From what I understand the ECU on yours contains an update to prevent ABS servos draining the battery (when the ignition is off) after 3 point turn type manoeuvres. Apart from that all C-ABSs ( and now the new SP) are subject to the 'other' issues. Many have perfectly running bikes, others have had previous issues and now fixed, other are on-going. Try to see this thread as a reference and don’t let it detract from the enjoyment of an awesome bike, the likelihood is that you will be OK, just bear in mind it’s a system that must be maintained be bleeding, keeping calipers clean and discs true. Unfortunately the nature of these things are that if something goes wrong peeps will highlight it and congregate. Sorry I could not be more conclusive.
Absolutely you should be concerned! Honda's C-ABS are a piece of shite (IMHO) It's very difficult to "modulate" your amount of braking sue to the variability in lever throw depending on whether it's the initial pull on the lever or not. Very dangerous, and it makes it almost impossible to trail brake properly. Goes against all principles of braking on a sport bike. Worst part is, you'll never get a straight answer from Honda regarding the problem. After years of agonizing over the problem, I can tell you that it's probably just a flawed design in an overly complicated system You can tell if you have the problem quite easily: Just get your bike up to about 50-80 kph, and gently apply your front brakes partially to slow you down to about 30 kph. When you reached 30 kph partially release the brake (but NOT totally) so you coast a bit and then increase the pressure on the lever to brake some more. It may not happen every time, but eventually you will get huge movement of the lever. If you "2 finger" the lever you will probably "trap" your fingers between the lever and grips. It doesn't happen all the time, but once you figure it out you will basically be able to reproduce it at will The real problem arises when you come into a corner hot, apply your brakes heavily, partially release them and decide that you need a bit more. On this second application your lever goes right back to the grip trapping your fingers while you get virtually NO braking - NOT EXACTLY CONFIDENCE INSPIRING! Read any book on sport riding and they will tell you how important predictable, precise braking is. the only thing predictable about Honda's C-ABS is how unpredictable they are. One day Honda will fess up and admit to the issue (and possibly even offer a fix), but it's gonna take more than a few dead riders before that happens. Let us know what you find when you try this on your new bike. Amnesia
Thank you for both of your replies. Its to late for me to do anything about it now and Ive asked the dealer to check if the bike has had any reported issues from its previous owner RE the ABS system. I will be sure to check out the theory form the post above and report back. The irony being I chose the blade as I wanted ( I think) an abs equipped bike. thanks again
dont worry about it mate, they sell millions, you always here a few bad things on forums, dont let it put you off, there are thousands out there problem free. Just dont mess with it and change brake lines, etc. if you need to have anything done to the brakes get a dealer to do it. enjoy your bike, dont worry
You and me both brother. Nothing wrong with ABS, in fact I think it's a great idea. Problem is we got C-ABS, not ABS (bad, bad idea) Good luck & let us know how you make out Amnesia
I too specifically chose ABS... In fact I turned down the opportunity to buy a new 2012 WITHOUT ABS for under £10k... (12 months ago). It's been a week now since I had the pads changed. And I still can't make it fade. And I've tried... Which made me think. I never got fade previously until a couple of months down the road. When Honda got VOSA to do their testing, and whenever honda defend themselves against this problem, do they EVER let anyone test with pads that are 20% used already or more? Or are they always brand new? Is the issue perhaps only present when the pads are worn down sufficiently? Is the ABS system not making allowances for brake wear? (Sounds stupid. But I've seem dumber things done in the name of £££, Time pressures and just plain inexperience... H
I got the bike new April 2013 no problems till 1200 miles then all of a sudden I got the problems. Dealer seen the fault, Honda stated it was the characteristics of the braking system , VOSA never encounter during their testing . Many people around the world have reported and although highlighted previously report many bikes have been produced an element have an issue with the new electronic version of the C-ABS. Your dealer without doubt will probably deny all acknowledgement as that appears to be the Honda line. That a side the bike is awesome and a pleasure to ride. Hope you enjoy and are not one of the chosen few
My bike was brand spanking new when I bought it. I didn't notice anything on the test ride, bought it, and had the problem the second time I rode it. It has nothing to do with worn pads. I've driven 2 other C-ABS bikes on a Honda "demo day" and they both did it as well. I'm sure it's a characteristic of the system. I think some people just don't notice it because of the way they use the brakes. A dealer told me that whenever he rode one from the shop he noticed it as well. And just for reference, this is NOT brake fade. That's a completely different bird. These brakes aren't getting weaker with use. The brakes give 100% braking power all the time - it just takes 3 - 4 times as much lever movement sometimes! You don't have to squeeze harder, just more.......lots more! They are anything but consistent. How can you rely on brakes that aren't consistent in their action. I once read an interesting post from a guy who had the original problem with the '09 of the C-ABS activating after the bike was parked (5-point turn) and killing the battery. He complained for years and Honda finally listened and "redesigned" the ECU. Interestingly, he had no lever problem with his original ECU, but first noticed the "levers going to the grips" as soon as it was fitted with the new ECU. I always wondered if the problem was that they did some quickie "patch" in the software to eliminate the battery problem, and inadvertently changed the characteristics of how the brakes responded to "re-application" without total release of the brakes. It's almost as if the ECU doesn't know that the breaks are still partially applied, and assumes you're braking from scratch and gives you "full throw' when in reality only a small percentage of throw is warranted.
Nope the first gen ECU can and do suffer from the lever coming to the bar just the same as the later revision models do. It's more of a riders braking style that effects whither the lever comes back to the bar or not! Riders who have a on/off style of braking don't seen to notice any issues but if the rider is to vary his braking pressures during braking then they tend to suffer the most with the issue! I fall under this varying brake pressure set of riders and do the same in the car too but on c-abs equipped bikes I have been able to make the system fault at will on several different bikes but if I adopt an on or off style of braking I never found an issue! Also the brake pads have no baring on the problem either, the abs system uses a total of 3 pressure sensors in each valve unit in order for the ECU to know what pressures are being applied to the braking system, the first sensor is used to pick up application and changes the user makes at the brake lever, the second picks up the pressure coming from the power units which creates the pressure in the system to push the calipers out, the 3rd and final pressure sensor in the system is used to find the pressure being applied to the caliper. The ECU uses these pressure readings in order to identify what is happening within the system and when the rider applies more brakes via the lever the ECU picks up this change by the reading the data of the 1st pressure sensor, this then makes the ECU run the power unit some more to make the motor contained within build up more pressure (the ecu will use the 2nd sensor to know when to stop the power unit from creating more pressure when the pressure meets the specified amount for the amount of pressure at the levers sensor). This pressurised fluid then makes its way out to the callipers where it doesnt matter how much material is left on the brake pads the system will keeps pushing fluid through until the 3rd and final sensor reaches the ECU determined pressure! The system does all this really quick and also keeps checking all the sensors ever few hundred milliseconds or what ever Honda deemed required time, but as soon as any changes to the pressure sensors is sensed or the wheel speed sensors which would indicate a lockup at that wheel the ECU compensates and adjusts the system so the rider gets the desired braking they have asked for but without the wheels locking up and in the process possibly causing a crash!
Ladies and Gents Please see my thread in main discussion area, faulty ABS Blades possibly required for a magazine feature http://1000rr.co.uk/general-1000rr-discussion/18303.htm
Maybe a bit late but I've just stumbled across a bulletin from VOSA, I can email it if you want but it outlines who to contact ref recalls etc. I'd post a link but it's on my internal Toyota intranet
No a bulletin regarding recalls, who to contact to instigate them and circumstances where a recall is deemed necessary.... I found it very informative
Sorry mate, done to death with VOSA from forum members on here. The VOSA guy dealt with Honda and could not replicate the failure on a Honda UK supplied bike, and stated the design diagrams show it should not allow for total brake failure..............take from that what you want. But when you are heading for the back of a stationary queue of traffic at 70mph and your brake lever is hard against the bar and the bike is not slowing one bit, it ain't much comfort knowing that a clever little designer somewhere in Japan is sleeping happily dreaming that he designed a foolproof system, I can tell you that for free. Honda tested 1 forum members bike who was reporting brake failure and stated they could not get it to fail........they seemed less keen to enter into discussion with anyone else who was reporting repeated brake failure and test those machines........which you may or may not find very surprising when people are offering alleged faulty bikes up for testing, and supposedly the manufacturer takes these issues seriously and stands by its duty of care to its customers. After this he traded it due to the concerns he had about the issue, not exactly the type of behaviour of someone who is just messing around, for owners to sell their bikes, take a financial hit, there must be enough concerns about their personal safety to do so. Likewise, as I run out of patience and had just about used up all my 9 lives with repeated total brake failure from speed, so I traded mine as well, it was only a matter of time before my luck run out and either suffered serious injury or worse on the machine. I sold mine back to the supplying dealer, who knew fully the issues I was having and the reason for selling the machine was the brake failure issues. To my knowledge, VOSA never tested any owners bike who were reporting brake failures, and I was in constant contact with them, but they never asked to test my bike. MCN entered into correspondence with us and stated they would run a feature on it, a number of forum members offered their bikes for the article, then without warning they stopped replying to e mails, again take what you want from that, but in hindsight they gained a number of e mail addresses from unhappy owners. So again, you can draw your own conclusions....but this whole episode stinks, the safety authority draws a blank, but its hard to know how hard they tried, the manufacturer seems to ignore customer concerns, and a large number of respected UK motorcycle press magazines refuse to even answer e mails on the subject after they print statements of issues on Honda UK press bikes. When I was testing riding bikes before purchasing, even the UKs so called top Honda dealers salesman, asked why I was selling, and responded with 'I am not meant to say this, we have sold a number of non ABS Blades to ABS Blade owners who kept suffering brake failures, Honda have an issue they cannot fix with the modulators' again only verbal, but he offered it freely. I think there could be a film or book in this somewhere.
Kiwi, I saw your bike in the multi story this week, could see its all in 1 piece, could not see any pedestrian like impressions in the front end, so I guess they resolved your braking issues to a point?
Well... TBH I haven't had to use the emergency stop feature since they replaced the front ABS unit completely. It didn't fix the usual lever to the bar issues when using the brakes more than once without releasing the lever completely though.. Even the dealer replicated the lever collapse AFTER the replacement in the test ride. They raised it to Honda too. Honda declined to do anything about that. I got the impression the mechanic who worked on my bike didn't like riding the ABS bikes, mainly for that reason... H
