- Fri Sep 25, 2015 3:24 pm
#51662
I actually used to own a diesel RE. Sad to say, it was a pile of steaming poop. The bike was a 1971 model (apparently) but almost everything was new or replaced, hence I suspect it may well have been a newer Indian 350 bullet put onto an old UK frame number. Any way, the Bullet wasn't too bad, but he Chinese diesel engine was aweful. Good on fuel (130mpg), but crap on power (13hp my arse, more like 9hp) and cost (about £4700!). It struggled to do 50mph on the level and dropped to about 20mph on steep hills. And kept blowing up. The guy who built it wasn't very thorough, and most things fell off very quickly. I had a rear tyre blow out on the motorway at 55mph (!) due to the rim not having been de-burred before fitting the tube, then the crank shaft snapped at about 600 miles. Then the rotor sheared off the crank at about 1,500 miles. I demanded my money back, but it took about 6 months and a lot of legal threats to sort out.
I later discovered that a typical air cooled modern 125 weighs less, costs less, goes faster, and uses less fuel. No brainer really.
That said, I got to like RE, and ended up buying a 535 GT this spring, so maybe it did some good. Oh, and that diesel vibrated and shook worse than any normal Bullet I've ridden, and that's saying something!
