Decent engine, Kawasaki cheaped out big time on something's though. The OEM chain has to be replaced in the same amount of time the one I replaced with took to need it's first adjustment, which isn't so bad chains I expect to replace but come on Kawasaki that's pretty poor. The biggest issue I have with this bike is that I had to replace to fork springs. At about a year and a half off the showroom floor the front got very soft. I contacted Kawasaki and the rep said to replace the fork fluid, I told him that seemed like it was not likely to the problem based on the performance but eventually against my better judgement has the fluid replaced. It did not improve anything, and Kawasaki had told me that it's considered normal maintenance that they don't publish any thing about. Yes I do know that it is a normal maintenance thing, but on other bikes I've owned it's been anywhere from 7-8 years or the bike needed other things replaced and was getting to be such high milage (150k+) that doing the forks and then everything else wasn't really worth it so I just went ahead and got a new bike. The suspension on the ninja got to be so bad that it was a safety concern for me, I had rear wheel locks when I never would have expected it on any of the other bikes I've owned it the ninja during the first year, it felt unstable during anything but the most conservative commuter cornering, the front end would dip badly when letting off the throttle, etc. I tried to contact Kawasaki about it again and one of their reps just quit responding while I was emailing back and forth. So finally I just went ahead and replaced the springs. And all the sudden the performance was like it was during the first year of the bikes life. I contacted the BBB seeking reimbursement from Kawasaki figuring that they would at least do something, but no. No reimbursement for the first reps poor advice to charge fluid, and nothing for the replaced springs. Long story short I've been recommending against Kawasaki when friends ask about getting into a motorcycle, and I'll be going back to either Suzuki or Honda when I get my next bike. I know that the dealer's will say it's an entry level bike so it's not as well manufactured as some of their others, but my Suzuki was an entry level 250cc and never had any problems that got me to contact the manufacturer over owning it for 8 out so years.
That power continues in a completely linear fashion right up to the 8,500rpm redline. 4,000rpm is about half the total power, 6k is most of it and you can toodle around at 2 or 3k if you really want to. You get exactly what you expect out of the 471cc engine.
Ninja 300 Vs Honda Cbr 500r Top
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