chicken hawk warmer question

[motobum]

i have heard of people sending their chicken hawk tirewarmers back to get refurbished..

how do i do this?

how much is it?

i wrote an e-mail, but got no responce.

[Lel399]

give me a call at faster, i can give you a hand w/ them. 303.825.0975

[bluedevil]

Just wanted to share a bit of my personal experience with this.... Ive sent my 2004 Pole Position pair in twice. Once shortly after I bought them when they went out at PPIR.... I sent them in, they replaced the part that went out, and even repaired the burned material and had it back to me in less than a week.... Of course under warranty and no charge to myself.....

Second time last race of 2007, half way through the day they begin to flicker and intermittently work.... Finally stopped working all together. I just got around to sending mine in to Chicken Hawk I got a nice email from their tech dept saying what may be the issue and they would call me when they receive them and have checked them over. In addition they said they no longer use that part and have since upgraded several things about my pair made in 2004... They removed that part all together so it cant go out anymore... They even called me to confirm I wanted to go through with it before they began work. Anyway I gave authorization to upgrade them to the components used on their 2008 models...

They replaced the internals, power cords, and upgraded to a beefier switch, and put nice shinny new Chicken Hawk label on them, and back to me in about a week... Charges were $120 for the set to be converted.......

Chicken Hawk has always been great on their service is always top notch... After trying them out, they are even better than ever and get hot so much faster... Plus they look and are basically brand new...

Thumbs up for the process....

[Clarkie]

I have had nothing but trouble with both Chickenhawk and their warmers, I know both David and Howie personally, but I guess this does nothing to help get warmers repaired properly. I have been through several sets of Suzuka warmers (made by Chickenhawk) and have had countless problems with my Chickenhawks including them not actually heating the tires up to the correct (programmed) temp.

This year I am running Bickle Tire warmers, everything I have seen and heard tells me i will be very impressed with them 8)

[jplracing]

I agree with Aaron

I too have have had nothing but problems dealing with Howie and there lack of support.

So......I will be running the woodcrafts

[benfoxmra95]

I'm on the same page as Aaron as well.

There's no point in me listing the problems I've had with chicken hawk and trying to get them repaired repeatedly.

Would not reccomend them.

I bought a set of fuel moto's at the end of last year to use in Oregon and they were cheap and worked well, I also have a set of tire bakers, but I have a failed front one right now that needs repaired. And they are kinda pricey, but I saw on gallants motosix website you van get a deal on them.

[Lel399]

ehh Ive had the opposite experience.

Howie could be flakey; but the product I absolutely love; and Dave and everyone there do stand behind their stuff.

jason

[nobasin]

me and a couple other new racers also had the new fuel motos last season and they worked well all year. same warmers that the redbull/ktm supermoto team uses. they also just lowered the price to $229/set from $349! seriously, you can't beat that, and they are a high quality product, not a piece-o-crap. wide profile too that actually gets some heat on the rim and not just the tire. http://fuelmotousa.com/tirewarmers.htm.

[Clarkie]

Howie could be flakey

You should have seen Howie trying to run his dealership on Long Island and then the Ducati/Aprilia flagship store in Manhattan :D

[glenngsxr]

I never understood why the hell tire warmers are so expensive in the first place? They are so simple. What are the margins on these things anyways? glenn #62

[turbohoje]

i have no idea why they are so expensive. i'm sure by the time you spend doing r&d on making a set that works, is reproducible and field tough its not that easy of a task.

ive had brg's, bickles and now i'm on a set of chicken hawks. thus far no problems (and they are a used set). my only complaint is the cold spot where the warmer hooks to itself, but after having a pair fail on me, i'm a nazi about checking to make sure they are warm. i rotate the warmer a few min before the race anyway.

who makes an affordable penetration style pyrometer? i think shellinger had a couple, one of which he protected with his life. what are the considerations on getting one of these (any style pyrometer)? also the IR models allow you to point it at the wheel and grab a temp. leleck tells me thats what you are supposed to measure to get a better idea of air temp inside.

[Clarkie]

measuring and keeping track of rim temp will give you a more consistant baseline, the tire can heat up quickly, but measuring the rim temp over the tire temp will tell you what is going on with the carcus of the tire. With Pirelli's we dont even go out on track until the rim temp is at least 105'F, sure the tire will still work but we set our pressures hot, and we want our hot pressure to be the same at 60'F air temp as it is at 110'F.

BTW, air, track temp (and cloud cover) effect a tire more that you realise :wink:

[r_mutt]

i had problems with howie as well. he was not reliable. i'm sure he meant well, but... afaik, he's been gone for some time and has been replaced with a guy named chris- he seems to be a good guy! i damaged a warmer by starting the bike with it in gear doh!- but chris took care of me quickly and at a surprisingly low cost. that's what i like about chicken hawk, they build and repair their own warmers so when something breaks, you can send them in to get fixed. try that with the other with the other brands. instead of fixing them, they'll gladly sell you another warmer.

the most telling thing about the chicken hawk warmers, is that yosh, american honda, jordan, M4 all use their warmers- they've got to be doing something right. you don't see woodcraft tirewarmers on any of the ama teams. that says it all.

[JimWilson29]

:|

[motobum]

i have been dealing with kevin from Chicken hawk as well as david.

they are awesome. great customer service. i probably had 10 phone calls all of which they were super helpful. they traded in my old ass warmers for some refurbished M4 warmers for 225$.

[bluedevil]

Nice..

I was gonna say, I tried out my referbs on Monday for the 1st time... They upgraded me to the new components (New switches, removed some old parts that were no longer needed, new plugs, and some other minor things..) Excellent ! Worked perfectly and with the new larger switches they installed its much more user friendly.

Paid about $120 for my 04's to be upgraded to 08 specs.... took about 10 days to get them back. Thumbs up for Chicken Hawk !