Customer Reviews

Stebel Nautilus Compact Motorcycle Air Horn

5 star:		(43)
4 star:		(10)
3 star:		(6)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(6)

 

 

I recently was almost run off the road on my Suzuki V-Strom by a driver merging onto the freeway. She was singing to a tune and never looked into the lane she was changing into, which happened to be mine. I blew my horn which had no affect at all. My factory motorcycle horn is about equivalent in volume to a person blowing their nose with a bad cold. My only option was to speed up and get in between her and the car on my left. Once I got clear I was determined to get a new horn.

I received my order in only 2 days using the standard ground shipping option. That was surprising since some of the stuff from Amazon lately has taken 2 weeks to get to me. I also ordered the optional wiring kit which came in the same box. I strongly suggest you get this kit unless you have a garage full of different gauge wires and connectors.

Installation,

It took me 2 hours to install this horn. First it's not small so you have to find a suitable mounting place. Forget about mounting it where the existing hockey puck size horn is. Then you have to buy or fabricate your own mounting bracket because it doesn't come with any way to attach it to the bike. The one screw it does come with is stated in the instructions as having to be torqued to 50 foot pounds. For a horn? There are no written wiring instructions with the horn, but there is with the optional wiring kit. But unless you want to be confused, don't read the instructions and instead follow the wiring diagram which is the same on both the horn and wiring kit. The outcome was good but it took a lot longer then I expected. If you are not good with electrical wiring expect to spend even more time.

Bottom Line:

THIS HORN IS LOUD! It does exactly what it says it does. It corrects what I believe is a major safety flaw on most bike and some cars.

Why not five starts:

It should come with the wiring kit. It's only $10.00. They could add it to the price of the horn and charge less for the combo since it doesn't require separate packages.

It should come with a simple black bracket that would work for the majority of installs.

After reading the reviews, I expected the horn to be louder. It is pretty loud, but don't expect it to compete in loudness with air horns on cars and trucks. It's also relatively high pitched and musical, so it's not as aggressive of a sound as you might hope. I did a test where I put my video camera inside my car with music playing, and rode by on my motorcycle with the old and then new horns honking. In both cases the horn was tough to hear until the motorcycle was pretty close or there was a pause in the music. That said, on my first ride with the new Stebel, a van pulled in front of me so I honked (having a new horn made me a bit trigger happy). The van pulled off the road and stopped, which is a more dramatic reaction than I've ever had before. Something about the air horn sound just seems to get people's attention.

Installation was a real bugger. I spent many hours hunting for a place to mount it, crafting a mounting bracket, and wiring it up. It's fairly large and heavy, and I wanted it to be hidden by my bike's fairing, so there weren't many installation choices. The wiring kit I bought for an extra $10 didn't include long enough wires to reach from my battery to the old horn (I wired the relay for the Stebel in parallel with my old horn to make both of them useful), so I still had to make a trip to the hardware store for supplies.

Overall, I do think this horn is a worthwhile safety feature, and I'm glad I added it to my VFR800. Just be sure you're up to a big project before starting it yourself.

If you've got plenty of room on your scoot, this is a must have for any motorcyclist.

Unfortunately, it was too large to fit under the flyscreen of my Buell XB12S Lightning (fortunately a friend's Uly had plenty of room). I tried several other install concepts posted by other users, the XBS is just way too small.

I looked at several other horns before deciding on this one.

Pros:

* Great idea

* Loudest on the market, according to my research

* Plenty of user reviews and advice on how to install for many models.

Cons:

* Too small for smaller form factor/compact bikes

* Poor instructions included, not much help on the company's web site

* Additional wiring kit needed for many applications

Better if:

* Better instructions were included

* Wiring kit just came with the base kit

* A smaller version was available, even at a sacrifice of dB

In a word, "WOW"!

Hardest part of installation was figuring out how/where to mount it (Suziki Bandit- left side under fairing). Found a lot of good ideas on various Forums, but still had to fabricate a bracket. Wiring up was easy with the optional wiring kit. The relay in the wiring kit is sort of cheap and weak (mount broke when screwing it on. Had to zip-tie to frame).

I have used the once to save my hide; a car was going to t-bone me shile he was at a stop and I was turning left. I thought we had made eye contact, but right before I passed in front of him, he pulls out and is on a course to clip me. I laid on the horn, and he jerked to a stop with a wide-eyed look. then he giove me the "sorry, my bad" wave. Scared the heck out of my buddy when he was checking out my bike.

A very sound (pun intended) inverstment in your personal safety.

The Stebel compact air horn works great.

Prepare to make your own mounting bracket for it.

The wires in the wiring kit I bought separately were too short.

The wires in the kit are only 3 ft. My application required five ft.

This horn is LOUD! loud enough that I don't like blowing it unless I have to. Unfortunately for us motorcyclists I don't think there is any horn loud enough on the market to get the attention of some of the distracted drivers out there. I've had it work where another rider's horn didn't, but I have also had it not get the attention of some drivers. So this horn isn't the fix to distracted drivers, but it is better than a stock horn.

As for the install, it is bigger than they make it sound, but fortunately the horn and air compressor can be separated. This allowed me to mount it on my CBR600RR (even though they don't leave much room under my plastics.) I mounted my compressor between the engine and the headers, then I used hose to connect the compressor to the horn that I mounted on the side of my bike, just under my gas tank. Definitely not a bolt on "Plug & Play" accessory. It requires a lot of power, so some more advanced wiring is required.

I definitely recommend this horn over any other, but don't expect it to get the attention of everyone when you need it. That said, I'm going to install them on all of my bikes!

The air horn finally arrived, But after a lengthy wait I was very disappointed. The reason I was so disappointed was that the description on the web page rated the air horn from the vendor at 139db, but the box that the horn was packaged in rated the air horn at only 115DB. This does not sound like the worlds loudest air horn as stated by the description detailed from the statements made about this specific horn (Plain black, Stebal Nautilus Compact motorcycle Air Horn). This sounds more like faults advertising! I was very specific about the horn that I was purchasing because I've purchased a similiar one before. I wanted a plain black horn because it was not going to be seen and I needed it loud; 139db loud. This too, was the reason I did not purchase the exact same horn in chrome, because that one was only rated at 115DB as per it's descripition. If you sell it as stated, then it better be the product that arrives. To conclude, I learned not to be so trusting of the information, and that a bargain is not always a bargain if its not what you ordered. With that said. I also realized, if I would have purchased this product from a vendor that was much closer to my location I would have recieved the product much sooner. Instead I tracked the package across the lower eastern part of the United states as it made its way throught several major cities and states before arriving over a week later. Luckily the shipping was free, but my time is not! This review is only to inform and educate future buyers and sellers about my experience.

It's small, inexpensive and loud. I mounted on the front downtube just inside the shifter on my FLSTSC. The supplied relay fit nicely under the seat forward of the battery. Following the wiring diagram was easy and it all worked first thing. I only had to buy a fuse holder, fuse, female spade connectors, and 14 guage black and red wire. I would like it even more if the tone were lower but you can't have everything.

Installation is a not as easy as just replacing your old horn. Because it uses more power, to avoid blowing fuses, have to use included relay. Mounting bolt that comes with it is not very good solution to hold it in place. Vibration loosens it up over time. Wiring and relay got to be hidden from elements and out of sight. That was one of the most challenging things for me and I ended up making custom electrical box to hide the relay.

After all the trouble, I was really disappointed with performance. Used it few times and took it off.

Not worth the trouble in my opinion.

I bought this for a Harley Sportster and the installation has been a serious hassle.

First, the horn is large and awkward and they state that it must be vertical and the intakes must be facing backward, but the horn only has a single mounting option so it was very difficult finding a spot on a motorcycle to place it.

Second, the instructions state 40ft-lbs of torque required, but the cheap metal from which they made the the bracket cracked after about 20ft-lbs.

I still have not found a place on my bike to mount this awkward-cracked beast-horn and without a machine shop to fabricate a bracket, it looks unlikely. So, I reinstalled my old horn and I still sound like the road runner (meep meep).

As for function, I tried it for volume both with and without the relay. The relay makes a big difference, but adds a bit of hassle when wiring. Depending on how your machine is wired, the diagram may be wrong. If you understand that your old horn button actuates the 85/86 circuit, which relays to the 87/30 and actuates this horn, you should be fine. With the relay, the horn is a loud two tone blast that will definitely get noticed. It sounds a bit like a locomotive horn. Pretty sweet... if you can attach it.

I would welcome any tips on attaching this horn.