Cheap levers, bargain or false economy?

A word of warning, I put a cheap front brake lever on my bike. Did track day at oulton last week that could of ended in disaster! Second to last session of day, dry track, full of confidence, braking as hard as I dare and all is well in the world. Approach Hizzys chicane and lever comes alway to bar, slows down but not enough! luckily use run off cursing my brake overhaul and braided lines conversion wondering what I had done wrong. Cruise back to paddock to find reach adjuster wheel that was held in with a circlip was GONE! Luckily had original tatty one in car and reused it. They have a different method of adjustment which when studied which seems safer. If you have used a cheap lever take a look from the underside to see how the adjuster wheel is secured. It might make you think "what if?" and fit a better quality one.

[yorkie_chris]

Hein Gericke make some pattern ones that seem decent

[flymo]

I had a similar experience a while back. I replaced a front brake lever with a cheap copy from ebay, I was extremely lucky to have it fail in my garage rather than at the end of a straight.

As YC mentions, there are some good quality replacement parts but in my experience there are planty of crap ones to. Make sure you get them from a reputable seller.

Think it was a BIKE IT brand one, came with bike so not deffo.

Dont mess with brakes!. I have seen people fit pattern levers to race bikes and then cause the front brakes to jam on (one guy on a minitwin crashed at clearways this season due to the bike he had being fitted with a pattern brake lever).

Often the plunger pin is not the correct shape or size and can cause either spongey brakes or jam on the brakes when they get warm.

This makes my blood run cold ............. I would say that the ONE part of the bike that should not be fitted with cheap , no-name Hwa-Fong Jailing Cheng Shing parts is the bloody brake system . Of course somebody is gonna come along and say theirs is fine in a minute .

[sv4me]

Originally Posted by SV650Racer

Often the plunger pin is not the correct shape or size and can cause either spongey brakes or jam on the brakes when they get warm.

+1

I bent the original lever on my ninja and replaced it with a pattern piece. Cue much spongeyness, lever coming all the way back to the bar on full span adjustment and eventually brakes overheating and loss of most the braking force. I even went past my driveway the 2nd time out because I couldnt brake hard enough. Went straight in the bin after that. Was all down to the plunger pin not being the right size

Dont skimp on brake levers, brakes come in handy

[andrewsmith]

I think Luke Millar had an terrfiying experience with a fellow racer and cheapo copies.

If your looking online http://stores.ebay.co.uk/Huntersmotorcycles the levers they get in are good quality.
or pay a wad and get a OEM lever

[johnnyrod]

I've never had a problem with cheapo replacements till I got the SV. My Suzuki dealer sold me a pattern lever and it looked fine, fitted well etc. After repeated hard use on span seeting no.1 (widest) the adjuster wroekd itself round to 6 (smallest), went pop while braking at 9/10ths at Rockingham. Crapped meself and ended up in the gravel trap, thankfully a minor one. Back home, when squeezed really hard you could see the adjuster moving slightly. Got a Suzuki one and did the same, no movement at all.

Originally Posted by Matts-Yokes

Chinese cr*p you get what you pay for. For the sake of a few extra quid buy a genuine part, if that fails you have a huge company to go back to and complain at rather than an ebay flybynight who will disappear.

You can get cheap billet levers, they are sh*te too!

Matt, I've heard this cack for years.

Ebay "fly by nighters" that have a positive feedback rating higher than 100 aren't going to "Diasapear overnight". People are always slagging Ebay shops off and yet you show me a company that is not on Ebay that you can see thousands of direct customer feeback ratings. You can't! You show me a system where the shop that is not on Ebay is forced to be squeaky clean or the system will flag up unsatisfied customers.

It could be argued that the Ebay feedback system is the greatest thing to happen to Customer service in this country. You know (if you have read the feedback before buying) excactly what kind of service you are going to get.

I use cheap levers on my race bike because I break them a lot. I buy them on Ebay and the service I get is exemplary! I'll buy from them again because they are brilliant and I posted so in their feedback section.

And from your recent posts, I'd suggest you take an leaf out of their book.

C