Prices

A rough guide for prices is given below (UK only). As always, you could do worse than buy copy of Motorcycle News (out every Wednesday) to find out what they are currently selling for. The prices below are given for both private and dealer sales. These were correct in Spring of 2001.

Model Year Mileage Price (£)
C1 98 / R 11000 3800 / 4800
98 / S 8000 4300 / 5000
C2 99 / T 5000 4500 / 5100
99 / V 4000 4700 / 5300

Problems

There are a few things to look out for, but more often than not, there is nothing wrong with these bikes. I won't go through the obvious like chains, steering head bearings etc etc but if you are buying second hand, you may want to test drive and check for the following.

Carb Icing

A misfire that also feelslike the bike is runnung out of petrol. It normaly shows during high speed motorway work. It does not require the air temperature to be below 0deg - in fact it can occur in temperatures as high as 10deg. The early C1 models were worst, with the C2 models having a revised heating system. Nonetheless, both were issued factory recalls to cure (with varying degrees of success) the problem. Check . try the following.

Also in the forum, Yorkie reconned the following works.

1 turn the fuel off.
2 remove the fuel knob.
3 undo and remove the tank bolts.
4 lift the tank a bit and disconect the fuel pipe.
5 put the tank down making sure you don't damage the tap.
6 have bike on side stand, and have some cloths ready.
7 undo the white bottle with the green fluid in, and block the pipe to the cylinder block with something you can easily remove again. I used a yellow ear plug.
8 clean the crap out of the filter it the little bottle.
9 connect all that back together.
10 undo the pipes at the top righthand side of the carbs.
11 now get the overflow pipe from the coolent reservoir tank, and blow into it .This will then push fluid through the system and up the pipes, when it is freeflowing out the two ends, connect them back together.
12 WASH OFF THE SPILT COOLENT BUT DONT GET ANY IN THE FUEL PIPE.
13 rebuild in reverse order.
14 top your coolent tank back up.
job done.....hopefully....

Yet another possible cure

Thanks for that Kev, I noticed that you had some stuff on carb icing, found this if you are interested.  
had same problem after xmas took it to kawasaki they said carb heaters where fitted and filter was fine .gave me a bottle of fuchs pro FST costs about £7.00.fill your tank with petrol and put about a quarter of the bottle in to start with.after that put a cap full in as and when the weather dictakes. since doing this not had a problem with mine . use mine at 4 in the morning and was having big problems noy any more.hope this helps. Thanks. Si.

Gearbox Problems

There are quite a few reports of encountering false neutrals on upchanges. I have suffered from this but always put it down to laziness and snicking up the box rather than positive shifting. Adjusting the gear lever also helps.

Also, there have been one or two reports of the gear selection going AWOL on down changes. This is seams to be quite serious but very rare.

More Gearbox Advice - http://www.zx9-r.net/Forum/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=324

Engine

A couple of people have reported annoying engine vibrations between 5-8k rpm. Most bikes are VERY smooth. I am not sure what the problem could be - poor selection of parts, bad running in etc, etc. One pattern that is starting to emerge is that the vibrations are stronger on bikes with race end-cans - probably because the hanger isn't quite as strong as the OEM. Also, there is no intermediate supports in the '9 - supported at the head then the footrest - thats it.

Just Done the shims and things aint right? http://www.zx9-r.net/Forum/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=286