Originally Posted by WeatherB
It's weird since my kit is brand new too. The bearings were very loose. I should try buying an aftermarket plate just to see if it is better. I don't think that the teflon tape will last too long.
I have a graphite drag plate that I used for a while, and it had more slop than my alloy drag plate. It looks like these plates are stamped not machined so this would explain the difference between plates. A good quality graphite plate will be CNC machined and in theory should have almost 0 slop.