| Author | Message | ||
     Mr2shim |
I don't see what there is to argue about. The headlights fail. End of argument. If anyone from the other side of the table wants to prove me wrong with a set of headlights that won't fail, PM me for my mailing address.  That made me lol. PM me as well. (Message edited by mr2shim on May 07, 2008) | ||
| Spatten1 |
Court: Are you compensated by Buell with money, product, or otherwise? Or, do you just do this for the love of the product and Buell? | ||
| Firebolt32 |
Court...I'm going to pull Spike's answer here. Because it appears to affect every Firebolt in production. So far, every time we've had someone disassemble their Firebolt headlights they've seen a deterioration. Ford put out a recall some years ago about cruise controls setting fires to the vehicles. I was included in this recall. I brought my truck to the dealership, an hour later I had new cruise control. Although, the headlight housings are not this extreme, it's the same concept to me. If there is a product being produced to install into a vehicle that is either defective or rapidly goes to shit it should be replaced free of charge and/or recalled. This housing was suppose to be designed to with stand this heat. My father just had slip-ons put on his bike. Harley told him they would be fine with no tuning involved. The right pipe shoots a flame about 2 feet long on deceleration. His pipe is severly discolored. In the long run, sure the pipe will discolor. Not 500 miles into having new pipes. Therefore because he was told it would be fine they are tuning the bike and replacing the pipes free of charge. I believe this is all falls into the same catagory. It was designed to do "A"...it does "B" which causes "C". Buell needs to recall it and then turn to their supplier to be compensated. | ||
| Firebolteric_ma |
This has been beat to death!!! They DO NOT CARE ABOUT YOU OR THE LIGHT PROBLEM!!!!!It is more than likely a $$$ issue...Or A Pride issue...but either way, it is a problem.. Argue with me all you want but ACTION speaks LOUDER than WORDS. This has been a problem since 2003......THATS RIGHT 2003!!!! Take YOUR own life into YOUR hands and switch them out for some REAL lights that WORK! I know no-one wants to spend there hard earned cash fixing a defective part from Buell but just suck it up and do it..It may just save your life one day. Flame on if you dare!!! | ||
| Firebolt32 |
No one is arguing with you Fire. I know they don't give a shit about us. That's obvious and also sad. I paid 7k for my bike...I'm going to spend alot more making it my own. I shouldn't have to spend that money on something that should have been done right from the start. I can understand having some bugs. My '07 has the same issue your '04 does. I'm feeling the same pain you are brother. Now everyone spark a "j" and chill.  (Message edited by Firebolt32 on May 07, 2008) | ||
| Mr2shim |
Is it legal yet to run LED's for headlights? | ||
| Firebolteric_ma |
 He knows me all to well... I am in my Happy Place.....C h i l l i n! Sorry, I have hashed this out MANY times over the YEARS. Nice to see some are seeing the light,(no pun intended) I understand the Buell blinders are dark in color. I have a pair some days also. I just know when to take them off. It's all good! MY lights kick Azz, and a bunch of my NEBO Brothers have followed suit to protect themselves instead of waiting for others to do it for us.... I am lucky that we are a tight group, help each other any way we can. We made brackets for the firebolts & uly's to accept the Hella 90mm set up. Between our CADD knowledge - Mechanical abilities & water jet guy, we are in good shape to do any mods as we see fit.... They are an easy fix...You just need to have a desire to fix them.... | ||
| Ccryder |
Scott: Considering how long you have been around this board, you should know that answer. Sheesh, I don't know what to say. | ||
| Ducxl |
Say Brother,can you help fix mine  | ||
| Firebolt32 |
How did I over look that...your a Masshole. That explains it.I'm originally from Milford. Next time I'm up that way seeing Bostonian Fam I'll look you up for a chill session. | ||
| Retrittion |
So how about a this: The headlights on Firebolts have defective reflectors (seemingly due to the materials used and/or method of manufacturing). This defect results in the deterioration of the light output of the headlights due to the reflective coating being scorched or heat damaged. This causes a unsafe condition for the rider and other motorists because the headlights exist to both to make the vehicle visible during the day and night and to allow the rider to see at night. Defective headlights are a recall worthy defect because of this safety risk. Second, we do not know why Buell has chosen to deal (or not deal) with the headlight issue. Until they announce a position or a decision we can't know -- unless someone here works for Buell and has insider knowledge. What we do know is that a great many people have been affected -- maybe even every Firebolt rider. We also know that many people feel angry or frustrated because of the lack of support or answers from Buell. There are a couple options to deal with the situation. First and most obvious is contacting Buell and/or your dealership about the problem. Since these parties make and sell the product they need to be told the product has this issue -- regardless of what we think they will do or not do in response. In addition, there are various methods of fixing the headlights yourself -- HID, Hellas, etc. The options do cost money and are not a substitute for an official fix from the maker. Some people are willing, able, and comfortable in doing these modifications and some are not. The bottom line is that the ethical thing for Buell to do is implement a part swap with the costs covered by Buell. The reality is that they may or may not do this and that the community of Buell riders has shown they have the ingenuity and drive to solve the problem themselves. So rather than turn on our own how about those interested work on a fix that could address the needs of the majority of the people affected. It would need to be low-cost, durable, and as easy as possible to implement ("drop-in"). Off the top of my head a replacement coating or a insert of some kind would be something to pursue. On top of this HID replacement is probably the way to go since more light equals more safety. The sky isn't falling and either is the boy crying wolf. Either pitch in or get out of the kitchen, as my grandmother used to say.  | ||
| Spatten1 |
CC, I have no idea whatsoever, seriously. Has this been explained here before? | ||
| Firebolteric_ma |
Say Brother,can you help fix mine  Anything for you Greg!!! | ||
| Firebolt32 |
Retrittion = the voice of reason. | ||
| Mr2shim |
Who's the voice of solution? | ||
| Midknyte |
Midknyte, not sure where you think It'll only cost 175 for HID's AND new housings because the housings are $55 a piece..... Housing $59 w/tax Slim Ballast w/shipping - 55.97 http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/world-smallest-repl acement-HID-ballast-super-slim-HID_W0QQcmdZViewIte mQQ_trksidZp1713Q2em153Q2el1262QQcategoryZ36476QQi hZ011QQitemZ320162196059QQtcZphoto One HID Bulb w/shipping - 30 http://www.xenonlink.com/index.php?cPath=22_76 Grand total - $147.97 Beat my estimate by $30. Where's my cookie? | ||
| Mr2shim |
So, you're saying just convert low beam to hid and leave high beam stock? | ||
| Midknyte |
That's all I did. HID's do not like being turned on and off like you do with the high beam. Also, the high beam is not on all the time and will not suffer the same rate of degradation if at all. I like having a regular bulb in the other housing as a backup of sorts too... | ||
| Retrittion |
Midknyte is right -- a HID conversion in the low beam is all that is necessary. personally I am going to convert my lights to two always on mid-beams (low beam spoons, partially dremmeled down) because I want to run two headlights. $150 isn't too bad for the light you get. If we could figure out an off the shelf fix for reflectors (no matter the current condition so replacement isn't ever needed), that would reduce the HID conversion below the $100 mark -- a good start IMHO. (Message edited by retrittion on May 08, 2008) | ||
| Bombardier |
I have hid on both. They work very well. No issues to date. Also they run cooler which means the reflector should last longer as well. | ||
| Blake |
Rather than endless griping, sniping and complaining and pontificating, I would like to propose a solution. As by now it is indeed obvious that Buell is not prepared to do anything to address the issue, at least not with existing motorcycles that have the problem, let's put the power of numbers to work in our favor. Here's my proposal, we find a good, reputable deposition shop that can properly prepare and then apply a nice new thick durable chrome plating onto existing Firebolt headlight bezels. One test set may be required to judge the acceptibility. If acceptible, we then get every Firebolt owner on BadWeB who is interested to send their headlight housings to a nearby BadWeBr for staging and ultimate delivery to the shop; we get a proper group rate and have them all upgraded en'masse. Everyone will be responsible for providing return postage and labels, so all that our brave BadWeBr who takes on the staging need do is peel and stick the return shipping label. Sound like a plan? Who wants to giterdone? Some information on headlight chrome plating: People sometimes use the phrase "chrome plated" as slang for anything that is shiny--and that can confuse the issue a bit. | ||
| Darth_buell |
Anyone see the movie fight club.. They briefly discuss recalls at the begining. If the cost of lawsuits and damage resulting from the "issue" is more than what a 'RECALL"would cost, then they recall the bike. Guys we keep on fixing the problem ouselves and I don't think to many people attribute a motorcycle accident to the lights. Thay say it was probably some idiot trying to be evil Kinieval. People think motorcycles are dangerous anyways and they are. Someone needs to SUE BMC and win before this problem ever even gets considered. It's knownI'm sure. just not considered.  | ||
| Midknyte |
Kudos and respect for anyone taking on the effort. One caveat on that plan though - it requires downtime (well, we'd be without the headlight). Also I have real doubts about any plating over the plastic that would hold up to the heat. The thing gets freakin hot with a halogen bulb. If one wants to stay as close to stock as possible and not change bulb tech, "I" still think and feel that the quickest, easiest to implement solution, possibly even cheapest, is just a polished and/or chromed METAL insert. No downtime. Can put up with the light as-is until the inserts are done and when received, just open it up, stick it in, and button things back up. | ||
| Blake |
Do it! Set it up and giterdone! You're in charge! All the exclamation marks got you enthused yet? ![: ]](http://www.badweatherbikers.com/buell/clipart/proud.gif) ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! Now? | ||
| Mr_gto |
Im in! | ||
| Mr2shim |
Put me down! | ||
| Indy_bueller |
I'll go for that Blake. Earlier in this thread it was stated that Jon Flickenger said a fix is in the works. I'd like to have confirmation about that first before shelling out any cash. | ||
| Mr_gto |
If they come up with a fix later then they should just reimburse you for the cost of the replacement. I replaced my CPS on my f250 after it broke down. Not too long after that ford did a recall on the CPS. I went down to the dealer with my receipt and they cut me a check for amount that the replacement cost. | ||
| Jandj_davis |
Yeah, if somebody made a metal replacement, even for $100 a reflector, it would still end up being cheaper than trying to go to dual HID's. What if one of those fragile bulbs burns out? Then you are stuck with trying to find a $50 bulb quickly. If one of my bolt lights goes out, I can run to any auto parts store and grab a replacement. I'm in for 2 if the appear! | ||
| Midknyte |
Just to note, I can walk up to my bike, take the HID bulb out, unplug (bypass) the ballast, and plug a regular bulb right back in... |
