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How Bad are Chinese Motorcycles Really? 7 Biggest Breakdowns (3 months, 9 630 Miles Through Africa)
Nov 15, 2022
We all know Chinese motorcycles are not the same quality as Japanese or German bikes. But how bad are they really? We tried to find out by riding two Chinese 200cc delivery bikes from Cape Town to Cairo. It took us 90 days and 9 630 miles to get there. Here are our 7 biggest breakdowns on the trip. #ChineseBikes #AdventureBike #DualSport
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Now we all know Chinese bikes are rubbish, but how bad are they really
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We rode from Cape Town in South Africa to Cairo in Egypt over three months
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9,600 miles to find out. And in this video I want to share our seven major breakdowns that we encountered on this trip
0:23
Hi, I'm Franco from adventurebiketroop.com And in this video I'm just going to chat about the seven major breakdowns we faced on our Chinese delivery bikes on our Cape to Cairo trip
0:33
now we Bought two brand new 200cc Chinese delivery bikes. They look like the old Suzuki GN250s almost exactly the same same
0:43
Paint job everything. It's just a 200cc. I think it's a old
0:48
Honda type engine in there and but anyways we bought the bikes new that we did the first service at 20 kilometers
0:55
the oil was quite dirty with metal filings in there and but anyways we were worried that we're
1:00
not going to make it a lot of people said we're not going to make it out of the country even and
1:05
but we said well whatever if if we break down and the bikes die we'll just ship it back or leave it
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there and fly back home so the first day we rode all the way to the namibian border it's a full
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day's riding through namibia went fine through zambia went fine malawi went fine so by this stage
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We trusted these bikes. This was almost halfway. Well, a third of the way a month later
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And and then the first Actual thing that qualifies as a breakdown the bikes didn't stop is we ended up riding at night in Tanzania on the western side
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Someone said it's going to be a tar road all the way up It'll take us a day or two, but it was not it was a dirt road
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It took us seven days in mud and rain and dust but that first night
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we were caught in the dark and we rode all the way to Sambawanga. It was half
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past 11 at night we got into town. There was no place to stay next to the road and
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and on that road our bulbs started rattling out. So my wife lost her
2:06
headlight, I lost my taillight. So the first breakdown was bulbs just rattling
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out. That happened right throughout the trip. I had a lot of replacements so it
2:15
wasn't a big issue. Now the second breakdown was a bigger problem. The next
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day after this crazy night we were in the middle of nowhere there's no cell
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phone signal we don't even have anyone to phone we're in the middle of the forest on this dirt road and my bike just dies out after going over a little
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bump. So immediately I thought something rattled loose. So I start taking off the
2:37
seat replacing the CDI, I had a spare CDI, replaced the regulator, nothing. The bike
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just cranks but won't start and after a while my wife said but it's out it's
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almost like it's not getting fuel and I didn't take the time to just relax and
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think things through and she was right so I drained the fuel from the
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carburetor float bowl put it back cranked it and it started and so it must
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have been dirty fuel but I know this at the stage so we rode to the hotel where
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we stayed that night next morning I took the carburetor out while I opened it
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up, I just twisted it, I didn't know you can take it out even back then so I removed the float
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removed the jets, cleaned out the jets, sprayed everything with carb cleaner and it started after
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that but it wouldn't stay running. It would run for a while then overflow from the fuel overflow
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and then I lead to close the tap then it runs until it dies then I open it again so I had to
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ride like this open close open close as it overflows from the overflow so somehow I damaged the float
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But I didn't know this. I took it, I rode like this to town About 10 kilometers and the first mechanic we saw was this little
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thin roof with bikes lying on their heads in the dirt and I just pointed to the carburetor, they immediately took it out
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checked it and they tried to set the float and then decided no it not going to work So they rode off on a bicycle came back with a carb kit for that specific bike Chinese bikes are everywhere in Africa They replaced it About later for the labor and the parts we were on our way
4:11
But this guy was determined that I need to go for a test ride on the back. So he, I said no, no, no, no, no
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And he put me on the back of my bike, and we rode through town, well, raced through town, through the buses, without helmets
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Just the scariest part of the whole trip. But anyways, the bike was fine and no problems after that
5:07
And I later realized it must have been from dirty fuel that we filled up from a can in Malawi
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There was a shortage and we had to fill up from yellow cans behind the garage
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So it must have been dirty fuel. So that was the second breakdown
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The third major breakdown was on that same dirt road. this is now all the brake parts on this one road, the mud was so thick that it packed on the disc brakes in the front
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and everywhere is just mud and my bike just wouldn't brake anymore
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There was so much mud jammed in the brake caliper and discs or pads
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So, stupid as I am, I took WD-40 or Q20 spray lubricant and I just sprayed the brakes good and proper
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and obviously after that my brakes didn't work at all. So I rode on my rear brake through Rwanda, Uganda, Kenya, Ethiopia
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Well, in Kenya I fixed it. But anyways, so at least the mud was gone and my wheel would turn
6:07
Because my wheel actually locked up. That's how I felt it. Now my wheel would turn, but it wouldn't break
6:12
Because it's just contaminated with oil. That was the third breakdown. So nothing serious yet
6:18
So then we went through Rwanda, Uganda. every 2000 kilometers I would change the oil and wash out the oil strainer. I would adjust the
6:29
chains every single day. And then in Kenya we got a flat tire. Or I got a flat tire. It was thundering
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and raining. It was getting late. We were aiming for a nice spot to camp that we saw in the Lonely
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Planet. But then I got this flat and I couldn't repair it. So luckily we were in front of a hotel
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But when I say hotel, it was a building site that we were trying to make a hotel. And this guy
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friendly guy let us in matey I tried to change the tire but every time I pump it
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up it would just deflate and I saw there were small little tears in the spare
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tires that I had so both spare tires had little tears in it so the next morning
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who took us in this old Toyota Cressida or crown to the nearest tire repair shop
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again I think five dollars later tire was repaired new tube in and we were on
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my way and I think it was a nail that was in my tire so that was the fourth breakdown so then we
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reached Kenya and Nairobi this was the halfway stop at the jungle jungle junction the whole
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place is full of overlanding trucks bikes people working on their bikes there's a bike mechanic
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there and so I took our four days there while we waited for Sudanese visas to go through everything
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on the bikes so I took a lot of stuff apart cleaned out everything made sure everything is
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still tight the bolts and stuff and I realized my chain is a bit stretched and the sprockets
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is starting to show wear now this was almost halfway so this was about four thousand miles
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four and a half thousand miles in and I almost thought of replacing the chain and sprockets there but I thought ah it they still fine we got a spare chain why not see if we can make it to Egypt That was a big mistake but anyways at the time I thought it a great idea
8:17
And the next day we had to ride to Ethiopia, this was bandit country back then, it's a tar road now, but this was, it's a road full of volcanic rocks, if you look at Charlie and Ewan's long way down, you would see they broke their suspension on the GS
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We also met people on a high luck who broke their suspension. So we had to ride this road, so we took it slow, like 15 miles per hour the whole day
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and we were worried about bandits. There was a French guy that was shot through his cheek two weeks earlier
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So it was quite an anxious road to take. And somewhere through the day, I just felt something is wrong
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And I stopped, and I saw my chain bolt, the adjusting bolt on my chain has rattled out
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So I couldn't adjust the chain anymore. Now the chain is slack, and then it's tightened
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So I ended up taking a flat piece of rock, there were so many rocks here, so a flat piece of rock, jammed it in there, cable tied it, and then duct taped it, and that had to hold the tension in the chain
9:13
Anyways, we rode like that and I made it to the border of Ethiopia, but we had to be at the border at 6 o'clock, and about an hour before the border closed, my wife had a flat tire, in the middle of nowhere
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I took out the... I replaced the tire quickly, the tube, and when I wanted to pump it, there was just mud spurting out of my cycle pump, because of all the rain in Tanzania earlier
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And luckily, a family from the UK stopped in an old Discovery 1, and they helped us change the tire, or pump it up with a tire pump
9:49
We ended up not making the border, we had to stay in the worst place ever. I had so many bed bugs for two weeks after
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But anyways, we made it. So that was the second flat tire and the sixth breakdown
10:03
The next morning as I rode through to Ethiopia over the border, I felt my gearbox didn't feel right
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I thought it was the end of the gearbox. I broke it and I'll find a replacement engine and gearbox in Ethiopia
10:16
Because by then, by this stage, we knew these bikes are all over Africa. So I didn't even worry
10:20
I just thought, well, even if it's $1,000 or whatever, I'll just buy a new engine and gearbox
10:26
But then I just checked again and I saw my chain was so tight it was like completely straight
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You couldn't move it at all and it was obviously because of the adjusting bolt that rattled out
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So I just bought a new bolt. It was a couple of scents And I have just bought six or seven of them because they kept rattling out at that stage
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So bought a couple of them, put it back in, gearbox, absolutely fine
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So I was so impressed with my bike at this stage Then about two days into Sudan
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We slept at a hotel We actually parked the bikes inside the hotel
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Because we were still worried that people will steal our luggage off it But in Sudan they just laughed at us
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They said no one will even touch it or look at it But anyways we got it inside
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Next morning we got out of the hotel Saw my wife's tire is flat
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So again a staple So this was the third flat tire that was not a natural puncture
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The first one was a nail The second was a piece of glass. This was in Kenya and this one was a staple
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We quickly changed the tire. I bought a spare tire for dirt cheap there
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Like I said all these parts are freely available everywhere. There are a couple of guys watching me change the tire
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And we had tea with them. So that was the seventh breakdown
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So from there on we didn't have any proper breakdowns. We ran out of fuel in one of the
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oasis in the western desert in the Sahara it's there's nothing for 500
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kilometers then there's a small little town they call it the oasis but it's
11:57
just a town full of mud huts and stuff and and we were out of fuel in one of
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these small little towns all the fuel stations were empty and luckily some
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restaurant owner said he has a can of fuel at his home so we followed him home and he cheated us and charged us four times the price of the fuel in Egypt But that was still half of what we pay back home
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So everyone won there. He thought he's cheating us and we got a bargain. So anyways, we rode off
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from there. And then the last day, this was, I'm not joking, the very last day, we slept in the
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western desert in the dunes. We had to reach Alexandria that day. We had to be there because
12:36
we had a flight back home two days later and we had to sort out the shipping. So we had about 600
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kilometers or 400 miles to ride that day and as I pulled out that morning I could feel my bike
12:49
wouldn't accelerate anymore without jerking quite heavily. My sprocket was shark tooth front and rear
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you could see as I tried to pull away the chain lifted up so I immediately stopped next to the
13:01
road replaced the chain with the new one and then it wouldn't pull away at all. Back then I didn't
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know you can just swap around the sprocket or just turn it around but anyways i put back the old
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chain and nursed it if you accelerate when you pull away you had to nurse it to get up to speed
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and then it was fine after that and i rode like that for 600 kilometers that day and we ended up
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reaching alexandria uh at nine o'clock at night it was pitch dark it got dark at five o'clock
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5 p.m so we rode in the dark our lights weren't working anymore my wife's bikes all didn't work
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anymore. We rode through peak traffic, six lanes this way and that. But anyways, we made it safe
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there and the Chinese bikes made it and we were like super, super impressed. The funny thing is
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two days later we had to ship it back. As we rode into the harbor, my bike died and it wouldn't start
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again. So I pushed it the last couple of hundred, well, last couple of meters to the shipping
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container. But it rode on its own steam into the harbor at least. So I see that as a win
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So when the bikes eventually got home two months later on the ship, I fixed up my bike to commute with
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And I rode it for say another two or three years after that
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20 miles to work, 20 miles back in the afternoon without any issues
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I never had any issues with my bike after it had a proper service back home
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I think at the end my bike had more than 20,000 kilometers on it
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That's about 12,000 miles without any issues engine was still perfect. I just
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set the valve clearance after 15,000 kilometers. It wasn't even far out
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So, my wife's bike was slightly out on the exhaust and you could see
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a little burn there. But that was after 15,000 kilometers. No issues at all
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So, are Chinese bikes reliable? I don't know whether all of them are. These were Daihuns
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You can see them all over Africa. If I had to ride through Africa again, I must
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admit I would feel safer on a Chinese bike just because there's parts available everywhere and
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it's easy to fix and with my knowledge that I have now I wouldn't worry at all because there's
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nothing really that you can't fix yourself. In the end the bikes didn't leave us stranded
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Every time we could make a plan if I had to do this again I would definitely consider a Chinese
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delivery bike again just because there are parts available everywhere and the mechanics or the
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Bush Mechanics, they can all fix these bikes because they know these bikes
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They look exactly the same everywhere. So, if I had to go on my XR650L and something breaks and I need a part, I would have to order it and it had to be couriered there
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And that could mean two or three weeks wait. So, in the end, the Chinese bikes really made the trip very easy
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We blended into the sealery or the locals. We didn't have any issues from police at checkpoints
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because they didn't understand these small bikes traveling. So let me know if you want to know anything else about this trip
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If there's any questions that you want to ask about the trip from Cape to Cairo
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let me know in the comments and I'll make a video on that. And thank you for joining. I'll see you next week
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