KAWASAKI.COM PARTS DIAGRAMS - GONE???

JoeK wrote: I must speak in Kawasaki's defense. I can't speak for Kawasaki, but I can say that this is absolutely untrue. We are not a bunch of snot nose punks who were born after these motorcycles were made. Kawasaki is seriously working on restoring the Parts Diagrams. These go back almost 50 years. The data the diagrams when they were originated was all micro fiche. Computers didn't even exist. It is an enormous task to reproduce these diagrams online. The first round of data contained over 2,000,000 parts just back to 1984.

As evidenced by the people who have contacted Kawasaki and received personal responses with their parts diagrams, this is very important to Kawasaki.

I urge you to continue to contact Kawasaki with your concerns.

No offense intended, but I much as I would like to believe Kawasaki cares I must say this is a load of B.S. The diagrams were ALREADY in digital format and were ALREADY available to anyone with internet access. So at this point there is absolutely ZERO effort required to reproduce the diagrams online - those existing diagrams could very easily be made accessible again. Let's face it - Kawasaki simply does not care one iota about providing support for folks with older machines. Their attitude is screw you; if you don't like it buy a new bike. Sad - but true.

I was one of the first to contact them (in a very polite fashion by the way) and I didn't even receive a reply. That's some great customer support! Personally I think they, like so many big companies, are very short-sighted. What could be a better advertisement for the quality of their products than 25 - 40 year old Kawasaki motorcycles still on the road?

Dr. Gamma is correct, and I'm betting no one will ever see any resurrection of the older diagrams on Kawasaki.com. Also, for your information computers existed LONG before any KZ model! Take it from one who has worked on them since the mid-1960's! Ed

JoeK wrote: [
As evidenced by the people who have contacted Kawasaki and received personal responses with their parts diagrams, this is very important to Kawasaki.

Agreed. The folks at Kawasaki I've heard from have been helpful and supportive. They all get why we want the parts diagrams back and they want them back too.

I'm not sure why it's taking so long. But I'm sure it's a big job. Maybe there are people at Kaw who don't think this is as high a priority as we think it is. I honestly don't know.

But there are good people at Kawasaki advocating for us. And I appreciate the work they're doing.

JoeK wrote:

Dr. Gamma wrote:

Dr. Gamma wrote: Just sent my email to KMC. You know the sad part, the person reading our emails, and their boss were both born after our motorcycles were made!!!! I really don't think any of the higher ups at KMC really give a flying f**k about us and our classic old Kawasaki's. Its sad but most likely true. They want to sell new units. Not cater to people that in their mind are just too old to even think about buying another new unit from them!!!

Just think now we will have to go down to that big new Kawasaki dealership and deal with the 18 year old snot nose punk in the AC/DC t-shirt and the purple spiked hair and be insulted by him as he tries to look up the little part we need to get our 1973 Z1 900 running again. Some college-bred moron decided to remove those older parts diagrams I bet.

Welcome to the way big business in America works in 2014.

I knew this is how it would end up.

I must speak in Kawasaki's defense. I can't speak for Kawasaki, but I can say that this is absolutely untrue. We are not a bunch of snot nose punks who were born after these motorcycles were made. Kawasaki is seriously working on restoring the Parts Diagrams. These go back almost 50 years. The data the diagrams when they were originated was all micro fiche. Computers didn't even exist. It is an enormous task to reproduce these diagrams online. The first round of data contained over 2,000,000 parts just back to 1984.

As evidenced by the people who have contacted Kawasaki and received personal responses with their parts diagrams, this is very important to Kawasaki.

I urge you to continue to contact Kawasaki with your concerns.

For the record, I was disappointed when I received absolutely no response from Kawasaki regarding the removal of the parts diagrams.

650ed wrote:
No offense intended, but I much as I would like to believe Kawasaki cares I must say this is a load of B.S. The diagrams were ALREADY in digital format and were ALREADY available to anyone with internet access. So at this point there is absolutely ZERO effort required to reproduce the diagrams online - those existing diagrams could very easily be made accessible again. Let's face it - Kawasaki simply does not care one iota about providing support for folks with older machines. Their attitude is screw you; if you don't like it buy a new bike. Sad - but true. BTW, I was one of the first to contact them (in a very polite fashion by the way) and I didn't even receive a reply. That's some great customer support! Personally I think they, like so many big companies, are very short-sighted. What could be a better advertisement for the quality of their products than 25 - 40 year old Kawasaki motorcycles still on the road? Dr. Gamma is correct, and I'm betting no one will ever see any resurrection of the older diagrams on Kawasaki.com. Also, for your information computers existed LONG before any KZ model! Take it from one who has worked on them since the mid-1960's! Ed

Ed, I wouldn't dare walk into your shop and tell you how EASY it is to do a job and that it should take ZERO effort. Just because something is ONLINE in digital format does not mean it's readily accessible or even legal for people to use. I've been programming since 1980 so I don't have the same number of years in my profession as you. If you want to tell me I'm full of BS, maybe you have the .NET, .SQL, .JS, Website development experience we're currently looking for to do this work. I'm not here to start a war, I'm here because I'm a concerned 1977 KZ1000 owner. I have personally spoken with Kawasaki employees about my classic motorcycle. They share our love.

JoeK, so you actually are saying if not considering that there are not enough knowledgeable professionals involved, or they don't have a clue about how to figure out how to link the old spare parts platform to the new home page...?

Z650Spirit wrote: JoeK, so you actually are saying if not considering that there are not enough knowledgeable professionals involved, or they don't have a clue about how to figure out how to link the old spare parts platform to the new home page...?

The "old parts platform" no longer exists. If it does exist, you're more than welcome to use it. If it were that easy we would definitely "add a link".

Alaska Fun Center hosts what looks like a fairly extensive Parts Diagram set:
www.alaskafuncenter.com/pages/OemParts?aribrand=KUS

JoeK wrote:

650ed wrote:
No offense intended, but I much as I would like to believe Kawasaki cares I must say this is a load of B.S. The diagrams were ALREADY in digital format and were ALREADY available to anyone with internet access. So at this point there is absolutely ZERO effort required to reproduce the diagrams online - those existing diagrams could very easily be made accessible again. Let's face it - Kawasaki simply does not care one iota about providing support for folks with older machines. Their attitude is screw you; if you don't like it buy a new bike. Sad - but true. BTW, I was one of the first to contact them (in a very polite fashion by the way) and I didn't even receive a reply. That's some great customer support! Personally I think they, like so many big companies, are very short-sighted. What could be a better advertisement for the quality of their products than 25 - 40 year old Kawasaki motorcycles still on the road? Dr. Gamma is correct, and I'm betting no one will ever see any resurrection of the older diagrams on Kawasaki.com. Also, for your information computers existed LONG before any KZ model! Take it from one who has worked on them since the mid-1960's! Ed

Ed, I wouldn't dare walk into your shop and tell you how EASY it is to do a job and that it should take ZERO effort. Just because something is ONLINE in digital format does not mean it's readily accessible or even legal for people to use. I've been programming since 1980 so I don't have the same number of years in my profession as you. If you want to tell me I'm full of BS, maybe you have the .NET, .SQL, .JS, Website development experience we're currently looking for to do this work. I'm not here to start a war, I'm here because I'm a concerned 1977 KZ1000 owner. I have personally spoken with Kawasaki employees about my classic motorcycle. They share our love.

I wasn't trying to offend you, and I apologize if you took it the wrong way, but I think you are being hoodwinked by the folks at Kawasaki. You tried to make it sound like the parts diagrams needed to be converted from microfiche to digital format (otherwise, why would you have even mentioned fiche?) It would have taken ZERO effort to leave the existing parts diagram application running for the older models since it was already operational. If Kawasaki wanted to discontinue other functionality that could have been done by removing those specific program modules. As far as legality is concerned I find it rather hard to understand why Kawasaki would not be able to grant access to their own data. If that was true, how did they manage to do so over the past years?

It seems counter-intuitive that some motorcycle parts dealers can provide access to the old diagrams, and do it legally, but Kawasaki, with all their resources (Kawasaki Motors Corp., USA annual revenue = $1.6 billion), cannot. That makes me think they maybe could try a little harder? :blink:

Bottom line - I still believe Kawasaki has no intention whatsoever of putting the parts diagrams for older models back online. If they ever do I will humbly apologize - but I'm not holding my breath. Ed

I don't see any reason to think the folks at Kaw are lying to us. If they had no intention of posting them they'd just say 30 years is the cutoff. And wouldn't bother to be on this forum.

I take them at their word that they are trying.

Really all this mess sounds like if Kawasaki USA has change hands, and the company PO stepped out trying to do as much harm as possible LOL

If the old information was important to Kawasaki, it seems that it would have been a good idea to solve the parts diagram issues prior to scrapping the old platform. It looks like they are trying to resolve the issue as an afterthought....perhaps after the backlash from owners. I just hope they get it all straightened out soon.

How about a link to downloadable .pdf files?

I never got a reply from them on this subject either....

toolmaker wrote: I never got a reply from them on this subject either....

Nor I. As has been pointed by, notably by Jeff Saunders, there has been a paradigm shift at Kawasaki USA. Parts for 30 year+ older models are no longer stocked, not can they be searched for on line at the official Kawasaki site. This is a permanent change in corporate policy. There are still several avenues that allow for searching for older part numbers and cross-listed models but all older parts have to be ordered through Kawasaki-Japan (which takes a dedicated dealer).