TVS Apache RTR 180 Review

Hi! This is Sharath and this article is about my new bike Apache RTR 180 “White” which was brought on 09.09.09! Yes the date is a fancy one and my bike is also fancy and eye catching.

I waited for 3 long weeks to put my hand on my bike. Other colors (black, yellow & titanium grey) were available immediately but for the white color I had to wait 3 weeks.

When I tested black RTR 180 I felt the power in it and it was really nice and smooth. I have already finished my first service for 20 days from date of purchase and now I have completed 1090 KMs.

The Pros Of The Bike:

• It is a 180 cc with 17 bhp and 15.5 Nm torque.
• It has very nice Digital Speedo Console with BLUE Backlit , 2 trip logs- very helpfull, high speed log and (0-60) timer.
• The digital fuel meter is good but not accurate.
• The bike sitting position is damn good which adds sporty looks and you feel great control on bike.
• Bike has really smooth gears and I mean it . I compared with K arizma and RTR’s was really smooth gear shifting but Karizma has that cranking sound when shifting gears. Even my friend who owns Karizma was really impressed by RTR’s gears.
• It has a rear disc and good suspension.
• This bike has really nice looks and the white RTR is an eye catching piece on road. People riding take a glance at my bike and on signal stops lot of questions are thrown about its price, details and most important they are surprised about rear disc! Rear disc is really good and works very nice and funny thing is lot of Karizma riders take deep look into my bike (like rear disc, blue back light and the color itself) and discuss about it within themselves which makes me proud owner of the Apache RTR 180.

But, It has some serious problems:

• Lot of vibrations around 5000rpm-7000rpm (50-70 km) speed and it can be felt all over the bike.
• It is small in size, person with 6 ft and more will have comfort issues.

TVS Factory officials called me and since they were conducting survey on RTR 180′s they came on saturday (10 october 2009) @ Ashwa motors (where actually I bought my bike) and took reviews from me. They were from quality control department and they took photos of bike and mine. They recorded my voice review and I had a long discussion about the bike. I told the vibration issue and they promised that they will talk to their higher officials.

When I asked about their new up coming bikes they told that it is confidential but they gave some little information that they are working hard on braking system and they implementing car braking system! Even power will be increased and looks of the bike will be changed to compete with others in market I seriously recommended to change the looks & make the looks of bike bigger.

And I had little problem with the Engine Off Switch. They took great care and made it ready and did some some tuning – my clutch lever was little hard which they made it loose and handle bar was adjusted for more comfortable ride.