Oct 20, 2014 02:06 AM
49305 Views
(Updated Oct 20, 2014 02:14 AM)
When I bought this bike my priorities were
Low maintenance
Reasonable coast
Reliability
I went through many review of mouthshut.com and decided for CD dawn. However when I went purchase the same CD dawn was taken out of the market. After looking at the product list in the showroom dawn HF sounded like CD dawn.
However it was informed to me that dawn HF has been stopped by company due to miscellaneous reasons. Also it was advised that to go for HF deluxe. I had strong doubts on the integrity of the informant. I went back and checked on official website and enquired in second showroom they also gave me similar
answer but agreed to deliver the bike in 7 days if I make a booking with advance payment. I enquire in third showroom they had the stock and spoke positively about the bike. I picked up the bike at once in cash.
Let me tell something about myprofile. I am middle class person. I travel long distances routinely and prefer to use bike than my car except during rains. I stay in Bhubaneswar which has very good roads to Indian standards. On average I ride for 20 to 100 km/day. I have crossed 10000 km mark on dawn HF in its first year. I switch off my bike when it is on long gentle slopes. I am decent driver and drive with speed mostly around 40 km/ hr.
My experience
Absolutely zero complaints from my bike except that it sometimes needs to kept on engine running in neutral for 30 seconds in morning before the first ride of the day.
It had puncture of tyer once till date
Service station was problem free except the fact that they have twice showed incapability to repair /change lock showing some silly reason. This is a lock bellow pillion"s seat which has the same key of handle lock. Thus both needs to be changed once damaged. I have been doing my servicing regularly but till now my problem is not sorted out.
Service station sends SMS about my insurance, registration work and date of servicing
My fuel efficiency for first 4 months was on an average 82 km/L. Later on my work got shifted to an area where part of road is really bad.since then my average is maintained around 75 km /L. I had chance to drive the vehicle on national highway >150 km /day. As per my calculation I got 92 km/L(I am not sure if this is possible)
Many people considered this is too basic vehicle and too low profile to cadre of work I do.
Pick up is little less than other non gear vehicles like pleasure/activa specially when you stop on signals. But bike makes significant gains on higher gears and actually reaches to comfortable speed. On normal rides even with pillion there are no major issues with speed. Maximum speed on flat road is <90 km/hr. On average I rate dawn HF faster than non gear vehicles
Conclusion
This may not be the first choice for young boys in colleges. But for an average middle class person this can prove to be lifeline. To me reliability was one of the deciding factor. Compared to HF deluxe this is a simpler machine and has low cost so considered better.
