Photo: Kawasaki
In April 2022, Kawasaki Heavy Industries received a report from its Japanese distributor about a KLX 230 with an incorrectly-sized brake rotor up front. The quality assurance division started investigating, and the first thing they did was to search the dealer inventory.
The QA boffins found two more dual-sport bikes with the same defect, which prompted a review of the manufacturing process. Not long after, Kawasaki discovered that incorrect rotors were used between September 1st and September 7th last year. The Japanese company didn’t offer a proper explanation for this error, nor did it point the finger at who messed it up.
Kawasaki does mention that only Japanese-market KLX 230 motorcycles were produced between September 1st and September 7th. Be that as it may, the quality assurance department was informed of another bike with an incorrectly-sized brake rotor in May 2022, a bike produced outside of the aforementioned range. As a result of this discovery, Kawasaki obviously decided to recall a few stateside motorcycles, just to be on the safe side.
What is the problem with a smaller-than-normal rotor, you may be asking? Even though it brakes perfectly fine, the incorrectly-sized rotor doesn’t meet the technical requirement for braking performance under UN regulation 78 and Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standard number 122.
A grand total of 1,923 motorcycles from the KLX 230 family are called back in the United States of America, split between 703 units of the 2022 model year KLX 230 S ABS and 1,220 units of the 2020 to 2021 model year KLX 230 ABS. These dual-sport bikes were manufactured between June 17th, 2019 and February 17th, 2022 as per the attached document.
The suspect component bears part number 41080-0701 as opposed to 41080-0709 for the correct brake rotor. Kawasaki highlights that similar parts will be further separated at the factory, which is another way of saying that someone applied the wrong label to a box of brake rotors or someone wasn’t paying attention to what the label said. This countermeasure has been in effect since April 21st, according to the Tokyo-based manufacturer.
Kawasaki does mention that only Japanese-market KLX 230 motorcycles were produced between September 1st and September 7th. Be that as it may, the quality assurance department was informed of another bike with an incorrectly-sized brake rotor in May 2022, a bike produced outside of the aforementioned range. As a result of this discovery, Kawasaki obviously decided to recall a few stateside motorcycles, just to be on the safe side.
What is the problem with a smaller-than-normal rotor, you may be asking? Even though it brakes perfectly fine, the incorrectly-sized rotor doesn’t meet the technical requirement for braking performance under UN regulation 78 and Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standard number 122.
A grand total of 1,923 motorcycles from the KLX 230 family are called back in the United States of America, split between 703 units of the 2022 model year KLX 230 S ABS and 1,220 units of the 2020 to 2021 model year KLX 230 ABS. These dual-sport bikes were manufactured between June 17th, 2019 and February 17th, 2022 as per the attached document.
The suspect component bears part number 41080-0701 as opposed to 41080-0709 for the correct brake rotor. Kawasaki highlights that similar parts will be further separated at the factory, which is another way of saying that someone applied the wrong label to a box of brake rotors or someone wasn’t paying attention to what the label said. This countermeasure has been in effect since April 21st, according to the Tokyo-based manufacturer.
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