Tonn's DRZ400 rack report

[Chinggis]

Ordered two of these, one for myself and one for a friend:

DRZ 400 S Aluminum Cargo Rack Deluxe Version
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Mike was quick to respond to e-mails and quick to send the items, and also gave a small discount by sending them both together. They were packed well and looked good out of the box. The welding isn't perfect but it is OK.

They are fiddly to fit. If you need to remove your seat or the rear plastics it is a real pain.

Unfortunately, both of them were out of true. On my bike, they just barely fitted on, and not straight, with the rear of the rack about 10mm to the left of the bike's centreline instead of nicely centred. It also was a bit of a drama to fit because it wasn't quite straight.

Neither of them would fit my friend's bike at all, neither rack would fit at all and he needed to modify it by linishing part of one of the mounting points a bit. He could eventually get it to fit, but still offset to the left of the bike's centreline on both bikes. Both bikes are only a couple of years old and the frames are not bent as far as we could tell (his has never even been dropped, and mine only lightly). Anyway, both racks fit both bikes the same way and that's too much of a coincidence.

We were really disappointed that they could be so incorrect, and sent some photos to Mike. He said "I pulled an alumium rack from the jig today, bolted it to the bike and it was as straight as an arrow. Every rack I make comes from the same jig and they do not move while being welded. How it could be that far off is beyond me." Well I don't see why both our bikes should be bent so it must be the rack itself. Sure enough when we measured the distance between the forward and rear mounting points on the racks, it is 150 mm on the left side and 155 mm on the right side which would make it skew to the left. Both racks have this 5mm difference. This explains why they don't fit properly.

Mike offered to send new ones out but I think it's a problem with his jig so there was no point, any new ones would have been the same. He also offered a refund but we figured better to have a badly fitting rack than none at all (none of the alternatives really suited our purpose). It was a disappointing experience and I had hoped that Mike would at least check his jig - maybe he was setting it up on a bent bike?

However, even though the racks still don't fit quite right on the bikes they do work really well. Their shape is practical and the black looks good. If they had fit better and squarely on the bike they would have been perfect. As it is, they are practical and look good from a distance, but just not from behind.