
Also, the accusations levied at the "unmotivated, untrained workers" may be quite subjective in nature, depending on the view of the accuser, and the varying degrees of abilities seen in each individual worker, so it is dangerous to collectivize these kinds of things.

Now, we are not uninitiated to the various issues with build quality in Royal Enfields, and I am particularly attuned to it, being a performance developer for these motorcycles. I have seen many things in the pre-unit models which were certainly not up to the standards seen in other brands, and which needed attention before any type of performance modifications would be introduced.

But it does seem that the UCE is exhibiting a higher standard of quality, and I would say that the castings are definitely better than the pre-unit models. There have been some things which have raised some eyebrows at times, such as a clattering of the Auto-Decompressor and occasional sprag gear failures in the electric start system, and some electrical connection issues. But there really haven't been any reports of crank failures that I have seen on these pages. Nor have we seen any reports of cam failures, or really any of these things being called "inherent flaws" by this "former chief mechanic".

Regarding the situation of the engine case material(aluminum) being unsuitable to support the crankshaft bearings, we are seeing this material and method of bearing support working just fine in the pre-unit and the UCE bikes. I would agree that the bearings themselves have often been of low quality, particularly in the Iron Barrel(CI) machines, and that is no secret. But we have not seen issues reported of bearing failures in the UCE, nor any problems with the bearing seats or the materials used in the engine case.

So, I think I'd need to see some more specifics about these accusations by the "former RE chief mechanic",  and I would be happy to discuss them in detail, since I do have a technical background in engines and in RE. I think it's understood that sometimes when somebody is a "former" employee, there may be some underlying unhappiness about why he is "former", which sometimes can color the conversation.

We're just not seeing this stuff happening here.

[Jack Leis]

  I welcome Kevin Mahoney to step in here with some statistics and put all this to rest .

[JVS]

Been just over a year since I bought my UCE. No major problems. Everything is well.

At this stage, just enjoy your new RE. I notice many new owners thinking more about what will happen to their bikes and what will fall off. Just follow the maintenance schedule in the owner's manual and have a look out for any discrepancies in the bike every other week.

I know everyone gets curious about their REs and it is a good thing to a certain degree, however, it is just unnecessary to think so much about the negative side. Just let the bike run and deal with problems as they arise. (Of course, you have to take care of it along the way)  Or you can try reducing the chances of problems occurring by changing the usual suspects such as the chain etc to give yourself peace of mind.

[GSS]

Sure sounds like hogwash from a former employee. Other than minor stuff that happens with almost any bike, the UCE engines have been pretty much trouble free.  I still don't get the non-RE owners who wax eloquent about UCE REs being as unreliable as iron barrels, when in reality they have likely never owned or ridden a UCE bike!

GSS

[Royalista]

*** YAWN ****

+1

Heheh

The highest trees get the heaviest winds.

Toot, toot.
I'm off on my May, 2011 Electra for another 18,000km.

[squire]

Trolling knows no boundaries!!

[meph1st0]

I have done 31000 kms. Did not find a reason to open the engine. Cruising at 90-95 kmph is possible all day long. Only problems faced so far are sprag clutch and electrical failure. I know many UCE owners who have not faced any issues and most of them hardly put any effort in maintenance.

[jartist]

I know there was talk of a right hand crank bearing issue on an Indian site but that was a couple years ago and I think that time has washed out the credibility of those claims of that particular issue. I had an engine clatter and one other guy in England had the same sounding issue but it never was discovered what it was that was wrong. After several attempts to fix it CMW replaced the whole engine on warranty.  It was probably not a big issue but Kevin wanted to get me back on the road. My bike now has over 10k miles on it and is running great!

[Ekatus Atimoss]

Dear fellow bulleteers,
thanks for your replies! I apologize if I was unclear, the person who showed up in the German forum is not at Chennai. He claims to be a former "Chief mechanic" of RE (Germany), that is, imho, the importer (who by the way changed a couple of years ago). He received training in Chennai, speaking like "I've seen things that you haven't seen". He behaves like somebody being "in the know". Well, I don't want to jump on this guy. Trustworthy members of our forum have confirmed that he is indeed who he claims to be and can be considered an expert (Meister Zweiradtechnik). However, is posts are very emotional and doubts are getting more if this guy's allegations can be taken seriously. It's always good to hear others as well and this is why I'm asking.
With "inherently flawed" this guy was saying that the problem with the crankshaft bearing could not be easily fixed by Royal Enfield as the situation as-is is part of the engine design, like the bearing's fit when the block's material expands during warm up.

@Scott: "blown up" is not meant literally. I had my machine at the regular service and minor warranty work for the paint. When I was about to pick up the bike and I was calling if everything is fine (the shop is 25km away from home, so I'm better asking if everything is done), they replied "there's a problem - can you come over anyway and we can talk?" In the garage, they started the bike, tilted it to the left and right and an incredible clunky loud noise started off. They sought advice with the importer and after measuring the axial bearing clearance, the entire engine was replaced by the order of the importer (who is in charge for the warranty here). I have to say that ever since from day one I noticed fine vibrations causing a buzzy feeling in my right hand after some riding, but I blamed it on my lack of experience with singles. However, a friend of mine bought the showroom unit, also a C5 the same day, which was a really 2010. His bike was running smooth with less vibrations than mine. Alas, the shop did not listen but today I'm confident that the trouble with my C5's crankshaft was showing from day 1.

@Arizoni: I agree with you here. A former employee of RE (Germany) probably on a campaign against Royal Enfield, especially UCE. Probably taking revenge upon his former employer. Many people interested in buying a new UCE - like me last year - sign up in the forum and ask questions. They are likely to be scared off by reading this guy's posts of impeccable attitude.
@gremlin yes, if you live up to your nick name I really do understand that it's hard to entertain you with lame stories like mine.

@ace.cafe: thanks for your reply. I think you might be right in everything you're saying. My problem was that I lack the technical background to verify the allegations. What sounded reasonable in the beginning (and my personal story was matching the allegations) started to became fishy when we noticed the amount of emotions in the post. We have quite a few guys in our forum who disassembled their engines and put them back together but they also say they have no experience with UCE, only pre-unit.
I reckon that if you're in the engine performance business, there is at least some potential in the construction that can compensate the higher output of torque and still retain its ability for day-to-day on-road use.

@Jack: for one reason or the other, dealers and the importer do not show up in our forum. Maybe they want to spare themselves to be accused as of being "biased". I also wondered that due to the warranty regulations and the central supply of spares, the importer should have some statistics on models. But these are kept as a secret.
My impression so far, especially after reading the comments on my thread start post, is that the UCE is not worse than any other bike, maybe even a tiny bit better.

@jvs feels good to read about your positive experiences. I blame the things that happened to me on my "bad karma"  - I wanted a bike that requires no special technical skills. Just the usual pre-ride checks and care of chain, tyre pressure, battery and service at given intervals. I know that working with the bike on a tech level can be part of somebodies hobby, but I can't do that.
I really had some bad luck with mine which can be blamed on the situation and not fully on the bike or the assembly in India. For example, when I returned the bike to its "resident place" and I noticed the oil leakage, it took another 4 weeks to fix it - but this was due to things like "I'm on hols in a few days - don't expect me to fix it right away I'm afraid you'll have to wait" and "I need to call the importer about the torque to be applied on the big nut for the sprocket" and the missing paper gaskets being sent by snail mail rather than express parcel service (another week). The service network is not that big and many dealers if not all sell Royal Enfield as a second or third brand. And its often only one of a team of three or more who is "the Enfield expert" who is allowed to work on the enfield.

@GSS indeed. Many comments about UCE are from people who neither rode nor own one. There is another guy in our forum - which I never met - who is sort of a pre-unit crusader and probably every second post of him is anti UCE / EFI.

@meph1st0: good to read that. I've read that ~30000kms is the common distance where pre-units often get overhauled. You say that you had no reason so far to open the engine so you expect many more miles to be added without trouble.


@jartist sounds a tiny bit like my story. My bike failed at a young age and it was probably easier for the importer to change the entire engine than fiddling around with the potential root cause. Did you hear about the UK distributor giving up on importing Royal Enfield?

@all thanks again for your replies. This is really helping to restore confidence in the UCE, at least for me. It also confirms my assumption that if there were many cases of failed UCE, people would talk about that in their local forums. I did find zero to nothing about UCE related troubles and your replies just confirm that. I'm really much more confident for the upcoming season.
Thanks for your time and your patience!

kind regards
Michael
 

[Ducati Scotty]

Much as we praise the bikes and the improved quality of the UCE there is still room for improvement.  We've seen a few big problems here but almost all were sorted under warranty, as was yours.  Most of them are fine and those that aren't are few and far between, and fixed under warranty.  Can't really ask more than that.

Scott