sloppy manufacture???
Posted: Fri Sep 03, 2004 10:40 am
In a current thread one of the readers refers to the KLR (my beloved KLR) as
sloppy manufacturing" and I've seen other references to "cheap" and such. To
which I say 1/ bullshit 2/ why aren't more of you up in arms. If you want to
see shabby manufacturing methods, look at a Ducati. They may look good on
the surface, but how about repairs? Doesn't honda and Yamaha (Suzuki too)
have a service department to repair things that break through no fault of
the rider? Don't they sell more of some parts than others due to quesionable
design or manuyfacture? Every bike, ot every machine, for that matter, has a
"doohickey" somewhere. The highly revered BMW, icon of longevity, has many
many (many many) sore spot-trust me, I know. Shabby manufacture? I'll grant
you there are a few gaps in places I would not expect them, but I've never
seen a bike on the showroom floor that was absolutely perfect. Cheap design?
From what I"ve read, right here on the list, the KLR is damn hear bullet
proof. Some of you riders beat the living piss out of your bike and it comes
back for more. Many of these KLR's go near 100,000 miles before wearing out.
I Harleys did that-well I don't even know what would happen. You can go
through 2 KLR's for the price of an F60, 3 if you opt for the GS. True,
there may be a few corners that have been cut to save bucks but buys, thats
mass manufacturing. How many opf you have bid on parts for automobiles.
Luxury cars are built with the same "lowest bidder" practice as must about
everything else in our world. I"m almost out of rant now so those of you who
refer to the KLR as cheaply made or designed-sell it off to someone who
appreciates it for what it is-one of the best "bang for the buck"
motorcycles out there. Let me ask, if they raised the price a few hundred,
put in a new design chain balance lever and made it so the mirrors didn't
break off so easily, would you like it more? would you have a better bike?
DONE
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.
And let's take footpeg mounts. One of mine was happily pre-stripped by
those smiling workers at the KLR factory for me, so that I didn't have to
do it myself! What a bunch of helpful guys!
And of course there's that odd weldment ("doohickey") for adjusting the
tension on the balancer chain. Some of them fit the shaft well. Others are
sloppy and break after the corners of the shaft hammer on them for a while
(the dude from Eagle Mfg. suggests that 5% or more are so sloppy that
they'll eventually break).
And of course there's that odd weldment called a "gear shift lever"...
While some parts of the KLR seem to be better assembled than others (KLR
engines in particular seem relatively bullet-proof other than the balancer
mechanism), there's just way too much of that kind of sloppiness.
As for why we aren't up in arms: The bike costs $5,000. Not $8,000
like a BMW F-650, the closest competitor sold in America. $5,000. And
many of us got it far cheaper used, you can get a 5 year old KLR for
$2,000 in some places. So even though pieces are falling off left and
right as you go down the road because Kawasaki wanted to save a few
cents on thread locker and thus the helpful gnomes on the KLR assembly
line don't use any, and the KLR has all the build quality of a 1970
Chevrolet Impala, we just grumble about it and cope with it, because
unlike the Yugo (another vehicle famous for poor assembly quality),
the KLR does generally work mechanically well. But darn, I wish my
fairing wasn't cockeyed!
-E