Kawasaki Er400d, Kawasaki Ex400g, Kawasaki Ex400h, model year 2021. Filed by Kawasaki Motors Corp., U.S.A. and reported to NHTSA on 11 December 2020. 1,770 vehicles potentially affected.
What the notice says Kawasaki Motors Corp., U.S.A. (KMC) is recalling certain 2021 Z400 ABS (ER400D), Ninja 400 (EX400H) and Ninja 400 ABS (EX400G) motorcycles. The strength of the camshaft chain tensioner may be insufficient due to improper heat treatment, possibly causing it to be damaged.
Is your vehicle included? Check with your VIN at NHTSA, or ask a dealer. This page is an independent copy of the notice, kept so you can see what changed after it was published. It is not the authority, and the authority’s own text is the one to act on.
Kawasaki's own number for this recall: MC20-13. That is the number on the owner letter and on the dealer paperwork. 20V774 is the number NHTSA gave the same campaign, and the number this page is filed under. They are one recall, written two ways.
What owners ask about this recall
- Which vehicles does recall 20V774 cover?
- Kawasaki Er400D, Kawasaki Ex400G, Kawasaki Ex400H, model year 2021.
- What is wrong with them?
- Kawasaki Motors Corp., U.S.A. (KMC) is recalling certain 2021 Z400 ABS (ER400D), Ninja 400 (EX400H) and Ninja 400 ABS (EX400G) motorcycles. The strength of the camshaft chain tensioner may be insufficient due to improper heat treatment, possibly causing it to be damaged.
- What can happen if it is not put right?
- A damaged camshaft chain tensioner can cause the engine to stall, increasing the risk of a crash.
- Is there a fix yet?
- Yes, and it is free. KMC will notify owners, and dealers will replace the camshaft chain tensioner, free of charge. Note: Owners are advised to not ride their motorcycles until the repair has been completed. The recall began December 21, 2020. Owners may contact KMC customer service at 1-866-802-9381.
- What should I do now?
- Check your own vehicle by its VIN with NHTSA, which is the record to act on. Kawasaki calls this recall MC20-13, which is the number on the owner letter and the dealer paperwork.
Answered from the register this site holds. NHTSA is the record to act on.
What the authority says can happen if this is not fixed: “A damaged camshaft chain tensioner can cause the engine to stall, increasing the risk of a crash.”
affected
in the notice
caught
| Campaign | 20V774 |
|---|---|
| Filed by | Kawasaki Motors Corp., U.S.A. |
| System at fault | Engine And Engine Cooling:Engine:Hard Parts Internal/Mechanical |
| Reported to NHTSA | 11 December 2020 |
| Model years | 2021-2021 |
| Vehicles named | KAWASAKI ER400D, KAWASAKI EX400G, KAWASAKI EX400H |
This is not an ordinary campaign.
- Owners are told not to drive the vehicle at all. NHTSA applies this to a small minority of campaigns. 28 of the 1,399 we currently hold.
What the notice says today
The consequence
A damaged camshaft chain tensioner can cause the engine to stall, increasing the risk of a crash.
The remedy
KMC will notify owners, and dealers will replace the camshaft chain tensioner, free of charge. Note: Owners are advised to not ride their motorcycles until the repair has been completed. The recall began December 21, 2020. Owners may contact KMC customer service at 1-866-802-9381. KMC's number for this recall is MC20-13.
What it said before
This campaign is in the register but not yet in the dated wording archive, so we cannot yet say whether its text has moved. It enters the archive on the next pass.
This is one of 588 notices in the record whose component field names engine and engine cooling. Across that group the median wait before owners were written to was 47 days.
Last checked . No change has been recorded in the wording.
How to cite this record
Quoting the wording on this page means quoting a version, so the date belongs in the citation:
CarsMultiverse, recall 20V774, wording as read on 16 September 2026. https://carsmultiverse.com/recall/20v774/
The cross-border matches used on this site are deposited as a citable dataset: doi:10.5281/zenodo.22087136. The recall wording itself is published by the national authority named above and is theirs, not ours.
The recall record and its wording are published by the US National Highway Traffic Safety Administration and are US Government public domain. The dated archive, the comparison and any before-and-after above are CarsMultiverse. How fresh every engine behind this page is, is public on the status page. To check a specific vehicle, use NHTSA’s own VIN lookup.
Other Kawasaki notices we hold
- 25V363: 2025 BJ230A (W230 ABS) motorcycles
- 25V146: 2024 Ninja 500 (ABS, KRT Edition, KRT Edition SE ABS, SE ABS, SE 40th Anniversary Edition ABS), Z500 ABS, and Z500 SE ABS motorcycles
- 25V118: 2024 Z e-1 ABS and Ninja e-1 ABS motorcycles
- 24V680: 2024 Z7 Hybrid ABS and Ninja 7 Hybrid ABS motorcycles
- 24V270: 2024 ZR900C, ZR900E and ZR900N (Z900RS ABS, Z900RS CAFE ABS, and Z900RS SE ABS) motorcycles
- 24V221: 2023-2024 ZX400S and ZX400P (2023 Ninja ZX-4RR KRT Edition, 2024 Ninja ZX-4R, and 4RR) motorcycles
- 23V515: 2023 ZX400SPFNL motorcycles
- 23V381: 2022-2023 GM 2500HD, 2022 RAM 3500, Ford F-250, F-350, F-550, and 2023 GM 3500
All 19 Kawasaki campaigns we hold · Every manufacturer in the record
The fingerprint of this notice
We take a SHA-256 of each of the three blocks of text the authority publishes and keep the first eight characters. As we last read campaign 20V774 on 23 August 2026, they were:
- Defect summary
0479901c - Consequence
71e46efb - Remedy
41aa142f
We first read this notice on 21 August 2026. It has not moved since. If it ever does, these characters will not match, and the change will be dated here.
The wording we hold for 20V774 · how the whole register is watched
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