Royal Enfield chennai
 

I am in the early stages of planning a two month trip to southern India. 2Up. Beginning in Chennai and possibly ending in Mumbai
Can anyone recommend a place to purchase a bike and also does anyone have an opinion on renting vs purchase.
I am not too concerned with resale value
Any tips on negotiating a price would also be welcome.
Thanks

when do you hope to start? I am going to start in chennai in mid feb. I don't have much deets on buying a bike since I have to as well

- Rama

Also planning on doing a trip, starting from Chennai. However we're aiming to spend 3 months in India and going all the way past Dehli into the Himalaya. The best time does indeed seem to be ~feb because its not to warm.

From what i've read renting is very expensive and often impossible if you want to drive as far as Mumbai.

I just bought a '14 enfield thunderbird (10k km) for 97k irp from a second hand dealer on bell street. It's scam city down there for enfield but there are a few decent bikes with neg. prices and plenty of other reliable hondas etc. Your other option is finding a secondhander on olx.in but it involves alot of legwork in the hectic chennai traffic.

Cant help with renting although for any period over a month buying and reselling has to be the economical choice - enfields (unless dropped/smashed) seem to hold their value pretty well.

Happy hunting!

Thanks for your answers. I am thinking January - February 2017. I am leaning towards renting. I need more details but it seems a late model Thunderbird will be 1200 rupees per day which for 60 days is about $1600NZ. I figure I would probably lose that in a sale anyway as I will be wanting a quick sale at the end.
I need to do a bit more homework to see what extras I don't know about yet.

Chennai has a very poor rental market -- google " chennai bike rentals " they are pretty much the only company renting in Chennai -- they are expensive and charge more if you leave the city and go touring. Their bikes are poorly maintained.
New Delhi has the best market for bikes, this is where 90% of foreigners buy, sell and rent