2025/2026 Honda CRF450R Recall?

Good to hear they finally issued a recall for this! Bikes were arriving with faulty bar mounts that wouldn't tighten down against the handlebar. They'd bottom out on the mounts first and the bars would slip. Bikes are good as far as I know, they just need new bar mounts. 

Thanks for posting.  I had this happen on my first outing on my brand new 250 WE 10 days ago.   The clamps are sliced down so much on the rear-most bolts that there isn't a lot of clamping contact point.  I came in (fortunately no incident) and retightened the bar clamps with no further incident (2 more practice motos) but I was thinking about it while on track.

Yea it puts dealers in A bind sadly, no eta on a part to fix it and you can't sell them or you get a absolute paddling. So we get to hold onto fresh bikes until we can fix and sell all of them.

Could a belt saner take enough off so the clamp pinches tight?

Odd its as far back as 2025’s

glad I bought Xtrig PDHS mounts day 1!

I hope it doesn’t take as long as the Grom stop sale.

I dont even want to think about that right now. 

I'm thinking it could be as easy as a new clamp (i.e., the piece that sits over the top of the bars).  Understanding that's a lot of clamps that will be need to be manufactured and distributed and installed.  Sounds like a couple of you are dealers -- any chance they'd just distribute the clamps to the customers for installation?  Or will we need to take our bikes in to have the dealer install the new parts?

I had the bars on my 26 450r  slip down and I nearly went over the bars. I tightened the clamps way down but I still think about it when I ride wondering if will happen again.

Look at the top of the bar

That is egregious.... Really surprised that Honda let these get out the door....

Unless I'm looking at this pic wrong, it seems the clamps are mounted backwards.  There should be a gap at the rear of the clamp.  It should be flush at the front.  Was it delivered this way?

The clamps are actually the same height on both sides. 
The rear of the top clamp have a bevel to them

Bummer and surprising. When I got my 2023, I remember thinking the stock bar mounts looked pretty chintzy compared to the old 7/8" ones that came stock on the last generation two strokes. Hopefully they sort it out quickly.

first aston martin and now this. come on honda

My good friend just picked up a 2026 CRF450WE and he can't get his bars to tighten. This makes absolute sense now. I forwarded him the information. 

I'm not with Honda anymore but, I can almost guarantee that there was a Service Bulletin way before a recall. So, the dealer service departments should have known.

This particular dealership doesn't have the best reputation, so this doesn't surprise me. 

Yeah not a good look for Honda in F1 either. Aston Martin team & McClaren team using Honda engines, but the Honda engines have many issues. 

How that bar mount even made it out of the factory on bike# 1 is baffling?? Was the QC department scrapped for cost savings? And those triple clamps in the pic look like the cheapest Chinese parts Honda could get.  Wow!

That's some Grade A Chinesium quality control.  Remember when "fit and finish" was a hallmark of Honda quality...

Wtf, such a simple yet important part to fuck up

Have not had this issue on my 2025 250WE. I do remember trying to buy a CRF125 for my wife, and the stop sale because of the grip issue made it impossible to get one for months. 

Look closely at that front bolt- that doesn't look right at all. That looks more like the ones they use in the shipping containers more than what they usually use on the bike.

I might take to a machine shop to have them mill a bit off. That way you get an even mounting surface. The belt sander would probably work but you may end up with an uneven surface. Probably cheaper to buy aftermarket bar mounts. 

Not that easy, as I said, the grip on the CRF125 took a while. There is certainly a process at Honda. Don't want to rush and have another issue. 

What was the grip issue?