Honda's new Tire Pressure Monitoring System
You may be very unlikely to see a tyre valve like this on a GL1800 in UK, although all the 2009 models in the States have them. One of the changes made by Honda for the 2009 model year in the States is a new warning device for loss of tyre pressure; if the tyre pressure falls below a certain level a warning light tells the rider. This chunky-looking tyre valve houses the device which tell the bike when pressure in its tyre is low.
This is potentially a very valuable safety feature; undetected loss of tyre pressure can cause handling problems and lead to loss of control. Assuming Honda have made this new piece of kit work reliably, which they are usually very good at, I would very much like one on my bike. So presumably do Honda, it’s been introduced across the full range of GL1800 models in USA.
But UK Wingers are not going to get the option. My information is that there are to be no 2009 or 2010 GL1800 models for UK at all. HondaUK has a stock of 220 GL1800s already in UK, all made before the US 2009 model build, and these will be the only GoldWings available in UK until the new, Japanese-built, Goldwing model arrives. This is now expected for the 2011 model year in USA – and maybe for 2011 in UK too.
There are to be 2010 models in USA; they were built before the Maryville Factory closed in March this year and they are being held at Honda’s distribution warehouse in Chicago. There are to be no differences in specification for 2010 apart from colour changes.
Of course one way for a UK Winger to get a 2009 (or 2010) model will be to buy one in America and bring it into UK as a personal import. It has to be a personal import because UK Dealers can no longer import bikes, for fear of legal sanction by HondaUK.
But even resorting to a personal import from the States will not get you a new 2009 Airbag model GoldWing because they have all been sold. The Level Four (Airbag, GPS and ABS) model was produced for the US market in very small numbers, reflecting the reluctance of US Wingers to value the airbag system, just as they haven’t really valued ABS brakes. Four different “Level” models were offered in the States and only the top model, level Four, has ABS, so to get ABS brakes in the States, you also have to have both GPS and the airbag. In UK of course we are only offered one specification of GL1800, which is broadly similar to the US level Four model, except it doesn’t have the six-speaker boosted audio system, nor of course the low tyre pressure warning device – and nor is it fitted for CB or fog lights. There may be an opportunity to buy a 2010 Level Four US GL1800 when they are released, but that remains to be seen; apart from that possibility it would appear that the opportunity to buy a new fully-specified GL1800 in the USA and bring it to UK has gone for ever.
So what are these 220 GL1800s which HondaUK hold in stock? Well it seems they were all built as part of the 2007 or 2008 model series, and therefore with exactly the same specifiction. Since HondaUK allocate their own VIN number series, which unlike the US VIN number gives no clue as to when the bike was actually built, these bikes may be released by HondaUK as 2009 and 2010 models. I have no information about whether there are any new colours among these bikes and there might be. Although every new colour brought over to Europe adds to Honda’s logistical and spares-holding costs in Europe, which is presumably why we get only three colours per year and usually only one or two new colours, Honda may have decided to add another colour to the last set of GL1800s made for Europe – but I wouldn’t bet on it.
So is this new tyre pressure warning device (TPMS, tire pressure monitoring system) something we should feel aggrieved about not getting in UK? Well as I said if Honda have engineered it well enough to give prompt and reliable indication of a small drop of tyre pressure, it is something I would consider valuable. Honda’s US website specifies that the warning triggers if tyre pressure “falls below minimum recommended levels”, which sounds as if it does an adequate job. But I couldn’t find what these minimum recommended levels are; my Owners Manual just gives a specific pressure for each tyre, varying only between front and back and whether a pillion passenger is being carried. I suppose this rather implies that the TPMS would trigger if the front or rear tyre falls below the lowest specified pressure, but Honda doesn’t say by how much.
I mention this because I fitted my last bike with special valve caps which showed a green ring providing tyre pressure was good, changing to amber and then red if pressure dropped. But I discovered that the pressure had to fall by getting on for 5 psi before the green band disappeared, which I felt was too much. Riding with tyres which could be as much as 5 psi under inflated was an unacceptable risk. So I took them off as potentially misleading. Hopefully Honda’s TMPS is much more on the ball and triggers when the pressure drops by only one or two psi.
Incidentally the only other change, apart from colour, which I could see in the 2009 model GoldWings in America was a switch from Compact Flash to SD memory cards for the Navi GPS system. These are still only 2 Gb, the most the system will accept, which incidentally is not enough for the whole of Europe as available on other Garmin products. But the GPS maps which come with the 2009 US bikes have Garmin’s City Navigator Version 2008 maps, which are now out of date; there is a 2009 version.
The map version which comes with a new GoldWing is not unimportant because even the latest GPS maps inevitably lag behind changes in road systems – usually by two years or so. In the case of Honda’s Navi system, the GPS system supplier is Garmin and in turn Garmin buy the digital maps from Navteq, which supplies most GPS manaufacturers. Navteq does all the donkey work of incorporating changes in road layouts and also all the other data which is built into a GPS database these days, like the location and sometimes also supplementary information, like contact phone numbers, for places of interest on the maps – like hotels, restaurants, fuel stations and so on. It is of course impossible to be completely up to date with such things but having the latest mapping data can be important if you need to find fuel or overnight accomodation quickly and reliably, so it is worth haviung the most up to date maps you can get – or at least the most up to date maps you can afford, since updating a GL1800′s GPS maps is a somewhat costly business.
Therefore checking the version date on the Navi’s memory card is something you should do, or ask the Dealer to so, before you buy any bike which has GPS fitted. In the case of a GL1800 it’s quite easy to do; just open the flap on the left hand side of the GPS unit in the trunk and eject the memory card which peeps out at you under the flap in order to look at it’s label. The label will tell you which version of maps are installed. This can also be a way of checking roughly how old an allegedly “new” UK GL1800 is before you buy it.
And asking the dealer to update the bike to 2009 maps (in our case City Navigator Europe 2009) on a new bike you’re thinking of buying is not an unreasonable request, especially if you are supposed to be buying a brand new GL1800. The current version of maps for a UK bike is City Navigator Version 2009, which was released by Garmin in February 2009. Your new GL1800 may have Version 2008 maps or even earlier ones, so check.