Thanks for the post Ferret. About a month ago i was about to stop by cycle gear and grab one of the K+N filters to do my break in oil change. Ive used the K+N filters as well on my Yamaha Roadliner. Anyway, i saw a post here with someone who had a filter fail and blow oil out all over. I immediately said screw that filter, ill just go OEM Honda. I had 2 spares for my Yamaha in the garage, in the trash they went. Ill just use the good old OEM ones from now on. Cant believe the disaster the K+N ones are.
I suspect this all pretty hard on K&N, a company which has made lots of oil filters and had very few problems. That said, it is a significant failure for a motorcycle and one that puts the rider and others at risk. And it's a design fault that there's such a significant point of weakness on the filter. I'll certainly not be using them again.
The "chronology" section in the [url=https://static.nhtsa.gov/odi/rcl/2017/RCLRPT-17E044-7593.PDF]NHTSA safety recall report is interesting.
A change in manufacturer started the problem.
New ( cheaper ? ) supplier ???