Retired!

To all the blog readers out there.. thank you for your kind support for the Pulsar 220 DTS-Fi Owners club blog. Unfortunately, I'm retiring this blog, but its contents will be archived here for the sake of new and old visitors.

check the Archive on the right hand side ->

I would now redirect you all to a more active group whom I associate with, The Bike Nomads.

Many thanks and ride safe,
Aditya Bhelke

Created with flickr slideshow.

Member Report: P220 wiring/electrical issues

Mailed in by Rohit H, an issue he faced with the ECU and fuel pump, diagnosed to find bad wiring:

At the second day after buying the vehicle there was disappointment that continued for one month, there was a fuel pump malfunction, this was replaced by service engineers, after couple of days the vehicle use to shut of without any reason that to in heavy traffic, since i have background knowledge of electronics, i thought that cause could be some breakdown in wiring or some circuit. This was the usual procedure that i was doing when the vehicle did not respond "opened back seat, shake some wires and try again " most of the times it worked. i had complain to service engineer by name majid, he failed to notice that problem even after through check up for 4th time and one fine day vehicle did not started and was late to my office at electronic city. i was frustrated with this problem, i escalated to higher authorities including regional manager and asked him for vehicle replacement, then regional service manager by name balakrishna came to help. They took the vehicle from my house and they called Delphi engineer who suppled ECU and fuel pump kits to bajaj, after his second attempt he found the problem. " It was with sockets one of the pin in the socked was not locked internally there by creating lots of trouble "

Before the trouble shooting Mr balakrishna had raised an issue to assembly section engineer in Pune. he visited to Bangalore on 29 and checked my vehicle, he had brought some bypass circuits which will avoid breakdown and stops oil malfunction indicator popping up frequently. there was lots of conservation between him and balakrishna, they regained my confidence over the bike. now i did not face any problem till now, thought i haven't took my bike to long ride.

As u said in ur post wiring quality of the vehicle is very poor.
-Rohit H, Bajaj Pulsar DTS-Fi 220 owner from Bangalore.

Post Incident Review - Pulsar 220 break down

Here is a Post Incident Review of my last weeks 'mis'-adventure with the Pulsar 220 breaking down on a long ride.

Anlysis of incident:
-Bajaj Service swung into action and mobilized resources as soon as they were made aware of the situation. Of course Venkat Shyam of Auto Service Bangalore did more than what I had expected. I'm sure he must be responsible for pressurizing Bajaj Service to respond to the situation. So no doubt, Venkat saved the day!

Now the question is, why did Bajaj go out of the way and offer assistance like accommodation and such? Was it to keep the situation from blowing out of proportion, or was it genuine concern for a Bajaj loyalist? Were they trying to cover up for a faulty product by offering great service?

Whatever the answers, I'm more confident about Bajaj Auto as a brand than before. The reason is simple, they just exceed my expectations.

Problems that I identified, probable solutions, and learning...

-Low quality wiring: According to my analysis the whole incident happened because a wire got loose, shorted and blew a fuse. I'm shocked that even after so many years of R&D, there is not a fool proof socket to hold a wire intact under intense vibrations and other 'industrial condition' stresses. Or is it just a case of low quality materials in the socket assembly?

In continuation to the above, the overall wiring quality looks very shady. Its just a lot of black electrical tape holding a bunch of wires. I have seen the wiring on foreign bikes, and even cars; its way better and concealed (not in electrical tape).

-Bajaj Service ill-equipped for remote support: No one seemed to know about the fuse under the rear seat. Or even if they did, they might have never imagined that a blown fuse could prevent the engine from igniting. Of course this being the P220 EMS itself as misleading, and a prime suspect. Of course I cant blame any one, as the troubleshooting was incident based and a best effort.

Solution: Perhaps Bajaj Service is not even equipped or has trained its personnel to troubleshoot over the phone. Time for Bajaj Service to get a 1800 toll free service/break down help hot line with technically qualified personnel to help? Or at least quick escalations to engineering team who can expedite troubleshooting.

Solution: Perhaps Bajaj Auto should provide better self help documents or step by step troubleshooting guides to end users. At least for Pro bikes. One will be amazed to find what all foreign bike manufacturers provide as self help manuals; using these one could rebuild a bike.

-Insufficient tools: The tool kit provided with the bike is insufficient for such self help situations. I had to borrow more tools (pliers, small screw driver) from nearby farmers. I have now upgraded my kit with more tools. I'm not expecting Bajaj to provide them, just informing riders to be ready.

-Land line rocks! : My mobile network of choice is Airtel, and it generally hever lets me down. But at the place where I was, the network was extremly weak, and I could not do any kind of voice callling. SMS worked fine. Solution, carry a lot of 1Re coins, and find the nearest STD-PCO land line.

Conclusion:
The whole incident shook my confidence on the Pulsar 220 DTS-Fi as a long distance cruiser bike. I had major doubts on its reliability. But after then next days riding, and cool headed analysis, I can say yes in spite of this incident, the Bajaj Pulsar 220 DTS-Fi is a dependable bike. Period. BTW, I just came back from a 900Km solo ride to the east coast (Pondicherry).

Thanks to Bajaj Service. Many more thanks to Venkat Shyam for all his help. Venkat, U R THE MAN!

Pulsar 220 broke down, wasted a day.

Just last week, I had planned a solo ride to Sravanbelagola and Belur Halebid. I started my ride at a relaxed 10.30Am, and hit the Bangalore-Pune NH4. Everything was going as per schedule. I had a lunch stop over at Hassan, at 1.30Pm, 200Km away from Bangalore. Soon after lunch I hit the highway at 3Pm, to go to my first destination of the day which was Belur, 35Km ahead.

The road was very good, which allowed me to cruise at a comfortable 120Kmph. I was 9Km ahead of Hassan, and suddenly the red warning light came on. This has randomly happened before whenever the Pulsar 220 goes above 120Kmph (no one at Bajaj Service is sure why this happens). The only way to make that light go away is to do a full reboot of the bike. Since I was at a high speed already, and the road was clear, I decided not to stop for the reboot. I came down to 2nd gear to reduce speed, and turned off the engine while pressing the clutch. It normally takes an approximate 15 secs to reboot and finish priming the fuel pump, after which I start the engine. This time the engine did not start after the boot up was complete. I rebooted again, still in motion, and even then the engine did not start!

Now I was worried, as this has never happened before. As a last attempt, I rebooted again, and this time tried to start the engine by engaging the gear. Nothing happened, it just would not start. Finally I came to a halt, pulled the bike on center stand and tried starting multiple times. Each time I rebooted, the fuel pump priming sounded normal, the starter motor would run normally, but there was just no ignition. The engine would sound as if it had run out fuel (there was at least 10L of petrol as I had tanked up earlier), and the starter would just run. Finally the battery low indicator started flashing on the LCD console.

I was 9Km ahead of Hassan, the only place to get decent shelter and help for the Pulsar 220. I checked my mobile, there was just one bar on my Nokia indicating weak network strength. There were a few huts in sight a few hundred meters away. I tried calling Bajaj Service Bangalore, but all I got was 'call could not be completed' message on my Nokia. Now I was panicking, and tried hard to think. I took off the Cramster Colt of the bike, and all other luggage, opened the side panels and checked for any visible clues; none were found.

An aged villager saw that I had stopped and has dome problem with my bike. He came and offered help. But due to language problems, all I could make out was that there was a STD-PCO pay-phone a few hundred meters near the next settlement. Since that was my only option, I put back the bike and all the luggage, and pushed the bike. And boy, it was heavy. This was the first time I realized that the Pulsar 220 is a huge bike with a kerb weight of 150Kg's! By the time I had reached the pay phone, I was sweating like a pig.

I immediately opened up the bike again, and made my first call to Venkats Auto Service, asking to speak to the supervisor. I was put on to Babu, who knew me and my bike as he was the one who I would interact with for all my servicing and other issues. He calmly instructed me what all to do, what all to check. Here is all that was done..

-Open petrol tank lid, check if fuel was visible, shake the bike with lid open, try starting (this step I guess comes from an old line of thought that the fuel tank may generate -ve pressure, preventing easy fuel flow)
-Open the fuel flow pipes, and check if there was proper flow. I had a hard time doing this as I had the bare minimum tools (default provided by bike). Finally I found that the fuel flew perfectly and in volume as the fuel pump primed.
-Remove both the spark plugs, and check for burning, smelling or residual/wet fuel on them. Both looked (dirty black, which is normal) and smelled fine.

All the above took more than an hour, as I had to go forth between the pay-phone and the bike a few meters away. In the meanwhile I had discovered that I could send and receive SMS's. I messaged Venkat, the big boss at Auto Service. As soon as he came to know about the situation, he swung into action, and took over from Babu. He did another round of troubleshooting, and asked me to check the wiring thoroughly. He indicated that its could be an ECU or an EM issue. In the mean while he informed me that he is escalating the situation to Bajaj Service.

I got back to checking the wiring and to my surprise found a wire which had come out of a socket. Putting it back did not help, so perhaps it was not an important one. In the mean while I got an SMS and a call from a Bajaj Service official by the name of Balakrishna. He informed me that they are doing their best to handle the situation, and sounded very concerned. Venkat informed me that a Bajaj dealer from Hasan is being called to check the bike. Balakrishna told me that if the Hassan dealer was not able to help, he would take care of transporting the bike and accommodation for the night (who was going to pay was not clear, but the offer was very comforting).

I continued checking the wiring, and came to small black box under the rear seat. I popped it open, and I was shocked to see that it had a fuse in it which had blown out!! There was also a replacement fuse there, which I quickly replaced, crossed my fingers and booted up.

The engine started with its reassuring note, and came to life. Just then the Bajaj dealer from Hassan arrived with 2 engineers. Although the engine had started, I explained everything to the engineers. They gave the bike a through check, including the wiring. They found out another loose wire, which was dangerously hanging under the battery compartment. It had come off, and was centimeters away from bare metal. He explained that this could have shorted the fuse. He put the wiring securely in place, and did a small test ride. Everything was fine now, and they returned back to Hassan.

This info was relayed back to Venkat and Balakrishna, who again asked me to call him any time in case of further issues. I thanked them all for their patience and help. Since my confidence was all shaken up, and it was almost after sunset, I decided to spend the night at Hassan. First thing I did was I bought replacement fuses.

After staying for the night, I continued my ride the next day. I had to cram up 2 days worth of riding and visits in 1 day. The next day was uneventful, and although a bit shaken up, I finished my ride on schedule.

Honda keeping an eye on the Bajaj Pulsar 220 DTS-Fi ?

I was just going through the visitor logs, and was sweetly shocked to find the following visitors.. and that to frequently... Below are the log extracts..

-(Honda R&d Co. Ltd. Wako R&d Center) Japan, 13 returning visits; links here and here.
-(Shell Information Technology International) Netherlands, 6 returning visits.

Now thats hot right.. biggies like Honda keeping an eye on Bajaj...

Q & A - Oil leakage, Engine heating up, Rear brakes

Answers to a few questions asked by a visitor..

Q: I faced a peculiar problem of oil leakage from the engine( front - where silencer starts off ) and the oil was spilling on silencer, burning black and smelling , fuming. after 4 visits to khivraj its somehow solved but i still doubt coz i still feel the oil burning smell after i do 10 km.
A: Oil leakage! This should not be happening. I had a very small quantity of oil leakage noticeable at the joint of the engine and the pipes going to the radiator. Do keep an eye on the Oil indicator in the digital console, and also check (via glass view port on right side) if the engine oil level reduces rapidly.

Q: The engine gets over heated. its just 500kms old and this problem surface. is this engine heating common? it gets very hot for just 5 km ride and i can feel the heat on my legs.
A: Yes, the engine will heat up a lot when its new. Or rather you can feel the heat radiating a lot. From my experience, the heat radiating kind of reduced slowly after 1000Km.

Q: The rear brake is somehow not free i feel coz when i keep the bike off and rotate the rear tyre it doesn't happen freely. i felt the disc is held up somehow.
A: Yes, the rear disk brake has known issue; it drags/sticks a bit. Side effect is excessive disk heating, less free movement, squeaking noise, and perhaps a small reduction in mileage!

For all the above, I recommend paying a visit to Auto Service if in Bangalore.

Pulsar 220 DTS-Fi Hacks - Head Lamp Beam Adjustment

Here is a quick hack to adjust the lower beam (projection lamp) on the Pulsar 220 DTS-Fi. The below steps can help change the focus height of the lower beam.

-Park the bike on the main stand
-Turn on the low bean with engine running in neutral
-Bend down on the left side on the bike, and put your right hand inside the faring, just below the space under the lamp assembly
-Feel for a metal U section on the right side of the assembly
-Just inside this U section, feel for a plastic butterfly knob
-This can be rotated to change the beam height (cut off)
-Clockwise rotations make the beam go higher and higher, and vice-versa

I think its perfectly safe for this to be done by feeling around, if done slowly and cautiously. A slim hand works better is what I found. Next, I'm trying to locate a similar knob for the upper/high beam; will write back if one such is found.

Disclaimer: You are on you own if you end up screwing up something :)

Pulsar 220 DTS-Fi Poll Results

The poll conducted on the site to find out if visitors would go for the Bajaj Pulsar 220 DTS-Fi, knowing the problems owners are facing. The results look very positive, and in favor of Bajaj...

For 72 polling participants, the results are as below...
Yes, sure! 44 (61%)
Maybe.. 13 (18%)
No way! 15 (20%)

Pulsar 220 DTS-Fi Target High Speed Achieved

An update on the high speed issues..
After the high speed disappointments from my P220, I got an appointment with Mr.Venkat Shyam at his Auto-Service, Bangalore.

At the service center the BIG BOSS instructed his crew to do the following, and even did some tests himself:

1] Check if disk brakes stuck. The disks were cooled to ambient temperature by wiping them with a wet cloth. Their temperature was measured. Then a 2Km test ride with pillion, and normal traffic was conducted. The temperature was measured post this ride. The results were shocking!!

-The front disk heated up to under acceptable levels (luke warm to touch).

-The rear disk brake was burning hot... an astounding 140'C !! (could not even touch it)

-Conclusion: The rear disk still sticks !!

2] Next the bike was tested on the roller bench. Acceleration (0-60Kmph) and top speeds were measured, and best figures were considered.

3] Next the rear disk brake was removed, and tests conducted again.

4] Next the rear disk pads were cleaned, the chain was adjusted and a re test was done.

The end results in brief:
The acceleration came to 3.1 sec from 3.7 sec.
The top speed marginally improved hence not worth mentioning. But top speed on roller once reached 142Kmph.

Some other issues noticed during all these roller tests were..
-The rpm warning indicator lights up at 9000 rpm as designed.
-The fuel pump / malfunction indicator lights up after exceeding 9500K rpm. (On my last on road speed trials, it even lit at 8200rpm, max throttle). It stays lit up even if the rpm reduces. As I have noticed this earlier, there is no other way then to reboot the bike to reset this indicator. I was told later that this lamp lights is responsible for the EMS (engine management system). So I guess its a function of rpm/throttle and other factors.
-There is an engine kill feature which starts governing the rpm near the end of rpm-red line. not sure when this happens, as it happened only once when we really exceeded the rpm (perhaps beyond 11K).

+Now some really good news... After leaving your service center, I went for a speed test run near office. Electronics City - Bannergattha road.

One way, I clocked 120Kmph in a crouching position. It was windy and the bike had a lot of resistance. The rpm this time was between 8500 and 9000. Not sure how much, as the faring and both my helmet were vibrating due to all the wind turbulence.

The other way (return), I clocked 130Kmph in a crouching position. Perhaps the wind helped, or rather it was not creating so much turbulence this time. The rpm this time was approx 9200. Even then I had a lot of throttle left. When I stopped crouching, the speed marginally dropped to 128Kmph. But the P220 just ploughed through at that speed till the end of the road.

On this return run, I felt as if I was doing it just as if it were on the roller bench, and not on real roads... it was way stable!

So here is my learning..To attain the magic number of 130+ .. ( one will need not only a good straight road ) but more..
-There should be minimum cross winds or at least less enough to cause unnecessary turbulence.
-Once sufficient rpm was build up, and there is not much change in terrain conditions, the bike will more or less maintain the high speed
-I need a tight fitting helmet which will not vibrate so as to maintain proper vision.
-The rear brakes need some major technological overlook, as that's the only changed factor in the bike since my last high speed ride.

So thanks to the BOSS!! Mr.Venkat you made my day..

Videos of the roller tests here ..

Pulsar 220 DTS-Fi ECU Kit

I went to Auto-Service to get the fuel pump checked. I was suspecting it due to continuous running noise from it. The pump makes a noise at boot time; thats the priming noise to build up pressure. At run time, the pump is supposed to run as and when needed. But, I noticed that it runs continuously now. Or if the pump is always supposed to run continuously the noise is at its max now.

Venkat Shyam, the big-boss from Auto-Service checked and explained to me that the pump is supposed to always run. So now I'm ignoring the pump noise as being normal.

I also had a chance to check out the ECU kit which Auto-Service had just recieved. I was told that it costs quite a lot. Its an hand-held battrey operated compact unit. Its simply plug and play. Plug it to the ECU connector under the rear seat (yes rear seat comes off separately) and you are ready. The hand-held can also be connected to a PC for flashing (updating EPROM's).

After the hand-held boots up, it syncs with the P220 ECU, and downloads the data in real time. Some of the parameters that can be monitored are battrey voltage, running RPM, idle RPM, air intake temperature, throttle %, firing angle and more. Using this tool the idle rpm was accurately set to 1400.

Second free servicing

This is an update on the Bajaj Pulsar 220 DTS-Fi second free servicing. I came to know that there is another PRO outlet Auto Service, besides Khivraj in Bangalore, which is also authorized for the P220 servicing.

The Auto Service is not just a great environmentally friendly facility, but the technicians and engineers are very knowledgeable about what they do. 2 of the staff have been trained on the Pulsar 220 platform. The proprietor Venkat Shyam is a very passionate person about bikes and the Indian automobile industry as a whole. The best part is he is a vetran biker and owns the Bajaj Avenger and now the P220.

The bike was serviced with a lot of precision and cared for like a baby. Will post a few pics later.