Cafe4Racer...QC issues and dont stand by product

[sooprvylyn]

Just wanted to post my experience with Cafe4Racer since they sell a lot of Brick parts for custom builds:

I have purchased MANY MANY parts from this company for a k1100 ground-up build, probably well over $2000 in parts.  Such a build takes quite a while to complete, as Im sure you can guess.  So the problem is that I purchased an exhaust collector from them to build out my custom exhaust.  I purchased this near the start of my build in early 2022, so it has been a little while since the purchase.  I did not get my bike fully assembled until about 1 month ago when I finally got the bike started again.  The collector failed on all 4 header pipe connections within 3 rides.  The failure was a perfectly clean break at the "welds", which were not so much welds but rather weak tack welds.

When I contacted them about this, they ignored my email.  I resent the email 2 more times, still ignored.  They only finally replied when I called them out on a public reviews site, and basically said too bad.  They didnt attempt any communication to reconcile or address an issue with a customer that has spent 1000s with them.  Just keep that in mind if you want to order anything from them, they arent likely to stand behind their product at all.


If there is a better place to post this in the forums please advise, Im happy to post this in a more appropriate are.

[Chaos]

That is pretty crappy customer service, you'd think a niche company would be more sensitive to image.  On the other hand I seem to remember factory headers for K100-1100's having some issues with separating pipes, BMW offered no help either. 

[sooprvylyn]

Yeah, I'm not an unreasonable person.  I wasn't expecting a whole heck of a lot since the part was ordered a while ago, but an acknowledgement of the issue and perhaps some attempt at a small credit or something would have gone a long way towards making them a company I could recommend instead of a company I am actively warning people about.  I sent them 3 separate emails about the issue and never got a response of any sort from them.  Not until I posted a review on trust pilot did they say anything at all.

Whats worse? They are still selling this poorly manufactured collector(and various iterations of it) on their site to new customers.  Assuredly there will be many other customers who will experience this same failure on this part.

it's a shame they dont take care of their customers.

[sooprvylyn]

A pic of the issue

[sooprvylyn]

some pics of the build

[Chaos]

Looks nice!  I like the battery cover under-seat-tail-extension piece, gives the bike a much more finished look that many of the K cafe's I've seen. 

[sooprvylyn]

Thanks, that rear fender piece(and battery tray cover its attached to) is made by a bloke in UK who does a few other stainless sheet parts for k bikes.  He did the radiator cover as well as the coil cover(not visible here) on this bike too. Def wanted to have something to keep the road grime off.

[frankenduck]

I like the BMW paint scheme.

[sooprvylyn]

Thanks. 

I learned a LOT about auto paint on this project.  If you ever want to do it, you don't need 2k paint, it takes FOREVER to dry, which exacerbates potential for runs.  1k is perfectly serviceable and dries nice and quick.  The base pearl and clear were 1k paints, the stripes were 2k...and they took me about 12 hours to apply (very very carefully, and still minor bleeds under the tape). I'll actually be redo-ing the engine spoiler when I do a matching helmet.  Needs some minor modding to accommodate the exhaust, necessitating a repaint. sheesh.

[Laitch]

Snazzy! Excellent use of red accents from front to back, and mood lighting on the engine compartment. Please supply a close-up of whatever is going on with that extension from the rearset next to the shock absorber.

[sooprvylyn]

Haha, that extension is the passenger footpeg.  its in the up position which is why it looks weird.  The seat cowl is removable to convert to a brat style seat for 2-up riding. My wife wouldnt let me make it a solo seater, so I had to get creative to have my cake and eat it too. That seat fabrication with the removable cowl was a LOT of fun to do....by that I mean it was super hard.  I'll see if I have a closer pic I can share

[sooprvylyn]

here you go

[sooprvylyn]

BTW, I posted more pics in the custom build channel if you want to see a couple more.