You would have seen many reviews praising this bike from Yamaha. But I would like to justify this. If you are going to but this bike, just think twice about the following reasons. Corrections to my view is warmly accepted.
R15 on road costs 1.1 lac. Is it surely worthy of the money. I think surely no! R15 is said to be a technologically superior package. But what is superior is my question? It has four valves and that’s not a new one, even kinetic introduced many bikes like GF’s and Aquila and Comet.
It puts out a healthy power of 17bhp for 150cc engine. But 2 valve engines already make 14bhp and remember 4 valve engines are always more powerful than 2 valve engines and hence the difference of 3bhp is lost as it ought to make that power.
It’s claimed top speed is 140kmph. But the actual top speed is 130kmph as indicated in some tests. nearest competitor does 120kmph. So 6 gears and 4 valves only put out a max 10-15 kmph speed. So whats the use in 6 gears and I believe if the same competitor had 6 gears then that too would reach 130 easily!
And I guess the competitors would answer to R15 with their respective 4 valvers. Bajaj has planned to put existing pulsar engines on discover namely discover 150. So pulsar is likely to get a 4 valve engine in future. And other bikes would be cheaper than yamaha and yamaha would slash its price. So if you decide to buy this bike, its better to wait for some time.
I am not against Yamaha because I do know they are very good manufacturers. But I just could not get a good justification for this overpricing. 1.1lac is too much for 150cc( mere 17bhp) and liquid cooling. It would have been better if yamaha had priced it at 70k. *
As many falsely think it that local fuel in India will harm this bike, actually it will not because 4 valves can withstand better than 2 valves. So availability of special fuel is not a problem. so **if price is not an issue then obviously this is the best available.
If I have hurt anybody, I am sorry as this is my view only....
Response:
I think as far as India is concerned, manufacturers are very deliberate. This made me to write this review. As Mr. Ramanaraopr said, most of the products to India are either outdated or compromised in some respects. There are many examples Zen Estilo (failure in europe long time back), Swift (Original had 120bhp, Indian version makes 88bhp) and many others. Many oreign countries airbags(one of the most vital features) is mandatory and many cars have it n in India only top models have it. So our safety is not a concern for these ppl. Who cares......!
Are we Indians need to live with compromises? And the sadest part is we crave for these old products from global manufacturers although they have newer and better products in foreign countries of the by the same manufacturer.
The best type of fuel injection (also the latest) is the direct fuel injection (DI) and not the one in Indian bikes. If Yamaha had made an effort to bring DI in R15 then it is okay for that sticker price, but it is a normal FI only.
So I will keep writing reviews on all products that are made sub-standard in India but better in foreign contries although they made be better in Indian terms.