2002 Honda Honda Motorcycle: what breaks, and at what mileage
What breaks on the 2002 Honda Honda Motorcycle
On the 2002 Honda Honda Motorcycle, the failure owners report most often is exhaust leak or fumes in the cabin, with 5 reports on file. Across every failure mode on this year, half the dated reports were filed before 10,000 miles.
What owners report breaking
Owners have reported 8 named failure modes on the 2002 Honda Honda Motorcycle, and the three most-reported carry 62% of everything filed, so the trouble here is concentrated rather than scattered.
Exhaust leak or fumes in the cabin leads with 5 reports.
Other body or interior problem follows with 2 reports, median 5,000 miles.
Overheating follows with 1 report.
By system, the reports fall mostly into emissions (5), body (2) and cooling (1).
At what mileage it happens
10 of the reports on the 2002 Honda Honda Motorcycle came with an odometer reading, and half of those were filed before 10,000 miles.
The busiest stretch is between 0 and 10,000 miles, which alone holds 50% of the dated reports.
100% of the dated reports were filed below 36,000 miles, which is early enough that a fair number of these cars were still under a factory warranty when the owner complained.
Tick median reported mileage Solid middle half of reports Faint 10th to 90th percentile Colour how bad the failure is when it happens
How reports accumulate
Every report with an odometer reading, cumulative, from 0 to 200,000 miles. A curve that climbs early is a car with early problems, whatever its total.
- Line share of reports filed by that mileage
- Dashed the median reported mileage
What happens when these parts fail
Across the named modes, 1 mentions a crash, 4 a fire and 1 an injury. Those are the words owners used in their own complaints, and NHTSA does not verify them, but they are the closest thing in this data to a measure of what a failure actually did.
The average severity weight across every report on this year is 6.46, where a stalled engine or a failed airbag weighs many times more than a rattling trim panel, and a figure this high means the reports are dominated by failures with safety consequences rather than annoyances. The weighting is set out in full on the methodology page.
What the top failures cost to put right, as editorial estimates for an independent US shop rather than figures from NHTSA: exhaust leak or fumes in the cabin at $250–$2,000, other body or interior problem at $200–$2,000, overheating at $400–$3,500 and control module (ECM/PCM/BCM) failure at $700–$3,000. Dealer labour, a seized bolt or a part that is no longer made can push any of these past the top of its range.
15% of the reports on this year sit in the engine, transmission, drivetrain or cooling systems — the four where a repair bill is usually four figures.
Every reported failure mode
| Failure mode | System | Reports | With reading | 25th | Median | 75th | Per 1,000 | Typical repair | Severity |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Exhaust leak or fumes in the cabin | emissions | 5 | 5 | — | 11k | — | — | $250–$2,000 | High |
| Other body or interior problem | body | 2 | 2 | — | 5k | — | — | $200–$2,000 | Moderate |
| Overheating | cooling | 1 | 0 | — | — | — | — | $400–$3,500 | High |
| Control module (ECM/PCM/BCM) failure | electrical | 1 | 0 | — | — | — | — | $700–$3,000 | High |
| Other engine problem | engine | 1 | 1 | — | 1 | — | — | $300–$4,000 | High |
| Other fuel system problem | fuel | 1 | 0 | — | — | — | — | $300–$2,200 | High |
| Other brake problem | brakes | 1 | 1 | — | 1k | — | — | $300–$1,800 | High |
| Other wheel or tire problem | wheels | 1 | 1 | — | 13k | — | — | $200–$1,500 | High |
No fleet-size estimate is available for this year, so only raw counts are shown. Repair costs are typical independent-shop ranges for the failure, not figures from these reports.
How often, against how many were built
There is no usable estimate of how many 2002 Honda Honda Motorcycle were built, so this page reports counts and not rates. 13 reports on a car that sold in millions and 13 on a car that sold in thousands are not the same finding, and without a denominator there is no honest way to say which this is.
No fleet-size estimate is available for this year, so only raw counts are shown.
What owners wrote
Verbatim from NHTSA complaint narratives, trimmed for length. The odometer reading is the one the owner gave.
Exhaust leak or fumes in the cabin
I bought a honda 2002 919 (cb900f) a few months ago and have had a bad experience with exhaust fumes. It doesn't matter if you are sitting still or riding slow,fast, or stop and go. My cloths and body smells like exhaust after every ride and when stopped in or out off traffic I can smell the fumes in my helmet. When my wife rides with me she gets a really bad headache and feels sick and sleepy after the ride. To me that is a sign of carbon monoxcide poisoning. It seems like other ridders have fixed the problem with after market exhausts, but why should I have to fix a problem that the manufacturer could be responsible for. My exhaust is still stock but am currently looking for other exhaust. Please help!!!!*ak
2003 honda vfr interceptor (motorcycle) caught on fire approximately 4-5 miles into ride. The fire was on the right side only, at the muffler and rear plastic cowling. Approximately 1-1.5 miles prior to the fire, the engine was running "rough" or "bogged down" with reduced power.*ak
Other body or interior problem
Motorcycle honda rc51 2002 motorcycle battery leaks corrosive fluid which is channeled onto the swingarm of the vehicle causing damage to the swingarm which is a vital structural element of the bike. I contacted the manufacturer for resolution of the matter, however, honda felt that this was entirely appropriate and refused to address the issue. *tr
Every year of the Honda Honda Motorcycle
Scores compare each year against other cars of the same model year, so a low number on an older car is a real result and not an artefact of age.
Shorter is better. Years with too few reports to score are shown without a bar rather than as a zero, because no data is not good news.
Where these figures stop being useful
13 owner reports; no fleet size estimate, so rates are unavailable. Every count on this page is therefore a floor: it is the number of owners who went to the trouble of filing with a federal agency, which is a small and self-selected fraction of the owners who had the fault.
Of those 13 reports, 10 carried an odometer reading, so the mileages here describe 77% of the sample rather than all of it. Owners also round: readings pile up on multiples of ten thousand, which is why this site publishes "about 90,000 miles" and not "91,438".
The failure modes are assigned by software reading the owner's own words, which is accurate in bulk and wrong in individual cases. A mode with a handful of reports may contain a misfiled one.
And nothing here predicts what one car will do. These are other people's complaints, filed years apart, on cars maintained by strangers. Read the page as a map of where this model year has previously gone wrong, then have the specific car in front of you inspected.
Questions this page answers
What are the most common problems with the 2002 Honda Honda Motorcycle?
The most-reported failures are exhaust leak or fumes in the cabin (5 reports, median 10,000 miles), other body or interior problem (2 reports, median 5,000 miles) and overheating (1 report). Counts come from owner complaints filed with NHTSA, which are voluntary, so they show what owners bothered to report rather than every fault that occurred.
Where this comes from. Every figure above is computed from NHTSA owner complaints and recall records for this exact make, model and year. Complaints are voluntary and self-selected, so treat counts as a floor. The methodology page writes out each formula, and the same numbers are available as JSON.
What breaks at my mileage Compare with another car
Source Owner complaints and recall records published by the US National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, model years 1996–2027 Figures rebuilt Published by AtWhatMileage How every figure is computed