With the release of five new motorcycle and scooter models recently, and the promise of a sixth, Malaysian motorcycle manufacturer Modenas has seen something of a resurgence this year. This was something we welcomed, after having the firm lay fallow for many years, with the last major model launch being in 2011, some six years ago.
So, with a collaboration with manufactuing giant Bajaj Auto of India, Modenas is now back in the market with several motorcycles that originated from the Bajaj works. The first three launched in Malaysia were the Pulsar RS200 sports bike, the NS200 naked sports and the V15 cruiser.
However, not wanting to stand still and waste momentum, the first quarter of 2018 will see the launch of another new model, and certainly a new area of operations for Modenas. This is the Modenas Dominar 400, a single-cylinder naked sports machine that draws DNA from the KTM 390 Duke.
Now, some might say this is merely a re-badging exercise, and what would be the point? Well, it has to be pointed out that developing any motorcycle, or car, is an exercise in millions, if not billions, of ringgit, and the fastest, most cost effective solution to bringing a new vehicle to market is to leverage on previous research and development.
In order to prove this, Modenas arranged for a media visit to the Bajaj plant in Chakan, India, and paultan.org was given the chance to take the new Dominar 400 out on the test track. Additionally, Modenas allowed us an extended session at the Unimap track in Gurun, Kedah, where we took the opportunity to put the Dominar through the paces.
When your previous model range was mainly underbone bikes and scooters, moving into the “real” motorcycle arena can be an exercise fraught with worry. Modenas’ previous experience with a proper motorcycle was the Jaguh, back then, a 175 cc single in cruiser style.
With the release of the Pulsar machines, and the V15, this is perhaps an indication that Modenas is seeing a resurgence, and a willingness to take on challenges that were previously outside its market. News of the Dominar 400, while not exactly taking us by surprise, did make us curious as to what the package might offer.
In the single-cylinder middleweight motorcycle market, there are basically two main challengers in the naked sports segment – the BMW G 310 R, and the KTM 390 Duke. So, what is Modenas doing with a bike like this?
Well, with Bajaj owning some 48% of KTM, it is no surprise that a single-cylinder machine would be coming out of the Chakan plant, sooner or later. And, for Malaysian riders, this will be what we get, in the new year.
But, what is the Dominar 400 like to ride? Would it be anything like the 390 Duke? As we were to find out, the Dominar 400 is a very different machine from the Duke, despite both sharing the same engine configuration and capacity.
On the first approach, the Dominar 400 looks a lot bigger than it actually is, and we were informed by Bajaj personnel that this is done to suit the tastes of the Indian, who prefer that “proper” motorcycles look big and bulky. While we do prefer motorcycles that are physically small but with powerful engines and superb handling components, we took the Dominar 400 for what it is, a street bike designed to be an all-rounder.
Getting on revealed no real surprises, seat height wise, which we guessed was set at about 790 mm or so, since we were not given any real specifications. It should be noted at this stage we rode two different Dominar 400s: one in India and the other in Malaysia, and there was a marked difference in seat heights by a few millimetres, so the actual figure will have to wait till we get a review machine after the official local launch.
Starting up the Dominar 400 brings up the normal thumper sound, which puts one in mind of a mill pump. In the case of the Dominar, it’s a muted sound, and one overshadowed by the vibration coming through the handlebars.
Setting off, we clicked the gear lever into first, and be prepared to move your foot some distance because the lever throw is somewhat long. As we accelerated through the gears, we noted that the shifter action, while smooth, was also somewhat noisy, and the gearbox does not like being rushed.
This is not a sports bike, and nor should you treat it as such. Designed pretty much for Indian roads, the acceleration is very sprightly, and quick twists of the throttle in the first three gears showed that the Dominar 400 was eager to respond.
Fuelling at part throttle openings was good, with only very minor hints of splutter and stumble. This is helped by the rear sprocket, which is about the size of a dinner plate.
Now, this will make sense for conditions in India, where traffic is heavy and roads congested. Speaking to one of the Bajaj deputy general managers, he pointed out that in India, it is very rare for a motorcycle to ever get to top speed.
Out of sheer curiosity, and because we were on a closed track, we did whack the throttle open to the stop on the back straight in Chakan. The number we got, you might be interested to know, was 153 km/h, and we told the gentlemen from Bajaj that this was completely inadequate for a 400, and for the Malaysian market.
Hopefully, someone in Modenas and/or Bajaj was listening, and some adjustments will be made to the gearing before the Dominar enters the Malaysian market in earnest. Riding through the curves and banking on the Bajaj track, we found the handling to be quite nice, with a balanced feel.
The Dominar is not a light bike by any measure, weighing in at 182 kg, but the extra weight does serve to damp out a lot of road vibration, while keeping the bike stable at high speed when we took the carousel banking on the track, which was, for the Dominar, good for about 136 km/h.
Why we did not go faster came down to the OEM MRF tyres, which are made in India. While being perfectly adequate for road-going rubber, and will probably give a long service life, we noted a certain lack of feedback when the rubber was brought to the edge.
This situation was replicated at the Unimap test track, and messing around with tyre pressures did little to change the situation. We were halfway tempted to do some burnouts and stoppies to get some real heat into the tyres, but Modenas motorsports head reminded us that the Dominar we were riding was the only one in the country, and was needed for homologation purposes.
While not being officially confirmed, we can tell you that Modenas is listening carefully and welcomes feedback. In this case, a long discussion held after the track session might result in the quality of rubber fitted to the Dominar being looked into for the Malaysian market.
On other fronts, the Dominar performed acceptably well, for a street bike. With some 35 PS at 8,000 rpm and 35 Nm at 6,500 rpm on tap, the 373.3 cc triple-spark plug power plant delivered what was asked for, and the delivery was fairly linear throughout the rev range.
Snapping through the six-speed gearbox, we did wish for a quickshifter, as the engine built up speed very quickly indeed. This is not surprising, considering the 390 Duke is, in itself, very much a hooligan’s machine, and delights in throwing up the front wheel on a regular basis.
However, there was very little of that with the Dominar 400. With the 182 kg, and a somewhat long-ish wheelbase, the Dominar is not quite suited for full-on racetrack heroics, and is best suited for leisurely turn-ins and corner exits.
Not to say we did not try though, and along with an industry colleague, we did show the Dominar what for at the test track. This was aided by the two-channel ABS fitted as standard.
Brake feel, though, felt a little muted on the single front and rear Bybre discs, and we wondered if a change of pad material might yield better results. This was neither here nor there, as we do not expect many street riders to use the Dominar as hard as we did, but for best results, both the front and back brakes will have to be used.
Inside the cockpit there is single LCD display that shows everything the rider needs to know, while the idiot lights are placed in a separate housing located on the fuel tank. Seating was comfortably firm, but we did note the seating was a little on the small side for our rider’s rather ample rear end, due to the step in the seat.
On the whole, we found the Dominar 400 to a fairly capable motorcycle for general purpose riding, provided you stay within the bike’s performance envelope. We were not given any official pricing for the Dominar, but with the 2017 KTM Duke 390 – 44 hp, three-mode ABS, multi-colour TFT LCD, Euro 4 – going for RM28,800, we would hazard a guess at the Malaysian retail price being around the RM20,000 point, or perhaps less.
What do you think of this – would you consider buying a middleweight Modenas motorcycle? Do let us know below.
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If sold below RM10k , reasonable. It’s clear that it cannot match the Duke or BMW in any way….
Thank you Bajaj for saving Modenas.
Thank you Geely for saving Proton.
Lucky India and China has come to save our car and motobike industry.
Meanwhile toyota dropping like waterfall
So is the Ringgit.
But our income going up.
With some 35 PS at 8,000 rpm and 3,500 Nm at 6,500 rpm on tap, the 373.3 cc triple-spark plug power plant delivered what was asked for, and the delivery was fairly linear throughout the rev range.
something with torque figure…
lol you spot the error
that amount of torque can send rider fly to the moon
Make it RM12K, I’ll have it for my second bike.
So is the Ringgit.
I’m from penang. If the road is flooded, can this motorcycle survives? It is a serious question since everytime it rains here in penang, it will get flooded..
Bashers say blame why rain in Penang. If no rain, then no flood
Small flood definitely can go through, if heavy flood, lorry also sangkut.
Get a 4×4 install some snorkel
Get crf250rally bro, can redah banjir
If at 20k, I will rather have the XY400 brought in by Chear Motors – also a thumper, non-complicated looks and over 3k cheaper. This one of Bajaj is odd with the smallish seats despite the bulky overall design.
The major concern when buying off brand bikes are the reliability of the engine. If dominar has same engine as ktm then around rm20k is acceptable. Once they build their reputation then the price can go up.
Mohan, the unimap track is in Perlis, not Kedah. Unimap = Universiti Malaysia Perlis. 35ps is pretty weak for a 400cc bike. The kawasaki ninja 300 pumps out similar power. The old assembled in Modenas Kawasaki Ninja KRR-150 2 stroker pumps out 32ps. So the low power and the fact that it needs a B-full license to ride it would hinder its sales prospect. In india the Dominar is sold around the price of yamaha R15 (a fully faired version of malaysian FZ150) and cheaper than the ktm duke 200. The funny thing is, that is the same price of bajaj’s own pulsar 200! Would modenas price this dominar in the 12k-14k range? Lets wait and see.
Its biggest problem it has, is the full B license needed to ride it. For the price and the size/bulk, and indian origins I would expect a bigger twin.
Power output is fine given it being a thumper, and low end torque should be good and easy for new big bike riders. Pointless to compare to a 2 stroker. Even an old 400 like my FZR400 4 banger will make nearly twice that at 12000 – 14000 rpm. Not the same species.
As a starter (big) bike which this would be targeted as, I would think a used ER6N would probably make more sense since you can pick one of those for the price of a new 250 naked. Then save up for a z900 upgrade.
Dominar has more torque than Ninja 300 and built to be a cruiser/ street bike.
Dominar is selling at higher price than Pulsar 200 NS or RS in India.
Currently the dominar is sold at less than rm10k in india. It is sold at only 2-300 ringgit difference compared to the Pulsar in india
it has 400cc and more combustion area per cylinder compare to the Ninja (400cc versus 150cc x 2), of course it has stronger torque
I would seriously consider buying this bike. It looks good & for the price that we might be getting, it could be a good bargain.
What is wrong with ppl?? MODenas has provenly got the worst ever after sales service record of all bikes in Malaysia. Yet you even wanna bother to read??
never had any problem with modenas,parts are everywhere…not to mention can easily exchange with kawasaki parts
and dont forget modenas also no one wants to steal. haha….!
My family had several Modenas and never experienced ‘worst ever after sales service’? Even covers of long dead models are still availabe within one week.
Where do you live?
The best ever model produce. Why not?
When u mod ur bike, apa aftersales?
and yet u bother to also read + comment?
Despite your poor attempt at writing English, still some 21 people gave you a thumbs down. It is a free country.
haha first time i ever saw a paultan comment getting 45 thumbs downs and zero thumbs up! modenas is like the folks’ bike. easy to maintain, no pening kepala to fix, spares available everywhere, and cheap too.
Does Modenas has R&D dept? At least Proton has it. Is it that hard to design motorcycle from scratch?
Modenas is just P2 for 2 wheelers.
If you don’t already know it, MODENAS’s R&D facility in Gurun also has a testing facility that is used by other bike manufacturers to test their bikes.
Their downside is poor management; not everyone can be a CEO.
Modenas is a quite small company with 800 employees only.
You did read the article fully, right? Your question is already answered early in the article.
They actually have R&D dept but i guess money is the problem here..i have read somewhere in the news years ago they have sent their engineer to overseas to design new engines (150cc is one of them) but sadly they unable to complete the product even though i heard the engine is ready..
Its not hard but the cost to actually design and manufacture one is very high. Worst case is the product doesnt sell very good and Modenas cannot make profit of it. Look what happen with Proton Savvy. 100 percent rnd proton. Hundreds of million worth of RnD, in the end it became a fail product from proton.
Correct me if im wrong…but isnt the New generation saga (yr 2008 onwards) stem from the Savvy’s development? i think i read somewhere but cant verify it.
So with that said i think that proton did learn when they are making the savvy, to turn that into the new saga is great i think. But yeah can anyone help to verify the Savvy>Saga development story.
try search and study about world of automotive engineering.
R&D it not just about the cost of money, but talent, time and a lot more need to be invest to create one, the worst part you might end up result as it not workable or profitable to be in production. this had been the stories of R&D globaly even with giant company. for consider small company like Modenas, proudly say they have their own R&D dept back at Gurun. they did a lot of thing, one of the project expect to release is the new 150cc/175cc model fully develop by Modenas, from scratch.
As per above article, its one of the easy and cost efficient by leveraging on previous R&D, on the other term by technology and knowledge transfer. Same as per BMW rebadging KYMCO scooter and Kawasaki joint venture with Kymco to build the J300 scooter.
so read more, you will gain more information and knowledge.
nice bike, it’s been a while since any bike in the 250-400cc range using aluminium frame(if)…it’s a nice touch, tubular/diamond steel frame is so not sexy. wish they make a full fairing version.price wise they should sell this as cheap as they can to kill all the competition ;-)
The best ever product produced by MODENAS and DRB HICOM
Now, Modenas give local potential customer several rebandged models from well known BAL models. Its up to you to suite your pocket and needs!
I think Modenas should consider the cruiser level of bikes. They had a good run with Jaguh (Kawasaki eliminator)and now they should consider serious cruisers between 400 – 1000c.c category. Customed bobbers and choppers e.g Kawasaki vulcan 900 / Yamaha Bolt or even cafe racers (Royal Enfield) have great sales in Malaysia and Modenas should consider cashing in on the big guns. Think about it Modenas
I thought Modenas is a Malaysian brand motorbike?
Modenas should bring in kapchai model from bajaj or kawasaki not this fat and bulky bikes…plus it looks not so beautiful
Its suppose to be cheaper, dominar didnt match ktm 390 although it have same engine, if 28k for ktm, it must be 17k or below, its power also not that good, so the price should not be expensive.
dealers in sungai buloh