DN-01 impressions

[VOZZA]

I'm 6'3" with 33" inside leg and found it a bit cramped. I bought a spare passenger seat and altered the front section of it to tr to give me a bit more room but it wasn't a great success and didn't look right.
The tranny is ultra reliable, and if it goes bang can be changed in about 10 mins almost like a cassette, but is about £2000 apparently.
Thinking back I might have got more legroom and comfort by swopping the foot boards for pegs which is something I may look into again if I can find the right bike when the time comes for a change.

[tha-mask]

Ah, I'm 6'1" with a 33" inside leg also, so pretty close. Yes I'd heard also the tranny can be replaced extremely easily, but as you say its the cost of the damm thing that is the killer. On the Burgman I think the belt is pretty expensive, about £300 or more, but its the cost in labour as the whole damm machine has to come apart, plus any other parts that break when the belt lets go. But I have to say I did love the Burgman, its an awesome machine, but I do prefer ride of the DN-01, very confidence inspiring.

[martin@swad]

Glad you are enjoying it Mark. It always attracted a crowd when I had it, unfortunately for Honda it was usually people who didn't have a bike licence, probably why they didn't sell many, plus the original price was huge.

[irev]

Ah, I'm 6'1" with a 33" inside leg also, so pretty close. Yes I'd heard also the tranny can be replaced extremely easily, but as you say its the cost of the damm thing that is the killer. On the Burgman I think the belt is pretty expensive, about £300 or more, but its the cost in labour as the whole damm machine has to come apart, plus any other parts that break when the belt lets go. But I have to say I did love the Burgman, its an awesome machine, but I do prefer ride of the DN-01, very confidence inspiring.

As Suzook gauranteed the belt to 100,000 miles or more, it wasn't a problem to `persuade` them to ante-up the cost for any replacement, but I only ever heard of one belt failure, and that was actually caused by the SECVT. The main issue with the Burger SigFiddys (the early ones' not after about K5) was the gear final drive.

There isn't an issue with the DN-01/HFT tranny, but that may simply be down to the low sales and overall mileage. Intrinsically, electrickery aside, the basic elements of the DCT means the clutch gets half as much use as normal, so it should last twice as long. But they are still friction plates and will need replacement eventually, when the cassette design pays dividends.

[tha-mask]

I wonder though with the HFT being a hydraulic unit how that will last, should go on for quite some time if it was put together correctly, lets hope I got a monday morning unit. Though I wonder why Honda decided not to continue using it, cost ??

I took the hand guards off last night, looks much better now and far less turbulence around the hands. They really were not very good guards at all, and filtering this morning was a joy, back to Burgman standard when you pull in the mirrors. Though as I was riding down lower thames street i leant forward to push back the mirrors and then felt total loss of power. Wondered what on earth had happened, managed to get over the other side of the road only to find i'd flicked the kill switch !! ddoohhh

[MrGrumpy]

I wonder though with the HFT being a hydraulic unit how that will last, should go on for quite some time if it was put together correctly, lets hope I got a monday morning unit. Though I wonder why Honda decided not to continue using it, cost ??

Yeah..the HFT cost a fortune to make as it had to be assembled by hand in clean room conditions (apparently), so presumably represents one of Honda's blind alleys research wise. They obviously decided that DCT was a more practical method of approach.

[irev]

I wonder though with the HFT being a hydraulic unit how that will last, should go on for quite some time if it was put together correctly, lets hope I got a monday morning unit. Though I wonder why Honda decided not to continue using it, cost ??

Yeah..the HFT cost a fortune to make as it had to be assembled by hand in clean room conditions (apparently), so presumably represents one of Honda's blind alleys research wise. They obviously decided that DCT was a more practical method of approach.

Yeah, you can almost see their train of thought: "This is a good idea, but too expensive. How can we do the same, only cheaper..?"

[MrGrumpy]

Yeah, you can almost see their train of thought: "This is a good idea, but too expensive. How can we do the same, only cheaper..?"

But the exorbitant costs would have been obvious right away....I can well imagine that they'd build a couple of test prototypes as an experiment, but to put it into limited production would seem to be taking the idea of concept proving a bit far!

[tha-mask]

The other thing of course is that doesn't the DCT tranny feel like a geared bike, where as the HFT is like a CVT, so perhaps the thinking was that DCT was more likely to be adopted by geared bikers that the feel of HFT.

[Bluebottle]

Nail on the head there Tha-mask

The HFT was designed as a way to make a more robust reliable CVT that could withstand harsh conditions.
It has followed a separate time line to DCT under different teams.

Most bikers are only able to accept an automatic if it still has gears and most motorcycle mechanics will just stare at you blankly if you mention swash plate pumps, and neither of them like new ideas. Especially new ideas they don't understand.