Attached is a response that I sent to a 7 month old RE rider in India, who I am in touch with on the RE India site, who is a happy Bulleteer. But, he is getting somewhat disenchanted with the bike and I thought that folks here would be interested in my response to his questions/comments, hence I have copied it here as well. I think we will see him on this site soon!
Iain,
I am not surprised to hear what you say, but the dealer attitude is disappointing. In fact I was so put off by the first dealer I went to here to buy the bike, that I gave up on buying! I then went to another dealer, who seemed a lot more interested in selling the bike, but I do have serious concerns about the first service coming up, although I have no glitches so far. I have asked you a question about your service experience in a post up this thread, and while I will appreciate an answer to that as well, I think I know what I am going to hear. I think I will get the first service done there, but by the time the next one is due, get the tools and the learning to do it myself.
My first 650 kms has been flawless; but another guy who got the same bike because he saw me opting for it over the Electra, has not been so lucky. He has had oil seepages, and even had his jeans oiled up. He is sounding a little pissed off at this time. On the other hand, he could not resist running the bike to 90 km/hour in his first 700kms!
I recommend that you also register and stay in touch with the community on the RE USA site, I am registered there as indian48, and I have also bought the workshop manual written by Snidal online there - and that is a very good investment for a RE owner. The good thing there is that responses are much better, and there is a lot of very useful technical help from everyone around. On this site it is more about rides, which is good,,,and about a lot of other not so valuable stuff.
Finally, I got the bike to get myself on it, as well as in it,,,I find that auto maintenance, including washing my car, relaxes the mind. But there is not much one can do inside a car engine these days,,,and hence the Bullet. And it also is a bike that needs a lot of TLC.
Re the plugs,,,they should not foul as they are doing,,not on a four stroker, where there is no oil being burnt in the chamber at every stroke. In 30kms of
running, if you look at the plug, and know how to read it, you can do a very good engine diagnosis. It is a lost art these days, but you will find information on that on the net. Based on that reading, if necessary, you need to be making minor tweaks usually - to the carb, or to the ignition timing, or to the tappets, or to the valve timing. If you do not do that then over time, the problem will worsen, and just changing plugs is typical modern age response that goes around fixing the symptoms for every disease, rather than getting to the root causes.
Actually, I am struggling to get my company to understand this as well, in its desperate efforts to transform to cope with the dramatic change that has happened, and will happen in the external environment in India.
I think I have talked a lot more than I planned to,,,,an old vice.
Sorry.
Kumar