Wheel Size Change Saga and Amazing/Rare Customer Service from a Vendor

[chync_imp]

Last year I switched to 17" wheels on my 2014. I knew it would also throw off the speedometer and odometer as the sensor is triggered from the rear wheel. I found that Healtech Electronics made a product (speed-o-healer) to re-calibrate the speedometer for the CB1100. They are located in eastern Europe and sell through distributors.

After the wheels were on and I was satisfied with them I started on the speedometer project. My speedometer was off by 8% after installing the smaller wheels.

The install was very straightforward and should have been about a 30 minute job. The unit gets inserted inline between the rear wheel speed sensor and the instrument cluster.

I hooked it up according to the instructions but my speedometer was dead. No signal getting to it at all. The distributor was no help (no surprise) and directed me to Healtech for support. I quickly found they would not take phone calls and I stated to think this was not going to end well. I reluctantly started an email conversation explaining the problem. I went through a couple rounds of being sent nearly identical instructions that already came with the unit. Each time I repeated following their instructions I ended up with the same results. They finally started telling me which color wires to connect to and I realized we weren't talking about the same bike. We couldn't be. None of the wires they described were on the 2014 model.

I looked in my shop manual at the wiring diagram and it showed the same thing. While flipping through the manual I noticed there was a schematic for the 2013 model. The lightbulb went off. They were describing connecting this to a 2013 CB1100.

It turns out the rear wheel sensor completely changed from 2013 to 2014. It doesn't operate on the same type of signal. Healtech didn't realize there was a change. Apparently I must be the first 2014 CB1100 owner in the world to have installed this thing. :-)

Once we all realized the situation I expected the next thing I would hear was I would have to return the unit and just do without. To my surprise I was immediately offered to work with them to get a custom build made if I could take some electrical measurements on the wheel sensor. I couldn't believe it. My jaw dropped. The easiest thing for them to do would have been to simply take it back, update their documentation, and to let resellers know it wasn't compatible with the 2014 model and be done with it. Clearly no one else had called them with this problem before I did.

I took them up on it. I measured the output of the sensor, gave them pictures of the sensor connectors, distances from the mounting location to power and the sensor connection and sent it all to them.

I took a few months to get the new unit and at one point I was starting to think they had just been kidding about the whole thing. In the end I think they just updated their product with a version for the 2014 model because what they sent was not something that looked like a tech built on his workbench. This weekend the updated unit arrived. It took 15 minutes to install and worked perfectly.

I don't know that I have ever had that kind of customer service before.

Healtech makes quite a few other electronic add-ons mostly for racing. If you find yourself needing to recalibrate your speedometer I would check them out.

After all of that the story continued though.

I had a new rear tire waiting to go on and decided to do it immediately after setting up the speed-o-healer.

I decided to try a higher profile rear tire. The previous tire was a Pirelli Diablo Rosso III 180/55ZR-17. I switched to a 180/60ZR-17.

I put the tire on and went for a ride to scrub them in and wouldn't you know it but my speedometer was now off in the other direction!!!

All I could do was laugh.

After all of that time, confusion, and back and forth with Healtech, the higher profile tire matched with the smaller rim puts the overall wheel diameter back at the same measurement as stock!

I'm not sure if I will stay with this profile tire or not. I will have to see how I like it but the unit is easy enough to put into bypass mode disabling it without having to uninstall it and it will be a simple adjustment if I switch tire sizes.

Always a surprise and a pleasure when you come across people that care about what they do as much as you do yourself.

[Dengie Boy_imp]

I actually do believe you!

Feeling a bit fed up when the new 2014 CB came out with a digital gear position indicator (something that even my 1976 Suzuki GT750 has!) I spotted the Healtech GPDS- H01 at the London bike show 4 years back.

With the tank off on my 2013 AD, I ran the cable back from the cockpit to the diagnostic connector that is found under the left hand side panel. Putting everything back together I thought this is never going to work!
Once the learning setup is undertaken on the centre stand by running up through the gears, the job was done!

The only shortcoming is that you need to be rolling for it to know what gear you are in.
But overall a brilliant piece of kit that does exactly what it says it does.

[Cormanus]

I have the Healtech gear indicator on my 2011 CB1100. It is 'a brilliant bit of kit'.

That's a great story chync.

[Lord Popgun]

I have the Healtech gear indicator on both my bikes. Works great!
I have their ODB reader for Honda too. And it works great too.

[PowerDubs_imp]

Glad to hear they took care of the issue.