Zongshen RX3 report

[birdmove]

Japanese bikes have their weaknesses. What you may have seen about the Kawasaki is the infamoius "doohickey", which is the balancer tensioner. Kawasaki, in their original design of this, really cheapened out. The tensioner bracket was made of really thin metal, and very often broke, when the owner made the tensioner adjustment. It would break when the owner tightned the lock nut. in 2008 they redesigned the bracket, and it is much beefier now. But, the tensioner spring is still a pos. And you have to go in and remove a lot of parts to replace a .02 cent spring. Or there is a kit by Eagle Mike that uses a torsion spring, much like the spring on your bike you just replace.

Then there is the Suzuki S40 cam chain tensioner design. Then there was my 2001 Kawasaki KLR250. A small piece of silicone sealant they used on engine assembly broke off at 1400 miles and plugged the oil supply to the top end, and my engine "blew up". That was fixed under warranty.

Don't let people tell you that the Japanese makers are perfect. They are not. There are other bad design decisions. The plastic oil pump drive gear on the early Kawasaki Vulcans (hmm..I wonder why that might be a bad idea??). Etc.

Your Zong broken spring may be a weakness, or it may be an isolated incident. Time wull tell as more of these bikes hit the streets.