Corbin Fire & Ice

I am big fan of Corbin, this is my third seat plus I bought beetle bags for my cruiser years ago. Happy thus far HOWEVER, I am having a bit of a problem hooking up their “fire & ice” seat on my ’16 R1200RT. For starters the directions are altogether wrong and calling Corbin directly is not producing any results.

The directions describe how to connect all 6 wires from the Corbin seat to the 6 wires (coming from the front and rear wiring harnesses) on the bike. Easy Peasy except there are only 2 wires on the Corbin seat; a yellow and a brown…. (okay, full disclosure; there is a red wire for the cooling feature of the seat which does not connect the BMW harness. This increases the count to 3 on the seat.)

The Corbin marketing material on their website reads: “Fire & Ice Saddle: This model uses the seat heater control wiring AND a second 12v source. Front and rear heat is enabled via the switch on the side of the saddle and temperature is then set with the handlebar mounted interface. Cooling is enabled via the switch on the saddle and is not effected by handlebar controls."

I'm all for rigging it: Hell, I put an eBay turbo, satellite radio and a GPS on my '93 FXR and it all runs like a champ. But for my brand new high tech computer controlled starship, I prefer to install the Corbin seat as it was sold to me with the heat controlled by the handlebar mounted interface.

Does anyone have experience with a 3 wire Corbin Fire & Ice seat working with the seat heater interface? (pic of pan below)

Thank you for your help. Corbin has gone silent on me.

Are you actually calling the Corbin FACTORY in Hollister, CA?

http://www.corbin.com/california.shtml


I guess it"s possible they had an Easter week shutdown. Try this week during business hours. I've never had a problem getting in touch with a person that could answer my questions.

Hmm - I just visited the website to see if they've included my year (nope), but I found this on the seat's website:

"Tech Info IMPORTANT! It has been brought to our attention that tapping the Corbin heater pigtail into the BMW wiring harness may effect your warranty. If you would rather obtain BMW connectors to plug into your stock harness, you can ask your dealer for the following two part numbers: #61127688145 & #61127688147. These connectors can be spliced to the Corbin pigtail and can then be plugged in like the OEM seat."

Yeash for what you paid, you should have also received an OEM connector! C'mon Corbin, you could have made this plug and play! I would imagine that the yellow is the switched hot and the brown is the ground, now you need to figure out what's what coming from the 6 pin OEM connector. Sorry I wasn't of much help, but it seems like a half-baked product.

Telephone

I called the California offic a few times only to be redirected to Florida. I even asked to speak with an engineer, specifying an electrical engineer. They have quite an impressive “fire wall” set up to avoid customers.

Yellow / Brown

The yellow and brown wire on the seat I also assume will run through the switch on the seat. This by itself is fine. Corbin told me to simply connect the brown and purple from the bike to the seat. These wires are hot with 12 volts as soon as you turn the bike on. The handlebar controls for adjusting the heat have no effect on the yellow / purple 12 volts.

Remember their claim: that your can control the heat through the handlebar interface. I am trusting that their marketing strategy does not include false advertising.

I went ahead and purchased the BMW wires to keep around for the stock seat. In 20 years or whenever I sell this bike these connectors will probably be pretty hard to come by.

Thank you for any other thoughts you might have.

CUEBELE131511 said:

I called the California offic a few times only to be redirected to Florida. I even asked to speak with an engineer, specifying an electrical engineer. They have quite an impressive “fire wall” set up to avoid customers.

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Which for me would be sufficient reason NOT to buy their product. If they act like this before you even get it installed imagine the turmoil when something fails to work. No thank you.

PGlaves said:

Which for me would be sufficient reason NOT to buy their product. If they act like this before you even get it installed imagine the turmoil when something fails to work. No thank you.

Click to expand...

+1! Having heard a horror story from a friend of mine with their warranty dept. , I doubt I will ever buy their product(s)...

Corbin Fire and Ice: textbook of what not to do

They must be a victim of their own success to be this bad at customer service. If anyone wants first hand experience to a textbook example of what a lack of "soft skills" training does to a company; look no further than Corbin. They finally did update the instructions on-line, but did not bother to tell me; the guy who brought this issue to their attention. In the end their product works mostly. The lights on the switch do not light up as the instructions say, but I think that has again something to do with the change in wiring on their seat and their piss poor documentation department. The sad part of this ordeal is that I have no desire to call and inform them of the problem. The seat heater warms up, not as hot as the stock seat. I have not experienced the cooling on a hot day yet, but the fans turn on. In the end their products are high quality, their electronics work mostly, and their customer service is the worst I have experienced. Without a question in my mind, they firmly believe that all their customers are idiots.

I am writing this simply as a service to those researching Corbin Fire and Ice. Buyer beware. They are jerks. I will not buy from them again.

Sadly, I'm not surprised. After two ride-ins, I won't be back there. The way they do their ride-ins, it takes from 0800-4 PM to get a seat done. You even get to sit alone in the shop while everyone breaks for lunch.
The terrible phone service is boringly consistent. When my seat was done, I wasn't even sure who had my bill...
They've known about the optional BMW connector for years. I took one with me when they made my seat, as I did not want to splice their connector into my wiring harness. The guy who made my seat even (pretended?) to be surprised that you could order the connectors from BMW...
Too bad. They are quite close to me, and Mr. Corbin was pleasant to chat with, when he made an appearance on the floor.

I've had a Corbin seat on every motorcycle that i ever owned. Will not buy another Corbin product. A friend called and ordered a seat for a BMW he bought. Corbin sent him a seat for the bike. Finds out, what they sent did not fit his bike and they did not make a seat for his model. After several calls they would not answer or return his calls. A "will not fit" showed up on the web site a short time later, I did see this. My buddy passed from cancer a short time later and Corbin finally accepted a return at pennies on the dollar from his wife. They are pond scum.