Nu2beemers wrote: Would you care to enlighten?
I would be delighted to. However it will be lengthy and it might not interest too many.
We live in a mechanical world and occasionally things go wrong and things break. Ilmberger huggers have long been covered by an 'if it breaks - it will be replaced' warranty and there is not really a time limit on that. Within reason and abuse not withstanding!!
The total returns for this design of hugger is still less than 1%.
Of those returned, nearly all of them showed signs of not being fitted correctly, most of the others had been subject to serious abuse. Like the guy who drilled extra holes in the support arm because he wanted it even lighter still or the other guy who pop rivetted rubber strips all around because he thought it was not wide enough.
The Pelican issue seems to revolve round a guy who dealt in used car parts in the U.S.A. He bought some huggers, particularly for the R1100S, from a source inside Germany. He never dealt with Ilmberger or Wunderlich ( it is the same product). He sold them in the U.S. without any instructions or customer service. At that time the only official importer into the U.S.A was through the Wunderlich network. There were a number of problems and his customers were basically told to f*ck off!!
This started an avalanche of hysterical comment on 'Pelican'. Soon afterwards Ilmberger heard about it all and found out the route via which these huggers were being sold. They sent out an unsolicited and unpaid for batch of huggers to this guy with the message that they were to be used to replace any broken ones F.O.C. on the basis that the broken ones were to be returned to Germany for examination. In hindsight it was an incredibly naive thing to do. Perhaps unsurprisingly no broken huggers were returned via this route and of course the replacements were never seen again. Nor were they ever paid for!!!
It is worth saying that there were negligible returns or complaint through the Wunderlich network!!
A couple of the (Pelican)people with problems sent their huggers direct to Ilmberger in Germany. One of the broken ones was submitted to the TUV authorities in Germany for detailed technical examination. Their report blamed incorrect fitting, and recommended increasing the emphasis on the fitting intructions and making more efforts to ensure that every customer received proper instructions. One of the others was reassembled on to a bike. Here is a picture of that. I am not prepared to comment on how and why it was fitted like that. I know - but I must leave you to use your own imagination.
Most of the other complainants would not or could not return their broken ones for replacement. One of the most regular critics ( never missed an opportunity to have a go at Ilmberger or to 'bump' up an anti thread) was unable or unwilling to 'put up', even when challenged to by a couple of guys from this board. Neither were his friends. He had reported a 100% failure rate in his town(city??). Yeah right!!!!!
The whole point of the fitting instructions - apart from what to fasten where - is to tell you to remove the plastic OE shock protector. This is because the hugger is likely to make regular contact with it. In any event there is no point in having it in situ, because if it did any good then you might not be wanting a hugger. If you think on from that, a number of aftermarket shock absorbers have springs of larger diameter than the OE shock. This needs to be taken into account.
As I said earlier, nearly all the returned huggers showed signs of contact with either the shock protector or an aftermarket shock. Not one of the Pelican complainants who claimed that their broken hugger showed no signs of this contact was ever returned.
There is a lot more to say, but I don't want to exhaust the patience of other Trixters any more.
But just think how much amusement I got out of reading about the recent 'group buy' of the opposition product
If you want to ask any more specific questions then PM me. As you can tell - I am happy to discuss it.
By the way, have a look on Pelican at the pictures of their bikes. You will see that a lot of them are still running Ilmberger huggers. As they would like to say - go figure!!!
sandbar
Just fairly new to the site and have just bought a 2003 twin spark 1100S.
Tis good anyway, just torque the caliper bolts back up to the correct spec.
PM me!!
