Kawasaki Sportsbike Riders Club - Australia - Online Forum

i think its horses for courses, i like the cbr929 and 954 Blades but i just could not get comfortable on the seat, R1's & 6's hurt my wrists after only five minutes of riding. The Suzukis, particularly the GSXR750 from '01 onwards is a great bike but when i went to buy one there were no new ones available and the 2nd hand ones were too expensive and too abused.
Whereas my youngest bro is a deadset H...da brand slave and the other bro is a Yammy man, go figure.
i wasn't going to get the zx7r or 9r cause i thought they were too old tech and heavy. But after test riding my current zx7r i would not go back. I am content that i will never do a wheelie
My only bug bear with kwakas is the price of parts; and Musty if you live in Brisvegas go to Bike Performance, Darcy is bloody excellent with old school Kwakas

an irrational Kwaka man
seanzx7r

I have heard it twice..
One time, it was a group of guys hanging at my ex's place who were bagging out kawasakis.
The other time, it was on a forum.. I had just gotten an impression that there was something about Kawasakis that some people dont like..
Me, I am very happy, although the only other bikes I have ridden have been Honda, and they were good too.

Felix wrote:I was reading something by the people of the advertising giant Saatchi & Saatchi.

_Former_advertising giant, you mean.

They said the aim of marketing was to develop irrational brand loyalty. Therefore people who are irrationally loyal to one brand, will also be irrationally opposed to others.

That's the key term; irrational. Few people with strong brand hostility can come up with a more substantive answer to the question of "Why do you hate <insert make in question here> so much?" than "Coz they're shit".

Let's turn it around. Plenty of people on here don't like Honda. Who can put it into words, though?

I-K wrote:...Who can put it into words, though?

I'll have a stab.

One of the things Honda gets criticised for is that they make "souless" vehicles. They make it hard to get passionate about because they do everything so well, and they always seem to take the safe bet.

I am not sure that that is necessarily a bad thing, but y'know...people being fickle and all, kind of actually enjoy the 'personality' of things that are sometimes a bit...err...less than perfect.

Mind you, I am not one of them. I have always admired Honda's reliability, which I was introduced to via stationary motors (pumps, gen-sets etc). Never more than one rip of the cord to get one of those things going. Compare that with a Briggs and Stratton of the same era...yuk!! And as much as I tried, I never could kill that old CT90.

I will respond even before reading all the posts in this thread; mate, kwaka has always been a top respectble name in big bikes, all the people I know over the years have always said kwakka is the most reliable and these days it is the most fastest bike you can find.

I used to be a HONDA man (haha, "said" it) and we all HATED kwaks... due to the "ninja bad ass boy" stigma. we had mates who rode the ninjas, and we just thought... WANKERS. they were good in a straight line but handling was shit (or they rode shit?) plus, the motoGP and other racing category things....
anyway, i vowed to NEVER touch a kwak.......
then i test rode one when i was looking to upgrade.
the kwak dealer (who had a nice R6 i was interested in) MADE me try the ZX6R... instant LOVE! it was and still is PERFECT, for me!
anyway, to answer your question: ppl hate kwak cuz tey are not willing to try new things! like i almost was! but hey, now i got my eye on the GSXR750.....
yeah right!

I-K wrote:Few people with strong brand hostility can come up with a more substantive answer to the question of "Why do you hate <insert make in question here> so much?" than "Coz they're shit".

Let's turn it around. Plenty of people on here don't like Honda. Who can put it into words, though?

Coz they're shit!

Seriously though... I don't hate Honda's (heck, I have 2 sitting in the shed) or any other brand for that matter. It's just that I prefer to ride green. But hey, as long as I'm riding a Kwakka, why not hang shit on other bikes?

Brand Power is often about knowing the name. Yamaha make a bit of everything (bikes, cars, organs, guitars etc), Honda make anything that needs a petrol engine (Bikes, cars, lawnmowers, generators Etc), Suzuki make bikes and shite cars, but Kwak only make bikes. I think we can allow quads and jet Ski's some licence as almost bikes.

To the outsider, they see the other names way before looking at bikes and the names are already known and they have an opinion.

For someone who knows bikes and the market, well Kwak are dedicated to bikes and that's where all their effort goes.

not quite.

You know that the official name is "Kawasaki Heavy Industries" don't you?
They make trains, SHIPS, generators amongst many other heavy industrial equipment. Bikes are just a plaything to them being run out of a child branch of kawasaki and getting them only a minor %age of their annual profit.

(looking at http://www.kawasaki.com gives a further list f.y.i.
wheel loaders, hydraulic components & systems, robotics & automation, gas turbines, cement plants, etc)

a company history is at http://www.kawasaki.com/kawasaki_aux/ou ... ny/khi.asp



But yes, in the "general user" sphere, bikes/atv/jetski's are some of the more common products people will encounter with their logo on it.

I dont think it is an i hate kawa / honda / susi .... whats the other one ? oh yeah yamahaaaaaa issue.

I recon its just the bikeing faterintys take on Holden verses Ford etc

Personally as long as it's got two wheels and goes, its good enough for me.

I've always gone for the bike that suieted me at the time, this time it was a VTR , next time it could be a zx10 who knows ?

Although if zzr_angel gets her way it'll be green

I think it would be unusual for most aussie scoot riders not to have a soft spot for Kwikas, we champion the underdog after all & kwika has always fitted that sterotype, being the smallest of the serious Jap manufacturers. I purchased 8 bikes before I owned one but always respected them for making some serious Hardware & keeping the other bastages honest.
Cheers Brett

DjDante wrote:I was wandering what the reason was that there are people out there who specifically dislike kwakkas...

dont worry about people like that. they dont exist. its only a myth..... in my world anyway

I am new to bikes and I can't believe the number of different bikes out there..benelli, bimota, buell, cagiva, moto guzzi, MV agusta, hyabusa, aprilla, BSA, Norton, triumph, what the hell is a polaris??.......does someone just wake up one day and decide to build a bike or something??

How the hell would you ever be able to decide between all the different brands and all the models???

I was in the position where I was able to buy any damn make out there and at one stage I almost bought a Benelli Tornado but when I took it for a test ride I was chatting to the grease monkeys in the back of the shop who said they were good until they needed to work on them (engine outa the frame to do the valve clearances ) and to expect service bills of about 1000 uk pounds every 4,000 miles(piss off do your own conversions to A$)
It rides as good as it looks and the howl from the exhaust at 5k rpm is orgasmic.
I looked at em all but in my mind the only one that did it for me was the ZX9. I have had a thing for Kawasaki's since the good old days of 2 stroke racing (this is where they got the reliability tag from, very rare to seize a kwakka stroker)

I really dislike Yamaha's, never used to (i owned one) but it seems a lot of wankers ride R1's and R6's..
Suzuki's have just never ever done it for me.. (ESPECIALLY after test riding an across) .. and how can you take a company that makes the eyeabuser seriously??
Honda's are ok i suppose *shrug* They seem to be a bit over rated compared that kawasaki make an equally good or better product.