I recently saw a newspaper ad of this bike with Salman Khan and the bike looked impressive. I own a pulsar 150 dtsi but I had a Samurai earlier to that and I have some good opinion about Suzuki although they were nonexistent in the market till now.
Anyway, so I went to the nearest dealer to have an up-close look and oh, the bike looks great although I do find finish not as premium as the Yamaha FZ. By then, I had read about some rust noted in handlebar ends in a review by zigwheels and now by another guy from this site. I found some not so great plastics, the highbeam pass switch is so cheap.
The fairing around headlight dome ends sharply and doesn’t sit flush with the glass. I dont like to see an exposed chain, O-ring type or otherwise. The extended, well below the chain, saree guard is the biggest joke on the bike as no woman wearing a saree is going to sit on that raised rear seat with a tiny metal footrest and the monoshock swinging like crazy. Yes, we have seen bikes with much more impractical pillion seats, but lets leave it there.
I managed to get a small test ride around the dealership into some small bylanes and bad roads, but it was great to sit around on that bike with a completely different feel than my pulsar 150. The seat was low and comfortable, the tank carving gives perfect space for your thighs to hug and the footrest is placed back in a racy position. The bike also felt pretty light and the wide handle bar felt good to maneuver. However, as I zipped up the bad road, I felt quite some jerks run up my wrists and elbows from the slim and hard handle grips. Perhaps a good nylon grip might soak up some of that hard feeling. The front shocks are prefect for bad roads and I tried slowing down to almost stand still in 3rd gear and with just a small play with the clutch and throttle, the bike managed to get away without effort in 3rd. So that proves the tall torque claims and is great news for city traffic. The rear brake dint bite as great as the acceleration but I guess it needs some getting used to. I am not a great fan of toe-only gear shifts, but the shifting is just super smooth. I found it just a tad smoother than the Yamaha in fact. But before my short test ride got over, I found that the horn squeals worser than any girly scooter. A major shock after getting used to Pulsar’s double horns.
But, when I realized I had not even touched 4th gear, my mind started thinking and I had time, so I went up to the next dealer about 4 kms away and managed to get another test ride. But Bangalore is a very congested city and with dealers located in the city center, test rides are lousy. Anyway, this time I managed a longer ride and touched 4th and 5th although just for brief seconds. The acceleration is great, the gear shift excellent and the power curve absolutely smooth and linear, but I was decent enough not to open up beyond 6000 on the tach as it was a new bike about to be delivered to someone and not a dedicated test ride bike. The gear indicator is a welcome feature in the absence of an analog tacho. However, I was very aggressive in the traffic and I weaved in and out of traffic and the bike responds with great ease and composure, very sure footed, although I had to depend on dropping gears for braking as I dint want to jam the brakes and skid the bike or ram into anything accidentally. Like I said, the brakes dint match the acceleration, but I guess it takes some getting used to before getting the confidence on a brand new bike setup. The bike felt very nimble and agile in and out of traffic, as good as the Yamaha FZ if not better. There ended my 2nd ride.
The next day I went back to dealer one and lamented that I never got to see 4th and 5th gear on my test ride. Seeing me come back made him confident of a potential buyer and so offered to let me go for a longer ride on a lovely smooth flyover. Wow, the bike just flew, accelerated as fast as the FZ, shifted gears very smoothly and the power came smooth and clean, no sudden surges from the rev range or barks from the exhaust note, within seconds I felt I hit 70, but alas the speedo on the display was not connected and the sales guy gave me some crap reason why they disconnected it. Perhaps, another customer bike given for test ride. Anyway, I had my fill by then and I am really really impressed. The tyres look great and I am feeling like a 20-year-old once again
I am just under 5’ 8" with proportional arms and legs and I find that I had to lean forward a bit more than on the FZ with my shoulders having to take a bit of my upper body weight and therefore I find a lot of juddering from the front shocks running right up my arm, mainly on bad roads, not dirt tracks. Roads with a bad finish with up to 2 -inch deep cracks and patchwork on the surface. The front shocks wont soak up those small undulations and with my shoulders leaning on the handle a bit, a lot of those vibrations ran my arms which would be very tiring in a long ride. Some good quality nylon handle grips might soak up some of that judder, riding gloves might help a bit more. Taller guys might find the ride different. Yamaha FZ owners might be able to tell the difference better. Need reader’s feedback on this PLEASE. Still a bit nervous about finalizing on the bike, hoping to dispose my Pulsar at a decent price and hope by then I read some more reviews.
The seat opens and sits back in place with less effort than on the FZ. As expected, there was the air filter inlet, a separate slot for a small first aid kit with the tool kit rubber banded underneath the seat. looks neat.
All things considered, some design features seems to be copied from Yamaha, yet looks are different, ride quality is similar yet different, the torque and mid range response is better than Yamaha, and hopefully if the mileage is also around the 47 to 50 range for decent usage and dropping to 40 for aggressive use, then I would certainly say Suzuki has a great winner. I am still worried about the mention of rust and with the exposed chain and great looking exhaust, rusting would be a disaster on looks and owners pride.
Also, on closer looks, I realized that the right rear footrest for the pillion opens up very close to the nicely polished chrome finish of the exhaust. There is no way that your pillion’s footwear, especially heel is not going to be constantly rubbing on that, and if the heal is a sports shoe with a mud or stones embedded in the heels, then its certainly going to scratch the upper most part of the chrome finish. In the long run, that would trigger rusting if the chrome is not top notch. A patch of scratch proof sticker, now used on car bonnets and tank tops on bikes must do the trick albeit blocking the lovely chrome.
My suggestions, make the pillion seat more leveled and practical, try and cover up the chain, introduce a tyre hugger because the rear ends looks pretty exposed for city rides in rain despite the large and ugly rear mudguard, improvise the clutch lever, give better handlebar weights, redesign a more functional rear view mirror, and a decent looking crash guard because that lovely tank needs to be really taken care of, if not our knees. Very promising sounding engine, hope I land up buying it.
Hope, you guys find this useful.