After going through the reviews on the Blaze on the Internet and mouthshut.com, I decided to take the plunge and go for the scooter.
The main criteria for choosing the Blaze was that, the vehicle must be simple to ride(i share it with my sisters) so a bike was out of question, powerfull(as im 90Kgs and the place I live is very hilly terrain. So it must be capable of lugging two heavyweight persons up an inclination). Another important factor for going for the Blaze was that im a fairly tall and heavyly built person and none of the other bikes I test drove(Active, Dio, Nova etc.) weren’t spacy enough for my legs. The handle seemed to knock into my legs even for a fairly small turn. Finally I really liked the looks and the presence of the BLaze.
So, I have done~1000 Kms on the bike in just under 20 days and here is my opnion on the vehicle.
(Please remember that the bike has not gone for its 1st serviceing yet nor has it been registered yet)
Fuel efficiency:
Forget this vehicle if you are after a economy bike. The average KMPL I get is around the 30-36 mark(people say it will increase after the 1st service to around 40 KMPL). Oddly, there are twopetrol pumps in, my locality. One a new one(around 2 years old) and the other is fairly old(15+ years). I get around 25KMPL from the newer one and 36KMPL from the older one.
Performance:
The performance of the vehicle is very good. It can easyly lug two~90Kg passengers from standstill to~50Kmph on a fairly steep inclination(which was what my requirement was). Coming to the acceleration, I think, the peak comes at 5000RPM and I think it would be better if it was at 4500RPM as thats the range that you would be driving around in traffic.But that is not a major problem. Overall though, Im extremely pleased at the performance.
Looks:
Even though looks are subjective, I think the vast majority will agree that the Blaze really looks great! What with the Italian styling, it stands up to the "shortcut to fame" tag. I get atleast 3-5 enquiries at evry stop along the way about the Blaze. One of the best looking vehicles around!
Ergonomics:
The seat(especially the front) is VERY comfortable even after a couple of hours of driving. Contrary to whats being said about the rear seat, MANY indian women will find it very hard to get to the back seat. Its that high. Even I(6Ft tall) found it daunting to climb on top of the back seat(when the vehicle was deivered to my home by a showroom guy I sat at the back). So make sure the pillion is athletic before letting him on your back seat! Regarding the switch gear, I have a suggestion to Kinetic regarding the layout of the left hand switches. While driving at night, it is troublesome for one to reach the highbeam flash switch as majority of the time your finger lies on the horn button. It has to moove across the turn signal indicator switch and to reach the flash switch. It would have been helpful if the horn switch is located between the blinker and flash switch. Also, the front glove box is useless for anything bigger than ascrewdriver(or a cleaning cloth, as was my case). My ideal space would have been to fit a 500ml soft drink bottle there(oddly, I have found a good place to fit it though, bitween the front black wind shield and the top portion of the speedometer!)
Overall though, the small ergonomic issues are very minor and do not make the Blaze any less attractive to buyers. I would defenitely recommend the Blaze to anyone who have the fuel economy a bit down the list.
PS: A question to the other blaze owners, what is your engine idle RPM? Mine is revving on at 2.5k RPM.Im thinking on reducing that to around 1.5k RPM.