Thanks. I suppose at the moment I feel a bit jaundiced about the UCE models. If I had abused mine or not meticulously run it in and, like many, obsessed over oil changes and spec and generally carried out all the usual mods the need for major surgery could perhaps have been, if not acceptable, at least bearable. But to have done all this and still have major failure at such a low mileage is a mite annoying. I thought things had moved on since my brother bought one of the first iron barrel 500cc Bullets in the early nineties and had to put a new big end in at 10,000 miles. That said it has run perfectly well since and is now a classic in its own right. In those days of course they were cheap bikes; the UCE isn't, certainly not good value when compared to the new twins.
To be fair, there are a lot of owners out there who have suffered none of the problems that can afflict the various iterations of these bikes but if you look at threads on other forums abroad you'll see how shocking some of the 2009 bikes for the Indian market were and not all of the issues were resolved before they were sold here. I believe that up to the Euro IV bikes it depends almost entirely on how well it was built. There as a really good set of articles in Real Classic magazine by Roger Slater, who as you may know was the importer of Laverdas and the creator of the Jota along with his brother. He also imported the original 350cc Enfields in the seventies. Anyway he has a C5 Classic and set out to see if he could improve the terrible vibration from which it suffered and had a rotten reputation for in the USA where he now lives. He confirmed that it was the crankshaft that had neither been balanced to the correct factor nor did the flywheels run true. He balanced his crankshaft properly, showing how, and made the point that if he could do it in his garage why can't RE do it right in the factory?
In many ways the UCE engine, which is really a totally different animal to the iron barrel, is a neat compact design. Having now had the privilige of opening the cases it appears to be robust and in many ways quite innovative. RE do seem to be a bit liberal with their sealant and I noticed that in mine there is a small piece of webbing missing from the main bearing housing....
If I could choose I would have the Euro III 500cc engine and EFI with the build quality of the Euro IV bikes in the CGT frame and cycle parts, but with a roadster style like the B5 Bullet. If only...