known bugs ?

[pdedse]

Thanks a lot Ferret, is the idle issue immediately apparent when checking out the bike ? or does it show itself only under conditions hard to reproduce ?

I don't necessarily disagree with Ferret's statement that the idle issue has affected only a "very few units". I only know that for those who had a continuous issue with it, that it's quite frustrating. But all bikes have this or that to look out for.

Look at the [url=http://cb1100forum.com/forum/showthread.php?tid=11247]CurlyJoe Spreadsheet; there are 36 forum members who reported idle issues to one degree or another. You can read what the problem was like, what they did, whether the problem persisted or went away.

Likely, there are other forum members who experienced the idle issue but did not report on that spreadsheet. Then there are non forum members with CB1100s that had issues, so who knows the true number of affected bikes. If it's double or even triple what has been reported here, that's still only around 100 affected bikes out of 5, 10, 15 thousand? of bikes sold worldwide. Let's say 10 thousand units were sold worldwide during '13-'14. Let's double the number of affected bikes to 200 to get a little higher percent of possibly affected bikes. So 200 out of 10,000 = 0.02, or 2% of the bikes. Just sample numbers, so don't quote me on this please.

So if you're looking to buy another CB1100, perhaps there's 2% chance the bike has the idle issue..."very few units". I don't think my numbers are terribly off, but let's assume they are and double the problem....that's still only a less than 5% chance a '13/14 will have the issue. Still pretty good odds in your favor.

But to answer your 2 questions based on my experience: "...is the idle issue immediately apparent when checking out the bike ? or does it show itself only under conditions hard to reproduce ?"

1) No, it's not always immediately apparent. Once my '14 Standard exhibited both the low and the high idle issues, most rides the problem would arise, but usually after a 1-2 miles; many times it wouldn't show simply starting and letting it set a few minutes.

2) Other times, nothing would happen for 30-40 miles, then all of a sudden the high or low idle would start, usually after coming to a stop. The low idle was dangerous because it would fall to 500-600rmp, then sputter and die. Then it would be difficult to start immediately. Fortunately for me, this happened only a few times.

I think what you want to know is "what should I do if I'm interested in a particular bike?" As a minimum, start the bike when it's cold, let it idle for a few mintures to see if it follows the normal 1500-1600rpm star-up idle, then falls to 1050-1100. If it were me, I would ask for a good test ride of 15-30 minutes, and stop and go lots, and choose a warm day. At every stop check to see if idle is at 1050-ish. If the owner is reluctant to allow an extended test ride, maybe ask the owner to go with you on another bike or vehicle. If from the dealer, I would require that my accepted offer be contingent upon an extended test ride free of this issue.

Now, several years after the fact, we have a better understanding of what the fix is, so even if it were to develop in a '13 or '14, then you would have good info / how-to resources here.

To my knowledge, no '17ex has had this issue.