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Heated Grips - OEM or Apollo


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I thought that I made my mind up with Yamaha OEM heated grips for my 18 Tracer 900 but I came across the Apollo grips with the switch integrated into the left hand grip.  Looks like a nice clean look.

+ for  Apollo, they look decent and are less than 1/2 the price, I can get them delivered for about $175 Canadian (Yamaha grips can be found and delivered for about $380 Canadian), down side is a bit extra wiring

OEM, very clean look, less wiring, plug and play.  I am leaning to the OEM, just having trouble justifying and extra $200 for them.  I am not a fan of the Oxford control unit by the way.

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My wife bought the Apollo's for me at Christmas.  I returned them and went OEM. Using the menu and scroll toggle to control them is worth it IMO.  YMMV 

 

A link for them at $230 USD 

 

 

"It doesn't matter who walks in, you know the joke is still the same"  Ft. Lauderdale, Florida. USA

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I was given the OEM set as a gift and prefer using them controlled through the menuand screen feature, No extra control box to find a place for. Someone on the forum posted that an aftermarket set of grips can be wired and controlled via the menu screen as long as the internal electrical resistance of the heated grips was similar. Might be worth doing a search for info.

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4 hours ago, captfire22 said:

I thought that I made my mind up with Yamaha OEM heated grips for my 18 Tracer 900 but I came across the Apollo grips with the switch integrated into the left hand grip.  Looks like a nice clean look.

+ for  Apollo, they look decent and are less than 1/2 the price, I can get them delivered for about $175 Canadian (Yamaha grips can be found and delivered for about $380 Canadian), down side is a bit extra wiring

OEM, very clean look, less wiring, plug and play.  I am leaning to the OEM, just having trouble justifying and extra $200 for them.  I am not a fan of the Oxford control unit by the way.

I have the oem heated grips and really like them, however at twice the price with delivery to Canada, are they "better"?  Without testing both back to back, I cant honestly say. 

 Oem grips have 10 heat levels and Koso Apollo has 5, are the oem grips twice as hot or is each heat level half as hot with the highest on each being almost even? ("but this one goes to 11..."  Spinal Tap, anyone?) 😎  Again, hard to tell without using them.

As far as ease of use, I think they are even, with oem you have to toggle into the menu to turn them on and select low/med/hi settings, with Koso Apollo you tap the thumb button 1-5 times to set your heat level.

The oem grips have numerous users on many different forums to vouch for their effectiveness and the Koso Apollo have great user reviews as well, both are a clean looking install with out a handlebar controller to add clutter.  I guess it comes down to personal preference

***2015 Candy Red FJ-09***

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Check Yamaha sports plaza. They have great online prices for factory yamaha and aftermarket parts and accessories. I put the oem grip heaters on my 2017 FJ-09 they work great. You will notice the right side will get warmer because it is insulated by the throttle tube. 

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I have oem on my Tracer, but had aftermarket on my old FJ 09, the heat is much more consistent, and even on the OEM. The aftermarket heat seemed to burn my hands, even through the gloves.

ymmv.......

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The OEM settings only provide 3 levels of heat regardless of the number of levels shown in the menu. I know because I took the measurements.

I am positive that the OEM grips are great, but I didn’t care for the cost or the lack of choice in grips. Doing aftermarket heated elements means I can us whatever grips I want.

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Old enough to know better, but young enough to do it anyway.
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1 hour ago, Duke said:

The OEM settings only provide 3 levels of heat regardless of the number of levels shown in the menu. I know because I took the measurements.

So, you are saying even though you have 10 levels of heat to assign to low/medium/high that those numbers are irrelevant?  I will respectully and completely disagree as I have tried assigning several different levels and they absolutely make a noticeable difference.

When I first got the bike I assigned my low/medium/high as 1/5/10, 1 wasn't noticeable and 10 nearly cooked the skin off of my hands, I then reassigned the values as 3/5/7 and they are much more usable now.

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***2015 Candy Red FJ-09***

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  • 2 weeks later...

I've installed Koso Apollo on my other bike and it was a very easy install. Compared to OEM where you have to toggle through the menu to operate the OEM heated grips. The Koso grips have the switch which s color coded and built into the left grip. I wired it to the OEM heated grips plug on my other bike, so it was practically plug 'n' play. 

In regards to performance, there's no question that the Koso Apollo heated grips can be set to a much higher temperature than the OEM grips. Koso claims a temperature of around 70 degrees Celsius at the highest rating. Furthermore, the heated grips have a memory function,  where the last temperature setting is remembered when you turn it off and turn it back on. I'd go with those over OEM if my bike didn't come with OEM heated grips from the factory. 

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  • 2 weeks later...

I went with the Apollo grips, ordered them today for $156 delivered, I can use the almost $250 that I saved over going with OEM towards a new pair of riding pants.  

Thanks for all the opinions.

Edited by captfire22
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I have just fitted the Oxford Advanced Adventure Hotgrips.  They are pretty easy to fit on the bars but wiring back to the battery took a while.  They are great grips and I have had them on a few other bikes.  They are great quality and get very hot.  I like that they will switch off when they sense the engine is off.  At £65 they are £110 cheaper than the Yamaha grips.

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I just went with OEM from Yamaha Sports Plaza and they should be here shortly.  I read somewhere on here that they had updated the part number and insulated the right side a little more effectively so that the right side and left side distribute heat more effectively.... but who knows? I like the idea of aftermarket but I also like having something menu controlled since all of my past bikes basically had a speedo and if I'm lucky a tac. 

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