Quick question about tracking...

DG Rider

DG Rider

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How does your pioneer track on nice smooth roads?

Mine drifts left ever so slightly, and needs just a touch of pressure to keep it going straight. So little that you won't even notice on trails. I am not overly concerned since off-road tires seldom drive very nicely anyway. Just curious.
 
C

chuck

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Mine tracks pretty straight with vipr tires 10/12 psi. I noticed some wobble with 7 psi in stock tires (and also got a flat shortly after).
 
Hondasxs

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Mine tracks straight. Well from what I can tell. Guess I need to test it on pavement for a better example.
I'll let U know.
 
ohanacreek

ohanacreek

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Mines pretty much straight but it will pull one way or the other depending on the crown of the road.
 
spifyd

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adjust your rear tie pressures more in the left will make it pull more to the right. a larger amount of wait on one side than the other will make it pull to that side.(two passengers on one side) tire squish thing. when we rode wheelies on our 3 wheelers we could lean or wait to one side and it would go to that side just from tire squish.
 
Hondasxs

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Tracking can be adjusted but a special too is needed. I'll try to post some info in a bit.
 
DG Rider

DG Rider

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I often check the tire pressure, but usually cold. Experience should have taught me to check them hot, since they heat to different temps. Sure enough, the left rear was about 1.5PSI higher due to proximity to the exhaust, and i adjusted this and it seems to have gone away ( wasn't bad to start with ).

This seems contradictory to what should have happened...but my theory is that the lower RR simply had a bigger footprint and traction and drove the machine slightly left on smooth surfaces. In any case, its fixed.

Assuming the brakes and wheel bearings are OK, the only way to fix a pull would be camber/caster adjustments. Toe itself will not cause a pull, but will exacerbate another problem that is causing it. Even making the decision to make such adjustments would be iffy unless tires had been ruled out...and off-road tires are not famous for quality control. If you had such a problem, Honda would probably tell you that this is an off-road machine, and isn't expected to track straight. Even if they didn't ( unlikely ), there are no "real" adjustments to caster/camber, though one could probably improvise something.

I had an incident years ago with a 1st year Rubicon, the best ATV I've ever owned...
During break-in, the front brakes became grabby, and were mentioned to the dealer at 1st service, who shrugged it off and told me they would break-in and get better ( never mind that it had over 100 miles at that point ). Shortly after taking it home, i was going down my driveway in low and hit the brakes...and of course, the right front locked solid, jerked the bars in such a way that the thumb throttle caught my had and went WFO. My dive was next to a steep bank, and heading right for it, i grabbed the brakes full force. So effectively, the bakes were holding back against the full power of the engine for a few seconds until i got stopped. During that time i heard a strange noise, but thought nothing of it.

When i went to take off again, imagine my delight when the front tires started scooping gravel with the inside fronts because they were toed WAY out. Something was obviously bent. I called the dealer...in quite a heated mood, and they sucked up pretty good and told me to bring it in. The front brakes turned out to have gotten grease on them during assembly, but they could see nothing wrong with the front, and just re-set the toe. This would have been fine...except the machine, from that moment on until i traded it, pulled badly to the left.

I went back and forth with Honda over this to the tune of $100 phone bill over the course of 2 months. They would do nothing, since the dealer could find nothing wrong ( this dealer, like most, had no alignment equipment ). I had access to an alignment machine at that time, and put the thing on it, and the whole front end was way out as far as angles go...and it was obvious that something, somewhere had bent.

The final culmination of this came with a Honda phone rep who was obviously their "get rid of this guy" person. He accused me of meddling with the brakes and causing the issue...and when i ask him about side-to-side caster variation specs, hold told me that this was "proprietary information" , to which i responded "you mean, its what you need it to be at any given time?". He replied with a smart-assed comment, and went off on him so badly that he hung up on me.

I finally traded it out of pure frustration on a 450S. As you can see, i am a big Honda guy...because no one else would have ever considered a Honda again after this cluster...
In retrospect, i should have taken it to one of the "big" dealers downstate who had alignment equipment and gotten "official" specs, so Honda could see what their s*** had done, but i knew of none at the time. Or, i should have just improvised and fixed it myself...but it was pretty far out, as i recall.

This is the sad history of my Rubicon, why i traded it on a 450S, and why i would probably punch a Honda rep in the face if he were standing here right now.
 
Hondasxs

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@DG.. LOL.
you must had the same rep I had for my Rubicon too. It was in the shop for 6 months and they never told me what was wrong with it. Kept betting around the bush.
 
DG Rider

DG Rider

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Hondasxs said:
@DG.. LOL.
you must had the same rep I had for my Rubicon too. It was in the shop for 6 months and they never told me what was wrong with it. Kept betting around the bush.
It's the biggest shame, Hondasxs. That machine was a rolling definition of why Honda is the #1 motorcycle mfg in the world. Smooth and refined to the nth degree.
If Honda made a EFI,IRS, and EPS Rubicon, i would have a hard time not buying one.
 
Hondasxs

Hondasxs

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Agreed. Loved my Rubi. Cried when I parted it out. :-(
 
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