HJC HJ-V5 Sun Visor Replacement for the Symax II - Worth the long wait?

After our return from the Nova Scotia/PEI trip in late July, I removed the internal Sun Visor on my HJC Symax II only to break one of the tabs that secures the visor to the retraction mechanism. This is the second time this has happened in the few years I've owned this helmet. The first time, I was able to visit the local BMW and obtain a replacement. Not this time! They were already on backorder with other customers also waiting for replacements.
A quick check online reflected that other sources were also hopelessly stuck in backorder mode, too. One glimmer of hope surfaced when Competition Accessories' website showed that they had them in stock. I quickly ordered up two. Disappointment set in a day or so later when the order was acknowledged and... they were also showing backordered.
Competition Accessories can be praised for keeping on top of the situation, emailing me updates on the order status once a month. However, three months later, I started to get concerned and took the opportunity to email the folks at HJC to see what was up. I was getting suspicious of a factory defect that was causing the widespread availability problems. Here's my email exchange with HJC:
To: parts@hjchelmets.com
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HJC Parts Center <parts@hjchelmets.com> | Tue, Oct 19, 2010 at 6:51 PM | |
To: Brian Young
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Brian Young | Wed, Oct 20, 2010 at 6:45 AM | |
To: HJC Parts Center <parts@hjchelmets.com>
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I never received an answer to that last email. :-(
The friendly reminder emails continued from Competition Accessories all the way into November. I even received a phone call from them indicating that they were finally being told the shields were due in at the end of November! It was nice to get a call from them. It was certainly not their problem.
Finally, a week or so before Christmas, I FINALLY received the two visors as ordered after almost 5 months!! How, come on HJC, what's up with that?
Back to being suspicious of a factory defect, I decided to compare the old and new visors. It took me a bit, but I found the broken one (glad I saved it) and was able to compare it to the new one. From what I could tell, there wasn't ANY difference. The photos below speak for themselves.
Here's the original "broken" HJC visor
And here's the new replacement HJC visorMy conclusion after the long wait... It must have been a Chinese supplier problem and an unrectified design problem remains IMHO. The moral of the long story... Consider a spare if you routinely remove the visor for cleaning.
I'll probably change my ways in 2011 and NOT remove it for cleaning. How about you?
Happy New Year to all!!