I agree, why don't you guys (who have faced these problems) write to Kawasaki people abroad, their e- mail ids should not be difficult to find. Letting this matter die its natural death is not a solution, we must at least inform them about the problems and take their opinion....

Thanks for the update sreehari...

i already have the xena and i was using it on a daily basis.

Just for sake of some information... do we have lime green and black touch up paint available in the market,.. in case their are some marks on the bike that we intend to hide.. ?

You should ask bluevolt. I remember,some where in the thread he has mentioned about the DIY touch up paint jobs.

Here you go buddy...

I think BV mentioned he picked it up from cyclegear USA

Somewhere in the range of 10-15 pounds i guess !

I feel what Gurpreet says above is right. Inadvertent brake jamming IS a critical failure and definitely a life threatening one. It is important that the reasons for this happening should be thoroughly investigated and shared with the owner/s. Even if it was a one-off case with Vishwas' bike, the reason is definitely not 'air-in-the-brake-line' alone. Scouring other Ninja forums on the net for similar issues can also help in understanding it.

Vishwas: Chanced upon one earlier post of yours. This one here. About your bike's handle shaking as it decelerated from 80 to 60 kph. Don't know if the problem has been solved. This usually has to do with wheel balancing. The dynamic balance of the wheel is out and the rotating couple produced syncs with the frame flex at certain speeds. Similar things happen with cars, esp those with small diameter wheels like the M-800, Alto, Zen etc. the steering shakes through a certain speed range. If the problem has not been solved through other remedies and still shakes, get your wheels balanced and see if the problem goes.

I second your opinion too. I think such problems are critical and unacceptable and thus need to be reported to Kawasaki instead of just to the technicians at the local service center. We need to know how to deal with those.

Anyone having any idea where this issue can be escalated? I think it should be either reported in detail to Bajaj top officials and/or to the professionals of Kawasaki (Thailand) without delay.

Wheel balancing has already been checked and all the 3 bikes at PBK showed similar characteristics. TenHut searched on various forums and found that it is a common prblem and has to do something about steering bearing.

Could be. Though usually this problem has to do with the bike's dynamic geometry i.e. the interaction between rake, trail, wheelbase, wheel dia and suspension damping. You people could try out stiffer pre-load settings for the rear suspension. Stiffer front end springs or spacers of course are difficult to source here. In the absence of a fork tube drain nut, trying out by adding some 10% more fork oil is also not viable. I still feel the steering head bearing could not alone be responsible for this head-shake. Look for the interaction between steering, suspension stiffness, tyre pressure, wheel balance and tyre wear pattern.

Just talked to imran (B2L) and Manan (both are incidently at the same service center getting their Ninja's serviced) and neither has faced this problem till date. So it is apparently not so rampant. A solution should be around.

Could it be due to heating up? Please check the link below :

05 636.. brake fluid expanding, locking brakes? : Kawasaki ZX Forums: Kawasaki Ninja Forum

-Ashutosh

OldFox you should post often dude !
Neways ..all the things you mentioned could have been the probable roots for a mini tank slap problem on the Ninja 250R.

My ex-ninja250R doesnt do this. But there are about a dozen on our forum alone which throw a mini tank slap at you at particular speeds.

I would suggest B2L and manan do this (even if they think their bikes aint suffering from the tank slap syndrome ) :

Throttle in 3rd gear to 100 kmph...now let go off the bars like you did when you were a kid shouting 'look ma ...no hands'
The bike shall deccelerate under engine braking in 3rd. Betweeen 80 kmph and 40 kmph the bars will experience a mini tank slap. The shuddering is so huge it actually sends shudders all throughout your body. I feel this issue needs to be discussed to death untill everyone gets it solved. This aint safe at all. Remember...it will only happen when you go no hands on the bars.

In my eyes...this is a problem, without solving which, I will not ride my bike if it were to happen to my bike. Its just downright unsafe to have a bike which tankslaps on its own. PBK is deeming it normal and so are many Ninja owners in india and abroad.

After a lot of reasearch on the net for Vishwas I found this to be the only working solution to fix this issue
I dont know which website I found this at but I had copy pasted this as I found this poster to be one who knew what he was talkign about.

"My Wife's" little green Ninja 250 just clicked up on 32,000 miles ...... with about 30,000 of that being on the local backroads since it was bought new a couple years ago.

The "wiggles" problem is one that I've experienced on this Ninja 250, and cured. The cause?

- Improperly set steering head bearing adjustment

I've found that getting the adjustment "just right" on this bike, is critical. Even just a tad too loose ....... and the potential for hands-off-the-bars "wiggles". A tad too tight (and/or lack of adequate bearing grease) and you'll eventually indenting the bearing races, and have "notchy" steering.

The trick I found (while doing the adjustment in the garage) was to tighten them up till things bound just slightly, and then ease the adjustment off just enough that the bars will flop from one side to the other, when the front tire's off the ground (bike supported by the chassis at the time). At this point things are perfect, and the bike can be buttoned-up ..... and head out for the ride.

I t's very possible for one bike to come off the showroom floor, with the adjustment being much closer to being "off" than another one sitting right next to it. The amount of grease installed in the bearings from the factory isn't always constant, nor is the treatment of different bikes after purchase... which are also variables of note.

It really comes down to a "cause-and-effect" kind of thing. If/when a bike exhibits an effect (symptom) that's not desirable (as in this no-hands "wiggle"), it's a good time to go ahead and inspect (and adjust "if" necessary) a particular aspect of the bike's setup that is known to potentially cause this.

As I mentioned, having spent a lot of time and miles on one of these Ninja 250's, this symptom (and what fixed it for me) is one that I'm very familiar with. It's an easy check/fix, that only takes about 15 minutes, if a person has reasonably solid bike mechanicing skills.

Yes, the issue should be discussed till it is solved.

I wouldn't call this a 'tank slapper' in the strictest sense of the term though. A tank slapper is initiated by the dynamic response of a bike's geometry to the way the front wheel makes contact with the ground after momentarily loosing it at high speed, say on landing after hitting a small bump. If the tyre makes contact at a slight angle to the direction of travel of the bike, a righting moment is induced due to positive trail which tends to self-correct the steering and rotate it back to ts center position. Due to the high speeds involved, the magnitude of the self-correcting force tends to make the tyre over-shoot and rotate to the other side past the central position. This further induces a stronger corrective rotation again in the reverse direction which makes the wheel shoot further past the center position. This to and fro attempts of the self-centering force builds up rapidly and if not damped at very early stages when the force is low in magnitude, either by the rider who loosens his grip on the handlebars a little and lets his soft body adsorb the forces or a steering damper that absorbs the force, the wobble or oscillations will build up further, go wild and eventually the bike and rider fall off.

This relatively popular video is a typical example of an undamped and free-building tank slapper. The rider probably 'tightened up' and added to the magnitude of the force. Going loose may have helped him damp the low frequency oscillation.

YouTube - motorbike speed wobble ending in extreme crash

In the case of the Ninja, the steering wobble is apparently not initiated by a reaction to any surface undulation. The typical speeds related to the problem are also not high enough for the forces to become dangerously strong. The forces involved are mild enough to be absorbed just by the rider's body. Which is why they only become apparent when he removes his hands from the handlebars. It is more a case of forward weight transfer induced wobble. The same would happen at constant acceleration but under braking if there could be a way of doing both without touching the handlebars .

I reiterate again that its a complex result of the interaction between the bike geometry, the tyre traction (dictated by contact patch size which in turn is dictated by typre pressure and tyre tread condition), rider position (as this affects the center of mass of the bike) and the condition of both the steering head bearing and the tyres. Things could differ even between a full and an empty tank. Only a concerted trial and error process of trying various combinations of tyre pressures, rear shock pre-load settings, steering head bearing tightness and rider body position will yield results.

I rode Imran's ninja today afternoon and did exactly what you've stated in your post. It tracked straight and true.

The procedure described by the Ninja owner for adjusting the steering head bearing is the standard procedure. Of course, with no steering damper on the Ninja and the possibility of high speeds it has, setting the bearing up with precision is extremely important. But the steering head bearing alone cannot be the sole cause.

Nah its not a tank slap lol.
Its just feels like one and hence I am calling it as one i.e. tank-slap

While googling for the problem you also get more hits referring to this problem as a tankslap.

Infact thats what I googled again and found the link I was talking about.
here it is Ninja 250, shakes when i go no hands...

Tank slap is that what happend to me yesternight when I landed one of the front pop ups wrong lol.

But I will tell you why I consider this dangerous.

On Vishwa's Ninja I have had this mini tank slap sorta feeling at the bars as I was very intentionally holding onto the bars as light as possible for I was doing good speeds. Out of nowhere this thing just jumped at me and I was found wondering to myself if the front had lifted for me to experience a tank slap. I slowed down the bike and looked around to see for someone who might have noticed me for I myself was clueless why it happened.. Vishwas was riding behind me but he noticed nothing.
I cannot prove it but I am of a strong opinion that this thing is being triggered at very high rpms on its own like its being triggered between 40kmph to 80 kmph while decelerating.

How many kms has Imrans Ninja done?

Me and Vishwas both have done over 10K + , so I wonder if this problem is introduced after a certain amount of kms on the odo. I cant vouch for it, since I dont often ride without my hands off the bars, but I have a feeling I didnt have this problem earlier.

As I had mentioned earlier, I started from the restaurant after finishing coffee. Bike was standing for 25 odd minutes between 7 - 7.30 am. After starting from the restaurant, it stopped around 100 mtr. from there. As you know, pune weather so early is quite cool so there is no chance that it was due to heating up.