www.zxrworld.co.uk

Hi all

Looking to get some short levers for my zxr.

I've seen these on eBay - from China and are stupidly cheap. https://www.ebay.co.uk/ulk/itm/221534704787

Has anyone got any experience buying levers straight from China?

Am I likely to receive a set of bad quality levers with the Strength of wet cardboard?

I am old enough to remember when Japanese bikes first appeared in the UK, and they were disparagingly referred to as "Jap crap". They now dominate.
I bought a pair of discs from "Mad hornets" in the US last year, and a week later received them...from China. They looked quality items and have proved satisfactory on the bike. They were, of course, significantly cheaper than the equivalent sourced in the UK. I did have to pay a small additional sum as Import duty, but the final price was still very good. As I understand it, this country enjoys a lot of "cheap" Chinese goods, mainly because the production costs are very low due to low labour costs. That doesn't mean that the goods are inferior.
Your choice!

the quality of chinese goods is constantly improving, unfortunatly they still have a reputation for quantity>quality thats gonna be hard to shake for a while.

as long as you dont plan on dropping the bike the levers will be fine.

I was a tad wary too so done some searches and reading on various forums about them.
Only came across a couple of horror stories:
One was saying his lever didn't depress the brake m/c enough and so wasn't applying full braking force.
The other was the opposite - that the recess hole for the m/c piston pin wasn't deep enough - so the brake was constantly on. This one resulted in a crash when the brakes locked on - presumably because warming fluid couldn't expand back into the reservior and instead caused the caliper pistons to creep out...
Both stories were from years ago when the levers first appeared on the market. Both had others replying to say their levers fitted fine on the same bike.

I'd got one of these levers along with a second hand R1 brembo m/c that I was fitting. Bought a matching ZXR clutch lever from China and have had no bother with either of them. Like the shape and feel, materials and machining look fine, span adjusters feel secure, no complaints.