Kawasaki Sportsbike Riders Club - Australia - Online Forum

Hi, I'm curious what people here think about grey imports for a begginer rider. I've only ever ridden a vespa for about 9 months, and have yet to learn how to ride a manual bike, however I'm interested in getting one.

I've seen a lot of cheap/inexspensive bikes from japan and the like, and have been told by some people, that grey imports (eg; VFR400, ZXR250) are crap, esp for a first timer, because they are just old bikes which are offloaded from japan as soon as they reach 20 000 on the clock, and maintanince is not worth it, and then there is also the insurance and stuff. I have also been told by a few people that they are good, and there is nothing wrong with them, and that because they are cheap to buy, it's good for a first bike.

So, what's the deal??

Go for a ZZR250, especially a red one, preferbably a 1994 model.

Welcome chicken dont forget to do a intro in the newbies section, grey imports are ok but you have to look out for some of the older ones with like 150000km on them.

Most of the parts also fit other models of a simaler vintage or they carry the parts into later models so you can buy the parts from the dealer if you can quote the parts numbers.

An example of this was my old cbr 250 and go to the honda dealer and ask for a set of brake seals or a throttle cable for a cbr250 and he looks at you all silly like and says nah we dont have one of those but go to the 250 site and look up the parts number and it fits half a dozen diferent bikes and there all behind the counter.

The other thing is you get all the usual high milage things to replace like steeringhead bearings and swingarm bearings and sundry other bits but if you dont pay too much you will get your moneys worth.

stay away from sunstate and sumoto they want big dollars for older bikes with shiney paint jobs.

Not quite true, Bob, we have the FZR250's and other imports on YPIC at works puters.. You'd be amazed at what parts can be got for them..


and a lot of other crappy yamaha models lol

yeh thats what i said the dealers have the parts or most of them you have to know the parts number though or if it a yamahahaha they have their act together better apparently.

I think whatever bike you buy (import/non-import) should be checked out thoroughly before purchase. I have two imports (VT250 Spada and CB400 Super Four) and they are great! I have seen some real dungers for sale recently at bike shops of the same models- often much dearer than what I paid for mine. The Spada is a great little import to buy AND Honda sold them in Australia around 1990, so you can buy parts for them from your Honda dealer. The CB400 on the other hand they do not. So far I have been able to get brake/clutch levers, voltage regulator (VTR1000 fits) , brake pads, spark plugs and oil filters locally for my CB400. I had to order in gauge covers from Japan from Import Motorcycle Centre in Springwood and they took two months to come out. I also bought a LH engine sidecover from their wreckers with a new genuine gasket for $100 to my door- was rapt about that!
People often keep their 250s for short periods of time and don't service them well- some 250s rev to nearly 20000rpm, so you can imagine what sort of wear is caused on expired engine oil at those revs! I bumped into one of my old students today and he said he hadn't serviced his CBR250RR for 15000km.......waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay too long IMHO.

Have you also considered the VTR250? It isn't an import but it very similar to the Spada- even has the same engine but with one fewer gears.(?!?) 5sp vs 6sp Spada. I have a VTR on loan to me at the moment and it is very nice to ride- basically better in every department than the Spada (and it's a great bike in the first place) except acceleration- the Spada would eat in a drag race- the VTR is more comfortable, seems more grunty, 2L bigger tank, bigger front forks, and looks better. Spada seat is lower if that is a concern. VTR brakes are better too.

go an ER5 Kawasaki, They are cheap easy to care for and have a little extra grunt and comfy, but are Naked. LAMS approved.

My first road bike way a grey import. I found the insurance was more expensive fully comp, mainly coz the ins company thought parts would be harder to source.

I owned the bike many years, and I never had any problems getting the few parts it required (even forks). Most of the parts were the same as official model, so it made little difference.

I would steer away from models that aren't native to Aus. It may be nice to have a bike no-one else has got, but parts and servicing will be almost impossible.

i had an RVF400 (for racing), never had any issues with parts, as most are interchangeable with the VFR400 as well. there were more VFR than RVF in the country,so i tended to buy VFR bits.... had no dramas with servicing either, and the motor was quite strong/resilient as long as you aren't bouncing the the thing off the limiter all the time.
I found that RB imports in Caringbah could get a hold of just about everything i need, as they deal quite alot with 400cc bikes.

Being from NZ where grey imports are very common... Over there most bikes are grey imports, because the way that registration in Japan works is that it gets more expensive every year... so after a few years its cheaper to buy a new bike than it is to get rego... Dealers go over there looking for cheap bikes to pick up and bring them over...

Grey imports dont necissarily have to be bad... at all.... Just make sure you get a grey import that matches a common model found in aus and make sure you get it checked out by a mechanic...

That's another thing..the RR bike.

I was told by a 'wise' old man that any bike with RR or simply 'R' is not a bike for a learner.

I feel to a certain extent, that you can 'learn' about what the bike is able to do, and slowly get used to it...

I mean, if you bought a ferrari, you could drive it slowly to get a feel for it first, right?
It doesn't nessaserily mean a CBR250RR is bad for a first timer....right??

Hey Jen Good to see you posting again. As you know we dont have LAMS up here in Queensland so you'll be restricted to the 250cc limit.
As i said before the GPX250 is the way too go plentiful reliable & less plastic to weld then the zzr250, I dont think the zxr250 would suit because you have to really give them a hard time to get any performance out of them. But dont be scared about buying a "grey import" its a small world (since ebay etc) & as long as you get it checked out buy someone who knows bikes you will be fine.
cheers Brett

Chicken wrote:That's another thing..the RR bike.

I was told by a 'wise' old man that any bike with RR or simply 'R' is not a bike for a learner.

I feel to a certain extent, that you can 'learn' about what the bike is able to do, and slowly get used to it...

I mean, if you bought a ferrari, you could drive it slowly to get a feel for it first, right?
It doesn't nessaserily mean a CBR250RR is bad for a first timer....right??

That was just bad/wrong advice...

RR generally stands for "road racing"... BUT you will find that bike makers will stick it on anything..... but mostly sports bikes..

A CBR250RR is by no means a hard to ride bike... Its just a sports shaped bike, with a sports riding position...

There are plenty of bikes that are much harder to ride, but dont have RR written on them.... pretty much any cruiser style 250 (virago, CB, GS etc) are harder to ride because of the unnatural riding position (to me anyway) and if you want to ride sports bikes, they dont prepare you for larger sports bikes... Then there is the opposite direction... An Aprilia RS250 is a weapon, but hard to ride... 2 strokes have unreasonable powerbans... most definitely not a learner bike... the same goes for the other 2 stroke 250's... like the Honda NSR, Suzuki RS/RGV...

but yeah, any 4 stroke, 250 sportsbike generally has RR on them.... But they are generally easy to ride...

If you can get a cbr rr for say 2500 to 3500 dollars there a good thing bit racey in the seating position but tons of fun and keep it for a couple of years before you move on.

Not much power in the lower rev range but theres heaps of them around and there no trouble to get parts for and cheap as chips to run.

Or theres the zzr 250which is less racey but just as fun and you can even buy late model or ew ones of these.