Everyone who owns a bike knows very well that they’ll eventually take a spill. Whenever a motorcycle hits the ground, the fairings are always the first thing to go. On one hand, this means that the internal components are safe, but it also means that those aggressive curves are run up with scratches. Motorcycle fairings made by OEM suppliers can cost around $3,000, and most bikers don’t just have this sort of money lying around. Naturally, when something is too expensive, people look towards the Internet.
Aftermarket fairings are available for under $1,000, but it can be hard to weed out the bad vendors. Sadly, there are numerous Chinese manufacturers that produce poor quality components. There are also foreign firms that take your money and run, so to speak. These transactions are usually conducted outside of eBay, so Pay Pal doesn’t offer protection on them. Moreover, very unethical vendors will promise that they ship injection molded fairings but send inferior compression molded designs as well.
Nevertheless, there are also plenty of legitimate firms on the Internet. These are the businesses that can save you a lot of money. Companies that are easy to contact and have a phone number are usually far more legitimate than those that simply send emails in broken English. Legitimate firms will usually be able to answer their own phone. This is a sign that the company in question might be on the up and up.
Nationally based companies usually care about their reputation, so these also tend to be far better than fly by night firms. It is important to remember, though, that aftermarket fairings aren’t a bad idea by themselves. In fact, some suppliers can ship products that are technically superior to OEM designs. It is simply a case of the buyer needing to beware.