Really? So none of the ES bikes suspension can ever be fixed? Have you managed to get that from Honda?

 

Can you please share the content of the Email from Honda Canada, whete they say they can't fix their HONDA product?
Honda always provide the necessary tools to their "Honda certified dealers"
If you do have a letter or Email that says they "can't fix a Honda product" you should definitely hire a lawyer.
Also what year is your bike and did you get the 4 yr extended warranty?

Also you can't sell your bike, IF you know it's not "road worthy" the new owner may come after you with his lawyer... just be careful, and do a full disclosure sale.

 

Can you please share the content of the Email from Honda Canada, whete they say they can't fix their HONDA product?
Honda always provide the necessary tools to their "Honda certified dealers"
If you do have a letter or Email that says they "can't fix a Honda product" you should definitely bite a lawyer.
Also what year is your bike and did you get the 4 yr extended warranty?

Everything has been over the phone so far, both the dealership and Honda Canada. I have a file with Honda where everything has been noted. Both Honda Canada and the dealership are trying to figure out what to do, but the fact that they have to go to these lengths is damning enough for the ES model.

According to both the dealership GM and Honda Canada these tools are always automatically shipped to dealers when new bikes are first delivered. Except in this case.

The bikes is a 2020, with several years left on the extended warranty.

You can sell it as long as you disclose its status. But in this case I'll be making sure I get market sales value from a Honda dealer towards a trade in. Or getting a lawyer, yes.

 

Crap @InedibleRider - so sorry for the hard conclusion.

I guess the ATAS ES should still make for a great road bike.

 

Many times if you have a good relationship with your dealer...THEY will fight your war for you until resolved... try to be nice to your dealer

 

If they can't fix due to a lack of serice tool then surely they should be giving you replacement suspension under your warranty? I would certainly be pushing for that at the very least.

 

So now the long term reputation of the Honda ATAS ES model appears at risk.

 

It definitely appears that way.

Many times if you have a good relationship with your dealer...THEY will fight your war for you until resolved... try to be nice to your dealer

I have two dealerships GMs on my side. Everyone is equally frustrated by the situation, which is helping it get escalated quickly. But as I said, the damage is done. Its essentially an unserviceable bike. Had this happened when we were in Mexico a coupe months ago, we'd be stranded by something as minor as a fork seal. And if I can't get it serviced here, imagine the chances in a developing country.

 

Any idea what this tool is? I am going to my dealers tomorrow to get the TFT replaced so will be asking them if they can replace the seals in the ES.

 

... a good pre-emptive strike @Hood.

Customer: "Can you explain how the ES seals are serviced?"

Honda: "Huh? Wha? They never go. Why would you care to worry? Don't worry 'bout it."

 

Time to start reading those 40 pages of "extended warranty" fine print unfortunately

 

The one positive to come from this situation...

It forced me to go out and prove that the Royal Enfield Interceptor 650 is actually a fantastically fun touring machine...who knew?

 

BTW I am not doubting you, just something doesn't sound right.

 

From HONDA CANADA website

4yrs of extended warranty for CRF1100AT cad$1348.00 should give some piece of mind ?

• That's cad$337 per year
• Cad$28 per month
• Cad$ 0.94c per day
• it sounds better when you break it down 😭

 

This don’t add up at all. I am sorry but I can’t imagine that either A, they can’t get the tool or B, they can’t make something work if they wanted to. Not to point blame at anyone in particular here but I call B.S.
Edit: no way would I give up and just walk away if this were in fact true. It would become a matter of principle for me and I would go the the ends of the earth to make them do what’s right before I just tucked tail and cried battre en retraite.

 

I am sure Honda will replace affected components.

But what now for future (out-of-warranty) "ES" owners?

 

One of my reasons for ordering the standard suspension ATAS (we get the ATAS here as ES or standard) was price difference but the other was more complexity. Down the line if something went wrong there would be expense involved well beyond that of conventional. Then I got the ES version by mistake so I ended up with it anyway
My thought process now is if an out of warranty problem occurs then I can always pick up conventional suspension and fit that if it is going to cost too much to repair/replace the ES.

 

Ha ha 11x... ATA boy

 

Hey, I'd love to say that this is not the situation I am in, but it is in fact the situation I am in.

None of the dealers nor Honda Canada has an immediate solution. At the earliest the tool could be available in October. Maybe.

One of my two local Honda dealers has given me a great deal on a basically straight trade to a 2020 standard model with 8500km. Mine has 52,000km so thats a fair trade. In the end, I don't want a bike that is even slightly difficult to make basic repairs to due to 'special tool' availability.

 

...
One of my two local Honda dealers has given me a great deal on a basically straight trade to a 2020 standard model with 8500km. Mine has 52,000km so thats a fair trade...

I hope the trade works fine for you to regain the joy of riding. It's so wrong what happened, how disappointing!

 

First off sorry this happened. Are you close to a dealer in the USA? Can they get that part?

A blown fork seal doesn’t strand you anywhere, makes a mess sure and ride quality will suck. One of our rides a rock took out the drain bolt on a guys suspension. With conventional forks. He just rode it with no oil for a while until we JB welded it shut and used ATF fluid for fork oil sense that was not something where we were.

Whats the ES default to if the intervals quit? Regular suspension?

I’m fine will all the electronics so long as it’s designed to continue riding with less features when it fails.

And I have an inreach and money if it gets real bad. Uhaul or rental trucks are everywhere.

Most dealers now take weeks for anything to come in parts wise so this isn’t just an africa twin issue imo. Honestly almost anything you buy in North America has virtually no parts support in South America.

And ES is common on all the high end bikes so one would think repair tools will be more common over the years.

 

Details like how many countries you can ride a failed seal through, how much shipping a bike costs etc etc all sort of miss the point. Yes you can bojack your way around the world. Yes there are parts shortages and supply chain issues. But...

As soon as you take your two year old flagship bike into an official dealer to fix a basic problem and are told that there is no projected date to be able to fix that problem because a required tool was overlooked in the distribution process and the bike is so complex that any chance or a proper repair without that tool isn't possible, you have to reevaluate your choices.

My posts speak for themselves. I am a huge fan of the AS and the suspension system. But at some point its just being dogmatic to not recognize a serious problem, either with the bike or more likely, my choice to buy it over the base model. I'm still totally sold on the AT platform, hence trading for a base model. I'm just no longer stoked about the ES. Not because I don't trust the electronics or trust the bike to operate if the electronics fail. But because a simple everyday, analog issue like leaking fork seals is now a big kerfuffle.

If I was a city/highway only rider maybe I'd be a bit less swayed, but I take my bike to places that I want working suspension or at least a hope of being able to fix it with normally available tools and supplies.

 

I took a look into the service manual to replace a fork seal on the ES and looked up every special tool. All are in stock and available in the USA. Granted they’re not cheap and I’m wondering if the dealer just doesn’t want to bother ordering 5-800 usd worth of tools to replace a fork seal when they may only see a handful of bikes for that anytime soon. They are in stock in US parts suppliers so it sounds fishy that they can’t get them.

Keep in mind the conventional suspension model also requires most of those tools.

The job is straight forward with the only difference being the tools to remove the top solenoid are specialized basically. Otherwise it’s like any other suspension. There really isn’t anything super complex going on other than the solenoid at the top which itself is about the same as a glorified top cap to remove.

I would be comfortable doing it myself if I had those tools. The tools aren’t anything crazy just specialized for the fittings and aligning some of the components, the majority of which are used on both the conventional and ES suspension.

The original point stands for both models in that you need some expensive Honda tools to fix a fork seal on any model of these 1100s. (Or get creative) I would think that’s probably not happening without a huge wait time in most locations in the world or you’ll be refused because no shop wants to sink that money into tools for a bike they’ll probably see once in a blue moon.

It would probably be wise to choose a much lower tech much more common model to travel most places that don’t sell Africa Twins. Think DR650 or a local machine that’s commonly used there.

If anyones curious a new fork is 1400 ish USD for the ES. The solenoid is @660 and a fork seal @22 dollars. The tools to replace the 22 dollar seal are 5-800ish for all of them, most of which are used on both ES and Conventional. The internals are very similar on both aside from the solenoid on the top of the ES fork which is all self contained and comes off like a fork cap with a bunch of orings.

The solenoid is just a glorified screw adjuster for the dampening and preload it looks like, otherwise it’s a suspension fork like all the others inside from the diagrams.

 

I took a look into the service manual to replace a fork seal on the ES and looked up every special tool. All are in stock and available in the USA.

Ya I came to say the same thing. I went through and looked up the special tools and such in the service manual when I bought the bike and found I was able to buy everything if I needed to. I think the dealer is acting in bad faith here.

 

Yes, sell it. If Honda does Not provide you a quick solution, just run. Thats what I'm doing too. Life is too short to be focused in one brand. Also, too Short to be loyal to a brand. Its focus is making money, not making quality products or customers.

 

Honda needs to get the dealer network sorted out if they’re not getting the tools they need to do a routine fork seal replacement.

I don’t buy the excuse they can’t get them when you can google all the part numbers and find them in stock unless those part suppliers are not actually in stock.

I’d bet they just don’t want to have to buy pricey tools for a few fork seal changes a year. This is why labor costs 100-125 an hour now, probably to partly subsidize all these specialty tools each model has.

Honda seems to be making a lot of money on those specialty tools alone. I’m curious if you totalled them all up how many thousands in specialty tools just the Africa twin needs. A few grand? Multiply that by all the dealers that had to buy those to support these machines.

 

Here in Canada a few years ago "Honda motorsport" alienated themselves from the motorcycle dealers. They started their own Honda dealerships...it lasted for about 6-7 yrs and late last year, they (Honda Canada) approached most dealers to "take them back"...they admitted it was a stupid idea. A couple of old Honda locations are now selling, Yamaha, Beta and electric bicycles.

Just because of that transition that happened mostly this year, some dealers took back Honda products, but they are lacking Honda trained technicians, and "those specialized Honda tools", plus Covid didn't help either...give it a year or two and things will be good again.

 

@InedibleRider , what a bummer. Sorry to hear of your headaches. Poor showing from Honda.

At least you can take consolation in knowing that you made me feel a little better about ripping the front and rear ES components off of my 600 mile 2021 ATAS ES in my hack project.

I put 600 miles on the bike, and really loved the ES functionality. I felt bad taking it off, in order to convert the rig to a Leading Link (Earls style forks) more appropriate for a side car rig. I decided since I was ditching the forks, I would go ahead and pull the rear shock, as well, and replace it with an Ohlins shock assembly.

I was feeling a little bad about losing the ES functions, but not so much now.

I guess the good news is that the like new components that I am pulling off will have value in the coming years to someone that is stuck and pissed off with Honda.

Now I just have to worry about Ohlins parts availability out in the bush!

 

That’s sad that the dealer won’t help you. If they sold you the bike they should buy it back or offer to replace the shock as a whole. Honda Canada would probably not warranty a shock replacement, they would tell the dealer you are supposed to have the tools for the repair.

If they are not willing to buy the tools there must be at least one Canadian dealer that did. Would they be willing to at least find a dealer in Canada or the US that does have the tools and have them do the repair?

I’m sure I would run into a similar issue with some of the smaller dealers around here. I would probably have to find one of the larger high volume Powerhouse dealers a bit farther away to carry out the repair.

 

Lee r and others, thanks for the research. To the op. Sounds like the trade would not solve your issues. You might look into a klr. I have ridden them and they can be repaired with very minimal tools.

 

Thanks for all the replies and input gents. All I can go off of is what Honda and the dealers are telling me. They are saying there is a tool not listed in the workshop manual that has an electronic component. One tech believes it is actually a Showa tool, but he isn't sure either. I too went through the workshop manual as I planned to do the job myself. When I realized the cost of the manul tools required I shopped the bike as they said they had those tools in stock. It wasn't until a few days later that they called and said a tool related to the ES was unavailable. I am dealing with two major Honda Motorsports dealers and both are on the same page, as is Honda customer relations and the Honda tech line.


My KLR is the only bike to ever strand me. Three weeks in Baja with a self-destructive radiator and parts stuck un customs. I still have that KLR, with 100,000KM on the ODO and the radiator I bought off a guys bike on the side of the road in La Paz so I could get home.

 

Another thought that occurred. If the tool is in fact a Showa part and not Honda. Would another brand dealer that also uses Showa ES be able to do the work instead? Perhaps that tool is common to Showa regardless of mc brand?

 

I really think the dealers are playing dirt here.
If the solenoid needs replacement, a new one will be installed, at whatever cost is to buy one.
And as said before, all the tools like for a mechanical operation.
There is no mention to "Calibrate" " settings" "Adjusments" on the solenoid which moves certain valve, disc, spool valve, Plunger, etc. You name it.
I do not think those solenoids are measured by Nuclear Magnetic resonance, or Adjusted to microns of play or tolerance.
I think all this game the dealers are playing is just B.S. Sorry. 🤮