I am an IT professional. I had purchased Flame on this Diwali 20-10-08 from Mahalaxmi Motors (Dombivli) Mumbai.
Initially I had gone through a lot of blogs & reviews for TVS FLAME some were good some were bad. Even on mouthshut it’s still average bike by reviews but friends belive me it’s a really good bike. In most of reviews I found that most of bikes were purchased before October. There may be some problems with initial release with Flame but from Ocober release most of problems were taken care by TVS. Before purchasing this bike I had also consulted bike guru Mr. Dilip Bham. You can review his inputs.
Let me discuss some common cons which I noted compared to previous reviews -
Cold start issue in Morning - I swear ever since I had purchased this bike it did not took more than 2 to 3 kicks to start in morning. Cold start is issue with every bike.
Low Average - Prior to service I was getting 50 KM / Ltr. Now first servicing is done. I haven’t checked it’s milege yet but I am sure it will give me upto 60 KM /Ltr, Still I would like to get better than that.
Comfort - This bike driving is a really plesure. Nice gear shifting. Good suspension. Nice disk brakes (One of the best Disk brakes in Indian bike industry - Dilip Bham). So even on bad roads I didn’t got much jerks.
Looks - Superb looks. I am sure when u drive this bike everyone on read will definately have a look on this bike. Indicators attached to fuel tank gives damn cool look.
Pickup - This bike is somewhat OK for pickup. Anyways this is not a racer bike. But some concern was there as before first servicing, it was shakeing horribly above 40 KM /Hr. But that got corrected after first servicing. Now the vibration got reduced to 75%
I would suggest that this is a very nice bike for average person looking for 125 CC bike. 3 valve technology is really good but I would have be more happy if we could have twin spark plug. The only concern till now is about the free jacket that company was showing ads on TV daily. I didn’t got any jacket from company yet.
I would definitely suggest you for go for this bike. Anyone purchased this bike since October is welcome to share his experience. Keep posted.