A Stebel Nautilus by any other name...

Stebel Nautilus Failure
There's one problem we have to report right up front: both Stebel Nautilus horns had serious and fatal flaws. They died before we could even get them registered on the sound meter! We were, however, able to record the first and only beeps spoken by the big red Nautilus Max (see below).

The Nautilus Max horn worked for a few short honks; less than about 3 seconds total. After the final honk, it died. We've since discussed this with several other Nautilus owners who have indicated that premature and unexpected (and sudden) failure is a common problem with the Nautilus horns.

The Stebel Nautilus Compact, which is the most common Nautilus horn of this type sold to motorcyclists, didn't work at all -- it was DOA, right out of the box. Dead, nada, ixnay, nothing.

Both horns were purchased separately from completely different vendors, several months apart. One horn was purchased in the UK an one in the U.S., so our only conclusion is that Stebel has a serious problem with these horns.

Apparently the Nautilus uses some type of internal compressor that powers the horns, and it is very prone to failure -- especially if it gets wet. When the Nautilus horns fail, all that's left is a flatulent 77 dB croak, which is useless for our purposes.

So our conclusion is that at this point, the Stebel Nautilus cannot be recommended. After all, what good is the loudest horn in the world if you can't depend on it when it's needed?

Not to mention the things are huge, heavy and they have really awful mounting brackets, making it a real chore to mount on any type of motorcycle that we can think of.

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PGlaves said:

And the Pinto was made by Ford, but it wasn't a Crown Vic.

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