Mine came with the damaged box as well. The guard was not damaged. It is a nice unit. I put it on when I did the oil change since the fairing would already be removed.
So it is worth it to you, but not to me. And now that I said that, I'm pretty sure I will catch a rock in my radiator tomorrowSeveral of my buddies riding in groups at “spirited” paces have had rocks fly off the wheel from the guy in front of them and puncture their radiator. JB Weld is carried by all of us.
I've had my radiator holed, and holed another person's radiator, so it does happen especially if you ride occasionally with others. I do think the radiator guard is just to stop the biggest rocks (and maybe large insects?) as smaller rocks wouldn't penetrate your radiator anyway. If you don't ever ride with others then you are unlikely to ever need it.Looking at the guard, a good 20-25% of the area is material and the less is pass-through, so to speak. Is the extra protection worth the reduced airflow? Is it worth the investment and loss of cooling?
I just looked at my radiator after just 2000kms and it has a couple of reasonable sized dents in the fins. Our roads here in NZ are littered with gravel of all sizes due to constant roadworks, so fitting a guard is now a priority for me. Roads in Europe have far less rubbish and debris on them, so I guess YMMV - better to be safe than sorry.The box came damaged some, but luckily the guard was fine. Impressed with quality. No longer rollin naked! View attachment 50558
I purchased my GSX-S new and after only 1k miles or so, I was already noticing small impacts to the radiator from road debris. I wanted to add a radiator guard, but had the same concerns about it reducing the the amount of airflow making it to the radiator fins. I decided to try it since there's thousands of other guys running them without issue, so I ordered an Evotech guard. After several thousand miles, I've seen no difference in the effectiveness of the cooling system. Also, there's been no additional damage to the radiator, so it's definitely working as advertised.Looking at the guard, a good 20-25% of the area is material and the less is pass-through, so to speak. Is the extra protection worth the reduced airflow? I had many bikes with such radiators, ridden over 100k miles altogether and not once did anything happen to any of my radiators. And I tour the bikes, all over EU, every year, not just the fancy roads either. Is it worth the investment and loss of cooling?
I put the front extension all all my bikes and the rear on my daily.