Bajaj in advertisements

Occasionally you'll see Bajaj in movies, print, etc. I remember there was one in the movie, "Along came Polly" starring Jennifer Anniston. Above is a advertisement with my wife, Lisa, on her Chetak.

Break down Bajaj

Before I purchased a Bajaj Chetak, I spoke with a friend of mine who owned Vespas and did a ton of research. He told me that Bajaj was made with inferior metals according to what he read deep in the forums on ScooterWorks website, I believe. This was over 6 years ago. That may be true, but what I am quickly learning it is more likely the "quality control" that is the issue with Indian-made scooters.

I have been totally happy with my Chetak and I have ridden it hard with little to know problems. Dealers have told me that they have had less problems with Bajaj than the 2-stroke Stellas, which is also Indian (LML).

I have 7,000+ on my Chetak now. While at AmeriVespa 2009 this past weekend I ran into Steve, owner of MotorSports (a very reputable shop) - a Bajaj dealer, and he asked me if I was experiencing any problems with mine or my wife's Chetaks. He went on to explain that recently his shop has replaced a half dozen Bajaj cranks, due to failure. He explained that the bikes had 10,000 plus miles on the odometer. An hour later my ignition switch stopped working. Two hours later it worked. Then it never worked again.

When I got home, I emailed my Bajaj mechanic. Now I should preface this by saying that my mechanic worked as a head mechanic for a Bajaj dealer and he worked as the mechanic for Bajaj USA Corporate. He knows Bajaj! I asked him if he has seen any problems with the crank needing to be replaced.

This is what he said . . . "Yes, all the time, they normally start to fail around after 6000 miles. And I had been rebuilt at least 40 to 50 of those engine due to the crack bearings or output shaft failure. Remember they were made in India."

The reality is whether Bajaj, Stella(LML), or SIL there is a chance that your scooter may never have problems at all or it may have a lot of them. The metals used, though I am not super educated or an expert, are probably not the biggest concern. The biggest concern is the lack of quality control in the Indian factories. I can say for sure that grommets, seals, and bearings from India are not worth saving money on. I have researched the crap out of these when restoring my wife's Vespa SS180 and my Lambretta TV175. So if your engine goes bad, I suggest you replace all of those items with quality made ones if possible to get (some Bajaj parts are strictly Bajaj without repros available and Bajaj is in financial trouble and may not be around for a while and Bajaj USA no longer exists).

If your engine goes bad, price out the parts. It may be worth putting another engine in there for not much more money, like a P200. Be careful with LML and Indian brands. Rebuild those first.

I strongly recommend considering rebuilding the engine yourself to get to know your bike. If it's like a Vespa engine it is not that hard.

Tune-Up

Our mechanic charges us $40 per hour. My wife's Chetak needed a major tune-up, which cost us $120 total. Our mechanic provided us with detailed notes on everything he came across, repaired, or recommended doing in the future. See his notes below:

I hope that these notes will be helpful for other 4-stroke scooterists, whether Bajaj or the new Stella which is supposed to arrive in stores in the near future.

Maintain your bike. The routine tune-ups will keep you running longer.

amerivespa 2009

What the hell is in my oil filter?

Two days ago I changed my oil on my Chetak and you will never guess what I found in the outside of my oil filter?! It looks like two torn pieces of engine seals. They are a back paper-like substance. I have over 6,000 miles on my bike; therefore I know these two torn pieces are not recent.

As an added precaution, I always check my oil filter for slivers of metal, possibly from clutch wear and alike. To do this I stick a white paper towel inside the oil filter so I have the silver metal or any other alien form pops out from the white paper towel background.

After that I use compressed air to blow the filter clean from the inside out. This frees it of all debris.

I emailed my mechanic, who worked for Bajaj USA at their corporate office and at a Bajaj dealer (also Vespa, Lambretta, and everything else) as a head mechanic, and this is what he had to say:

"Be honest with you, I have been a mechanic for almost ten years and I have seen a lot of crazy stuff coming out when performing oil changes. Normally, I will not worry about it unless the engine sounds weird or runs like crazy.

Do you have any problem with the engine? Any oil leak? Any idle issue? If not, then don't worry about it since those pieces are already broken or came off."

With that response, I filled it up with new oil and will ride the bike and pay special attention to it as all of my answers are "no" to my mechanic's questions.

FOLLOW-UP FROM MECHANIC AFTER SEEING THIS PICTURE:

Jeremy,

Looks like those things are the engine case paper gasket. Do you have any oil leak out from your engine? If not, don't worry at all.

What happen are..... those engine paper gaskets for most of the time are larger than what it is supposed to be. And sometimes due to the engine design, gasket can't cut out exectly or match the engine cases because if everything matches the paper gasket are not strong enough to seal, hold and keep the oil inside the engine. For some cases, when the extra stick out paper gasket inside the egine has soaked oil for too long, they will be soft enough and tear themselves apart. That is what you see in the screen filter. And that is why engine will leak oil when they get old. And of couse, the material to make the paper gasket is also important. For bajaj you don't expect they are top qualities.

So for now, if you have any oil leak, you know what happen.

Hope this information would help you.

Kent

Tires

I ride Michelin S3s, which are the sport Michelin tires. I like them, because they give good road performance and they can put on a lot of miles.

My wife's white walls are Sava Kran touring tires. I have been warned about using these tires many times because of the poor quality. I had them installed on my Bajaj Chetak and will say they did not last many miles the tread was gone. Secondly, the rubber has begun to harder on my wife's second pair of Sava Kran white walls. This will result in cracks and hardened rubber looses traction on the concrete, which could result in a crash. My wife also had a rear tire blow out with her Sava Kran and the tires little blew out and has a big hole in it. I will no longer buy Sava Krans or white walls in general, because they have the reputation of rubber that hardens quickly. The stock tires on the Bajaj are not the best choice for riding either.

My wife prefers touring tires as they are better in rain and they provide a more stable ride -- plus they look stock and true to the era of scoots.

My wife's scoot is getting a tune-up as we are about to ride on a 125 mile ride at a rally next month (HTTH8 Rally) in the San Francisco / East Bay area and our mechanic told us her tires and tubes are not in good shape, which we weren't surprised to hear. I knew I would not have time to go to a local shop and then drive them to my mechanic for over a week because my life is too busy; therefore I opted to order online and ship to my mechanic, which was a good financial choice as the tires cost $45 each with tax locally, and I paid $31 each and got free shipping online with Motorcycle Super Store.

The scoot won't look the same without the white walls, but my wife doesn't care. She just wants tires she can count on!

Bent scooter and broken ankle

In September 2008, while riding down Market Steet (San Francisco) to work, my wife's rear tire blew out. She did not have a jack for her -- it was in my bike. Guillermo, of Lambretta Works, pulled over on his Lammy and gave her a hand. 

The following week Lisa was hit by a stray motorcycle, which broke her ankle and rolled the frame of her scooter's floorboard of her Bajaj Chetak.  Not the best seven days of her life.
A car was a full stop, with its emergency blinkers on, on Market Street just above the Castro. My wife stopped behind the car. She looked behind her and saw a motorcycle closing in to fast and the rider went down and was separated from his bike. He slid into the median and the bike slid towards her. She dropped her scoot into gear to move, but was hit before she could release the clutch. The motorcycle slid for quite a distance at quite a speed and bounced off of Lisa's scooter. The problem is it hit her ankle first, because her legs were down and she was at a complete stop.

Our estimate was done by Barry at SF Scooter Center and is for about $900. The bike would also benefit from a tune-up. Being that these bikes are not super valuable and our Bajaj Chetaks are our utilitarian transports, we likely will not have too much work done on the bike.

More to follow when we decide what to do with the bike. 

In the mean time, Lisa's ankle has gotten a lot better. There is a chip of bone that small and the ligaments are holding it in place and scar tissue is forming around it. She had to wear a brace for a month and use crutches. She is pretty lucky. I was able to ride the bike home.  The motorcycle rider was luck as well and was able to walk after the accident.  Clearly, it was his fault.  He lost control of his bike.

UPDATE:

Due to the fact that the Bajaj is far from a rare desirable scooter, it doesn't make much sense to overly invest in the repair of the body work and paint, which could be $1000 to have that done; therefore Barry G. of SF Scooter Centre recommended just hammering it out.

I took my first crack at hammer and dolly today, after researching it a bit.  Note: for truly "moving metal" leave that to the artists!  Heat, cold, and a bunch of other stuff beyond me go into that.

Overall, my goal was to only clean up the dent, not have a perfectly restored piece.

The secret is not to hit hard and to keep the support weight stable.

Overall, for my purposes I am happy with the result and more importantly so is my wife, who owns and rides this Chetak.

The floor rail mat will cover this spot so to the naked eye people won't even know it ever happened, unless they lift the floor rail mat up or are beneath the bike.

Now all that is left is to sand the areas of paint that surround the bare metal. I will then put a coat of touch up paint on the bare metal to avoid rust in the future.