Hugger Failure Yesterday

[Jeff Williams]

Roger,
calm down you may blow a fuse.
I can only say what has happened to me and its all been good.
If you've had a bad experience in the past, please tell it.
My experience is within the last 8 months.
I agree with boxerpan on this one.
cya
jeff

[roger albert]

The experiences of I and others are well documented on the board

[Jeff Williams]

[Chris Canning]

Whats well documented is a lot of people getting their collective nickers in a twist!!!!,mine broke i put it in a box, sent it back with a picture of it on the bike and a note about what i thought,they sent me a new one,as uncomplicated as that.

Chris

[roger albert]

And several people who had problems much later that WERE taken care of, in another country, babbling ignorantly about others' dissimilar experiences.

Inconsistent service is crappy service.
And 4 failures out of 4 owners in just one small town, is a crappy product.

You'll excuse me if I'm not impressed that _some_ people were taken care of.

A couple guys had the things drop under their wheel.
OF COURSE knickers were twisted.

I get bent out of shape most every time a poor product tries to kill me. Some of those guys had pretty narrow escapes.

[adrianw]

Hi,

I've had one of these for a long time no, and other than a little trimming to accomadate the Staintune it's not been an issue.

I'd be tempted to say I've done a least 80,000 miles with it on, maybe more.

And it's probably one of the first ones....

Have all the failures occured on bikes with short suspension or something similar?

Oh mines on a 5.5 rim.

Adrian.
116,000 miles.

[bradzdotcom]

mine is second generation and hasn't broken either, yet i tend to pound it fairly hard, including some reasonably bouncy off-road excursions.

carbon fiber is voodoo. it works great when properly laid up in one single compass direction (often pointed directly at the "source of the force" applied to it).
if you're off just a couple of degrees...that crap explodes like a cheap christmas tree ornament.

carbon-carbon is way better, but since they use the carbon word twice in the description, it's about 100 times more expensive.

the only thing i've been doing to mine besides eyeballing it often as a suspected/potential murderer is to keep the oxidation off the surface.
it first appears as a white cloudy look on the surface, and you can knock it off with the right chemicals and a cloth.
(watch, now mine will implode tomorrow, 'cause i mentioned it).

[roger albert]

I know I've seen it failures with stock and normal ehaust,
5.0 and 5.5 rims, with and without the shield on the stock shock, and with stock shock and Öhlins. I.e. in plenty cases where there were NO clearance issues. In any event, their CF seems top notch. In all the ones I've seen first or 2nd hand, it was the aluminum support, not the CF. Other than suspect service, I don't have anything against those guys CF. Seems very nice. I know they guys who have had good experiences don't care for my giving them a bad rap, but as my and others experience was different, I intend to continue.

[motoyoyo]

No doubt the lmberger hugger is the best looking one available for our bikes. Their carbon fiber is the best in the business too. Even so, after the many occurrences of hugger failures related to the aluminum support arm, as documented on this forum, I chose to go with the Pyramid hugger instead. Yes, it's true that no one has been killed or seriously injured that we know of by having their hugger get stuffed into the rear wheel and locking up the rear end. To me, it's a very real possibility and I chose not to use an Ilmberger unless they made a significant improvement to the mount. There are many factors which can lead to a mount failure, but I would rather not have to think about that when I'm riding. Plenty of other things out there that can take you out at a moments notice. Everyone makes their own choice on this and I'm glad to hear of the many good experiences too. If there wasn't a forum like this with all the information it provides, I guarantee I would be sporting an Ilmberger right now and would most likely be trouble free, but I chose not to ignore the reality of the problem.

[1100s nut]

Scott you are right, this fourm is very important. If I were not on here and because I own one of the bergers, I would not give it much thought. I now include it in my daily preflight. Which is: Check tail light blinking mode (gizmo mill) , turn signals, head light, oil, horn when I am away from everybody, look at tires and now check hugger.

Lane

[718Rider]

My blew up after having it for all of 3 months. I guess it couldn't take life in NYC. I ended up replacing it with a $12 shock sock. Bummer. The hugger ended up somewhere on the FDR Expressway and all I was left with was the mounting bracket. Not much to send back.

[roger albert]

And I had the opposite extreme. Cracked, but not flown-off, plus not within one year of purchase, so no refund or replacement.

Christ, should a hugger be expected to last less time than brake pads, or gear oil, or fuel filter, or most of the other disposeables? I.e. is one year really the expected life of a hugger from the company's perspepctive?

I too am glad of what I read here on the board. Quite a few other failures are what led me to find mine before is fully separated.

[Jeff Williams]

Sounds to me like they have learned from their mistakes with reguards to their warranty issue.
As to their craftmanship, the objective view is still to be formed.
The subjective view is clearly bipolar.

OT, stress tends to shorten ones life, please calm yourselves, we want you around
jeff

[bradzdotcom]

carbon fiber story:
many moons ago i'm going down coast highway in my home town. ahead of me is the guy who was building/babysitting/tuning a honda crx twin-turbo car owned/raced by bill gates. it's carbon fiber everything...basically a race car with brake lights.

the guy is doing a "ahem.....test spin" with it, hits a divot in the road, augers the front spoiler into the asphalt and there's CF shards flying everywhere.

naturally, i ride right through the shower of bucko-bucks turned to turds.

two blocks later, one block from home, rear wheel goes right to the rim. floppity, floppity, flop. big-time slashed sidewall.

i call a friend (a semi-wheel) who works at microsoft in redmond. i give him the details. after he finishes laughing, he asks for the invoice.

i get a check from microsoft that covers cost of new rear tire, with valve stem, labor and balancing. (under category it says: "consultant").

sometimes it just doesn't pay to slather your logo on the car and paint your name on the door.

and sometimes it's good to have friends that need free passes to the motocross race in washougal, wa.

i imagine nobody's ever said this before, but :"if it'd been anyone else but bill gates...i'd probably have been screwed."

[evostevo]

now that you need to buy one, try Pyramid. they make a plastic one that is nice looking and very sturdy. also a CF model. the plastic one is inexpensive, but a little on the heavy side.

evostevo

[JonyRR]

'there's CF shards flying everywhere'
kinda like an airbus A340 vertical stabilizer
I LOVE CF. I don't love it when it 'splodz, 'n specially when it's 'zplodin can cause my poor tender ectoplasm to receive grevious harm...

OT: stay tuned, there may be a brand-new iteration of a 4130 front telelever arm coming from a semi-famous frame builder *not* near you...

[bradzdotcom]

ewww! I lust over 4130 chrome-moly.
it gets me all bothered, like when people whisper "T-6" and that kinda stuff.
....still saving for this Titanium unspring weight fasteners.
maybe i'll hit up santa this year. he brought me carbon fiber wheels last time!
that mr. kringle is cool....and quite a touring dude, 'least once a year.

[JonyRR]

BZDC; it's WASCO of wasco frame service fame; back, clean, sober and just as brilliant with the TIG machine as when he did those Rob North 'lowboy' frames...(or the HRC 'stock CB750F' frames..hehehe)

[bradzdotcom]

the wasco dude? no kidding?

back when he was (ahem) "jetted properly" he was an absolute craftsman/wizard.
at one point, he ruled the "discrete engineering" market, a part of our motorcycle racing industry that is rarely discussed, but has always thrived and existed.
glad to hear he's back!

one of his wasco-bred employees (after they folded up the tent) whipped out a "stock" husky frame for one of my six day bikes.
it passed FIM tech. worked absolutely super-biitchen. bestest handling husky i ever rode.

during day five a course marshall (and husqvarna AB employee/r&d boy), followed me around for about 50 miles...also on the same bike.
hassled me like a friggin' starving hawk.
on my as$, then right 3/4 rear, then left 3/4 rear, ahead, behind....basically buzzed me for a couple of hours.

i found out afterward that two of the "same bike" swedes were complaining and finger pointing the night before in their team's evening meeting.
the jury-dogs pawed over the bike that night in the parc ferme...couldn't find anything.
they sent out the just-happened-to-be-husky-mounted marshall/sniffer dog to see if he could find anything.

all he came back with was "ya, i vorks betta."
they never figured it out.

the bike is over in primm's mx collection now. i see it occasionally, but try to avoid it, 'cause everytime i get close, it whines about not getting out to prance around anymore.

if wasco is back and upright...i'll buy somethin' from him.
don't know what, but put me down for something.

comeback is way more than twice as hard as the first time.

[Ducati-Rider]

Well after dealing directly with Germany, my new hugger arrived today to replace the broken one from a few weeks ago.

No warranty problems - no hassle - just a simple replacement.

Thank you