This certainly doesn’t make good reading for any AT owner.
It does however appear that a losing battle is fought trying to get a warranty claim or recall done. As stated, the issue is widely discussed on other forums and escalated to Honda Japan, which, in turn, have rejected it as a manufacturing ‘defect’.
Feedback as recent as a couple of days ago on another forum:
“I haven't posted in a while, but here's the end of our saga. My dealer contacted me and said Honda Japan has measured my mate's fork sent to them and could not find anything out of spec. And that the wear found was normal. No warranty claim to be honoured.
The following quote from what was posted on advrider.com
"Dear Mr Williams,
Thank you for contacting Honda Australia Motorcycles and Power Equipment regarding your CRF1000A.
We advise that warranty was denied for the wear on the front fork legs.
To quote from our technical department notes after a fork leg was sent to the Honda Factory for evaluation.
"The wear observed was on the rear side of the body, inside the outer tube. This point is where the stress concentrates most. Therefore rubbing with the slide bush by sliding during running presents the wear.
The parts were disassembled and measured. As a result the measuring of the dimensions of each part found no problem and no problem with the surface.
The parts were reassembled and the friction measurements were taken. No functional problems were found. Therefore, as no problem was found there is no action to be taken, The forks will not be covered under warranty."
Kind regards,
Chris |Honda Australia Motorcycle and Power Equipment Pty Ltd"
But on the bright side: 2018 models have Kashima coated forks. So Honda USA and Canada are still honouring warranty claims and replacing tubes. Honda Australia is not. “
If this remains the opinion of Honda Japan, it is probably understandable when Honda SA responds similarly. My question is then this:
- Will it affect ALL 2016/17 models?
- What is the correct/durable solution?
- What is the estimated cost?
- When is the right time to do it?
Prevention is said to be better than cure. If this is a real problem affecting all those year models, I would like to address it in parallel to any debate with Honda SA/Japan to avoid a similar experience ending a trip.