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My friend drives his new rebel 250 about 250 miles between his house and his friends house. He did this about three times and the bike just died. I'm not sure exactly what happened but it cost a lot to fix. Honda said it wasn't meant for this kind of riding and wouldn't pay for it. I've heard other people say 250s should'nt do long distance riding but I was wondering about the ninja 250. Would this bike have any trouble with long distances beside being uncomfortable?

jumico wrote:Honda said it wasn't meant for this kind of riding and wouldn't pay for it.

Anyone else feel like there's more to the story than this?

I can't imagine the Rebel 250 having any problem with this kind of riding, and I can't imagine Honda refusing to fix an in-warranty bike because it was ridden in stretches of 250 miles.

I'm with jonnythan. The only thing I can imagine is if the bike was topped out the whole way at excessive speed. That might be construed has abuse. I really can't imagine any other scenario. Is there more to this story?

jonnythan wrote:

jumico wrote:Honda said it wasn't meant for this kind of riding and wouldn't pay for it.

Anyone else feel like there's more to the story than this?

I can't imagine the Rebel 250 having any problem with this kind of riding, and I can't imagine Honda refusing to fix an in-warranty bike because it was ridden in stretches of 250 miles.

+1

there's no reason a properly maintained rebel couldn't handle that. in one of the latest issues of roadbike, a guy went from florida to vegas on a couple year old rebel and it didn't even hiccup.

BTW, same for the Ninja. People ride distances on the Ninja all the time.

I hear the engine can be a little loud at highway speeds, though, so might want some earplugs.

At first the dealership said that it had the wrong spark plugs but then he told them those were the original and they said it was ridden to far. He owned the bike for six months and I don't think he ever abused it. I know that he never dropped it or anything like that. Sorry for leaving that part out.

jumico wrote:At first the dealership said that it had the wrong spark plugs but then he told them those were the original and they said it was ridden to far. He owned the bike for six months and I don't think he ever abused it. I know that he never dropped it or anything like that. Sorry for leaving that part out.

Sounds like a crappy dealer... also sounds like a great issue to take up directly with Honda.

Remember that a *Honda dealer* is not *Honda*.

jumico wrote:My friend drives his new rebel 250 about 250 miles between his house and his friends house. He did this about three times and the bike just died. I'm not sure exactly what happened but it cost a lot to fix. Honda said it wasn't meant for this kind of riding and wouldn't pay for it. I've heard other people say 250s should'nt do long distance riding but I was wondering about the ninja 250. Would this bike have any trouble with long distances beside being uncomfortable?

I agree with previous posters that it seems that we are lacking a bit of information.

How did the bike "die"? Was he only riding on these 250 trips- so he had 1500 miles, what was the rest of his riding like?

There's a rebel at the Alexandria MSF course from 1986. Who knows how many times it's been dropped, slid, and abused. It has 15,000+ MSF only miles on it. She's still running fine.

Anybody who owns, or has ever owned, a Rebel would never buy this stick and bull story.

jumico wrote:At first the dealership said that it had the wrong spark plugs but then he told them those were the original and they said it was ridden to far. He owned the bike for six months and I don't think he ever abused it. I know that he never dropped it or anything like that. Sorry for leaving that part out.

Ridden too far? Sorry, I'm still not buying it. Hondas come with a warranty that says what they will and will not cover. Riding too far is only a limitation if you exceeded the total mileage on the warranty (usually 12K to 15K miles).

Your friend is either not telling you the whole story, or the dealer is taking him for a ride. If it's the latter, he should bypass the dealer and go directly to Honda corporate. There's a reason that warranties are written on paper. Dealers cannot just make up stuff and deny your warranty (unless you are very gullible and let them).