Bajaj Pulsar RS200 alloy breakage – What really happened

In the past few days we have seen the social media going crazy regarding an incident of the Bajaj Pulsar RS200. It was covered by many automotive blogs given the severity of the incident. According to a Bajaj Pulsar RS200 owner the alloy wheels of his bike collapsed under hard braking which resulted in him and his pillion sustaining injuries. The above person had posted images of the alloy wheels and the crashed motorcycle. From the pictures the incident looked shocking and we were surprised to see an alloy wheel literally collapse.  After this incident Bajaj Auto faced criticism for the poor quality alloy wheels. Now though, the Chakan based manufacturer has conducted a full analysis of the incident and this is what they have concluded.

According to Bajaj officials the alloy wheel was cracked due to a side impact of a rigid object on the front tyre and rim at a speed of approximately 80kmph from the right hand side. They also added that the initial fracture took place in three spokes closest to the impact point. The rest of the spokes failed on account of dynamic overload and there wasn’t any defective component. 

It isn’t the first occasion that alloy wheels of a motorcycle has cracked under stress as we have known few incidents where the rim has taken a beating after entering a pothole at high speed. But the above incident was a bit shocking as all the spokes cracked and collapsed. But as Bajaj found out, the incident was a result of a side impact owing to a crash so we can’t really blame the manufacturer for the alloy wheel breakage. It appears that the above Pulsar RS200 owner wasn’t too keen on paying the money for the repairs and wanted the manufacturer to fend his bill by blaming them for the crash. In a similar incident a Yamaha FZ owner had also faced the same issue of alloy wheels collapsing. But he later retracted his comments saying that he had crashed the bike at high speed and there wasn’t defect in the alloy wheel.