Like I said before mines never given me a seconds problem except on our tiled workshop floor at work at abt 2 mph.... I am a very steady rider so maybe this is why. What are the conditions that it it occurs in?
In that case Steampig count your lucky chickens, and I hope it stays that way.......some of us have seen a glimpse of the after life on these bikes, and personally I am in no rush to check in
Morning all, this raised my eyebrows I thought it was just me but mine does it now n then. Usually from a cold start I will pull the front and I've noticed a lot of travel in the lever. Also if I've stopped at lights it may do it but not all the way back to the throttle. I bought mine from Pidcock Triumph in Long Eaton last September will ask a few questions as the service from piddys is great. A simple bleed doesn't seem to be the solution. Must admit it's never happened at speed. Will keep an eye on it and these threds and update if I get any info. Safe rideing peeps.
Welcome to the club mate... I just paid £500 for a 2 year extended warranty on mine... (It's 2 years & 3 weeks old) Might keep it for another 12 months or so and then flick it... Maybe an S1000RR... I hear their brakes work fine... H
Thanks mate, seems like a great forum, maybe worth the spend but I would feel that Honda should get these bikes recalled 09 onwards. Mines a 11 plate n seems like most of the ABS are having a few issues. My ex has a CBR 600 F-AB ABS will ask her if she has any issues. Will update you all as and when. C
I had mine in again... For the last failure... Brakes work, but feel spongy... Way too much travel on the lever before I get any action on them. If I set the lever to half-way on the travel adjustment, I'm almost at the bar before it bites... Guess we're going back again..
Meanwhile Honda sent me a survey about the last visit... Here's my replay to the question do you have any further comments... Yes. Honda could admit that the C-ABS on friendless has a design/engineering fault and recall them for fixing. I don't care if they have to do a complete redesign or just replace them with units that work from someone else (e.g. bosch), but putting my life in danger because as a company you seem to be too fat headed to consider that you made a mistake over the ABS is just wrong. Brakes should work. End of story. They shouldn't be dependent on whether you've been feathering, or using them (God forbid I should actually USE my breaks just before I need them). Note to your engineers, if ABS fails they should go into un-assisted mode and work like non-ABS brakes. Not fail completely! The term is fail-safe. Some of your engineers may have heard of it (The evidence doesn't suggest it though). The dealer knows there's an issue. Their mechanics don't even like road testing them around traffic because they're dangerous! Meanwhile I've made complaints direct with Honda and just been ignored. See your customer complaint ###### ([honda cust svcs] was the assigned person. Dated 25/04/2014). I certainly didn't appreciate it when I tried to chase it up after being ignored and having the idiot on reception (Date 12/06/2014) tell me she thought it was funny my brakes failed and I nearly killed someone. Gee! What a hoot! If I didn't still owe Honda finance money on the bike I'd have left it on the lawn outside your offices at Junction 5 of the M4. Sadly I'm going to have to put someone elses life in danger by selling it on and buying a bike from a company who knows what brakes should work like. A real shame because I love my 'blade. Just not the brakes or the person who designed them. Feel free to contact me. You can find details of my bike from the reference above. Maybe [rep] still cares about customers enough to have my details. Or you could email me with meaningless platitudes at [email protected], or simply tell me that I know less about riding my bike than someone making the decisions that probably doesn't even have a scooter license. On the other hand if you'd like to actually fix the issue, I'd probably be one of your best friends. But I've given you the opportunity over the last 2 years several times. And I'm still dicing with death, albeit for fewer days a week now as I'm not sure I'm brave enough to try & commute on those brakes a full 5 days in a row. I think I'm having a moment... Gimme a minute here...
Good on ya fella. Let us know if you get any response. Sadly I think I know what it will be though....
Very well put. I appreciate threads like these, it has definitely influenced my future 'blade choice, ABS/non...
surely enough is enough! its got to help customer relations, let alone keeping their customers alive!!
It's obvious that many CBR 1000rr ABS owners are plagued by this completely annoying, and very dangerous problem that Honda refuses to own up to. I just wanted to post an update on my experience. After 2 years of Honda's bullshit, I finally went back to the original dealer who sold me the bike in the first place. He is a seasoned rider (and a great guy) and totally gets what the problem is (even though Honda has tested the bike and assured me that there was nothing wrong with it, and all C-ABS blades did this "lever to bar" crap - that it's a characteristic of the system). He felt so bad that he offered to trade it in for pretty much what I paid for it and let me get a brand new blade! Unbelievable deal! As anyone with this problem will understand, I wanted nothing to do with Honda's C-ABS so my only option in Canada was to buy the Repsol SP model. I was pissed that I would have to add $7000 to the pot just to rid myself of these crappy brakes, but since they were gonna let me test ride the SP first, I decided to go for it. When I got to the dealership for the test ride, I noticed that they had a brand new 2015 ABS blade, and a 2014 with 60km from a previous test ride. Since I could have one of these bikes basically for free, I decided to test them first, before plunking down the cash for the SP. Here's what I found: 2014 1000rr ABS: The brakes performed flawlessly! In fact I loved them. The front brake lever was incredibly firm, crisp, & powerful - with minimal throw. In fact they felt better than the Brembo's on my Ducati! Riding with the lever set on 6 (closest to the bar) there was just a very small amount of throw (about a centimetre) to max brakes - yet with excellent modulation. After jamming on the brakes as hard as I could, I still had about 2 fingers width of space from the the lever to the bar. There's no way I could come close to trapping my fingers. And best of all, this response is 100% consistent - every time, no matter what I do they move the exact same amount and feel exactly the same. Wow, I was stunned. And since I believe in ABS, and have gotten quite used to worry free, very hard braking, I decided I didn't even want the SP with regular Brembo brakes. 2015 1000rr ABS: Since I had the opportunity, I thought well, what the hell, I should give the 2015 a try. Here's what I found. The brakes on this bike were 100% consistent as well. No matter what I did, I couldn't make the lever's move closer inward to the bar! Since I had basically learned to make them fault at will each and every time on my original bike, this was enough to convince me that they were fine. The only difference between this bike, and the 2014 one, was that the lever movement on the 2015 was quite a bit more and felt a bit "mushier" than the 2014. I would trap my fingers on #6 and had to change it to #4 just so it wouldn't touch my fingers on hard braking (with very little free space left over). There was just much more throw in the system, and they didn't feel nearly as crisp - but no sign of the dreaded inconsistency. So needless to say, I took the 2014 with the amazing brakes, and haven't looked back. I've put on 2500 km and they still feel exactly the same as the day I bought it, and have never had a single instance of any inconsistency in lever movement or feel whatsoever. My conclusions are these: 1] Due to inconsistencies in Honda's manufacturing techniques there is definite variability in how the C-ABS brakes feel from bike to bike. 2] Either my original 2012 was just a lemon, or Honda has somehow fixed the problem in 2014 and onward. On thing in favour of this conclusion is the fact that the brake bleeding procedure has been changed on the 2014 model. This means that at least the computer's software has been upgraded (and possibly the hardware as well) and possibly the valve unit (with the stroke simulator) and/or the power unit has been upgraded as well. Whether Honda continues to put out lemons, I don't know 3] Never buy a C-ABS equipped CBR 1000rr without a thorough test ride, and even then you may not be able to properly assess the brakes if you don't know exactly what you are looking for and how to make them fail. NOT VERY COMFORTING AT ALL 4] If you can get a properly working 1000rr with C-ABS, they truly are fantastic and you'll love them. Unfortunately, if you do get one with the problem, you'll hate them and Honda will treat you like shit and you'll never get any satisfaction. Not very comforting! It's a total crap shoot. Is it worth the risk, I don't know. 5] One point to note: Once you come to a complete dead stop, release the brakes, and then reapply them the lever WILL move about 1cm closer to the bar. This is because at full stop the electronic (brake by wire) system is taken out of the circuit and you are using the "conventional" system which is inherently a much sloppier system and has more throw than the C-ABS system. This conventional system is only intended as a fail-safe - in case the electronic system fails. This is why you can't simply "pull the fuse" and ride without the brake by wire system because you will not be happy at all with the brakes. This extra movement ONLY occurs at full stop, and has NEVER happened while the bike is moving. It is no big deal, and you get used to it after one or two stops and it is NEVER a problem. This situation is clearly laid out in the owners manual, and is an inevitable result of having 2 different braking systems operating in tandem on the same bike. Overall, an unnecessarily frustrating experience made all the worse by the customer service staff at Honda corporate head office! Thankfully, it had a happy ending for me only because of a nice sympathetic dealer. I am now finally enjoying my ride. It's amazing how from the very first time that your brakes fail, you will NEVER enjoy riding the bike again. You never push it because you simply can't trust it. I no longer have any "chicken strips" on my tires where as my original bike had about 3 cm on each side after 2 years and 9000km. That says a lot! I hope this helps anyone contemplating purchasing one of these potentially awesome bikes. Amnesia
Hi there new member here, I've recently brought a 2009 repsol blade with ABS and the same thing happened to me but the scareiest time is when I was pulling out from my drive towards the Rd I came to brake and the front brake lever went all the way to the throttle, I nearly shat myself as there was a car coming towards me... Is ithat best to call honda UK and report it? What will they do and is it costly to have sorted? Cheers
BEK....Honda UK will do feck all, as in their opinion the issue does not exist and owners are a bunch of whining muppets. As for the fix, yes it it is costly, sell it and buy a non ABS model, that's what a lot of owners have done, myself included.
Cheers for ur reply mate, But Yeh they can all moan but if they're not reporting it to honda honda ain't gonna do much about it, I suppose if they have enough complaints then they've gotta do summat I suppose? Im gonna call honda UK n see what they say, I'll let you know if I get anywhere with them.. I'll keep it for this season then think about sellin Cheers buddy
Just called Honda uk and they said they have had no reports or recalls on the ABS system on any of there bikes? And advised me to call my local dealer to which I did and explained the problem to them...my local honda dealer said it sounds like my fluid needs changing with a cost of......wait for it....... £300 and takes 5 hrs to bleed and change the brake fluid......shit a brick!
Yeah, Honda uk lied to you.........they have been told via many of there dealers about brake issues with the c-abs which has led honda uk to authorise warranty work by basically fling new parts at it until they get a better result at the lever but that respite only last a short time! Either way I would have expected honda to wash there hands of any issue you have with your bike as its outwith there warranty period so they just send you on your way to a Honda dealer which basically has no way of actually fixing Hondas flawed abs system! It is pretty amazing how many folks buy a c-abs equipped blade not knowing anything about the system and the selling garage/dealer will tell you diddly squat about any issue with the system as it goes against Hondas corporate line of "there has never been any reported issues about any abs equipped bikes," not to mention the salesman want the commission so keep quite on the fact and normally also keep quiet about the extra costs involved in servicing the c-abs system.
Yeh they said they've had no knowledge so Yeh sounds like they're turning a blind eye... Is there anyway of turning off the ABS?
