Dropping 2 cylinders

I had to drop my VFR1200F off at the dealer so they could try to reproduce the dropping of 2 cylinders.
I doubt very much it will happen while it is there but, my bike has dropped 2 cylinders 8 times, twice at speed.
Is anyone else with a 7th gen VFR having any issues like that besides my friend in San Jose that bought his VFR1200F the day before I bought mine last June?
His bike dropped 2 and then would not reproduce the issue for the dealer.

Never happen.
After 13000 km my 1200 engine is perfect, never lost even one fire.

Pardon my ignorance, but what does dropping cylinders mean?
And how do you know that this is what's happening?

[image: View Post]Rice, on 03 March 2011 - 03:42 PM, said:

Pardon my ignorance, but what does dropping cylinders mean?
And how do you know that this is what's happening?

It means that two cylinders stop firing and the bike stutters and then stalls.
Then it takes one minute to reset.

This sounds awfully like the ECU is faulty. If you consider for a moment that both the low voltage side of all the coils AND all the injector drivers are direct feeds from the ECU, then one of two things is wrong. Either the wiring is bad (unlikely considering it resets itself), or the ECU is faulty.

However this all assumes that the problem is actually two cylinders not firing. How did you diagnose that it's two dud cylinders, as opposed to something like fuel starvation to all cylinders?

[image: View Post]kaldek, on 03 March 2011 - 04:26 PM, said:

This sounds awfully like the ECU is faulty. If you consider for a moment that both the low voltage side of all the coils AND all the injector drivers are direct feeds from the ECU, then one of two things is wrong. Either the wiring is bad (unlikely considering it resets itself), or the ECU is faulty.

However this all assumes that the problem is actually two cylinders not firing. How did you diagnose that it's two dud cylinders, as opposed to something like fuel starvation to all cylinders?

I have been riding since 1976 and wrenching for decades too, I can feel when when a cylinder or two drop off be it starving or outright spark failure.
My VFR is an electrical nightmare as far as I am concerned and it is beyond my expertice, so I took it back to Honda while it is still under warranty.
The 2010 VFR1200F is beyond anyone's expertice excpet those that designed and built it because the dealerships have never worked on one before.

I will not pick up my bike from the dealer until they have replicated the problem and fixed it.
I paid a lot of money for my bike in cash, I own it outright and will be screwed in June when the warranty expires if they do not fix it now.

My VFR is not the only one in California doing this, my friend in San Jose has the same issue with his 2010 VFR1200F and he calls it "Dangerous", he's right.

Sorry that is happening man...there is almost nothing more infuriating than paying good money on what I perceive to be a superior product only to have it fail to meet expectations. I sure hope they find the gremlin and swap it out.

That sucks.
Gremlins always hide as soon as you come to the mechanic.
Good luck with it and let us know how it turns out.

[image: View Post]fasterspider, on 03 March 2011 - 04:55 PM, said:

I have been riding since 1976 and wrenching for decades too, I can feel when when a cylinder or two drop off be it starving or outright spark failure.
My VFR is an electrical nightmare as far as I am concerned and it is beyond my expertice, so I took it back to Honda while it is still under warranty.
The 2010 VFR1200F is beyond anyone's expertice excpet those that designed and built it because the dealerships have never worked on one before.

I will not pick up my bike from the dealer until they have replicated the problem and fixed it.
I paid a lot of money for my bike in cash, I own it outright and will be screwed in June when the warranty expires if they do not fix it now.

My VFR is not the only one in California doing this, my friend in San Jose has the same issue with his 2010 VFR1200F and he calls it "Dangerous", he's right.


Well, here's hoping it's just a bad batch of components then. There were lots of problems with early 6th-gen models too, and oddly enough mainly in the USA. Things like the stator recall and subframe cracking never seemed to be an issue here in Australia.

Maybe the USA gets all the early production run units?

They could not reproduce the issue as of yesterday and I told them to keep my bike until it did reproduce the issue.
I am waiting on a call from my lawyer now, this is a major safety issue and I will not stand for it,.
$16,000.00 cash is too much money to lay out for a factory defect that could get me in a wreck on the freeway.

I see you are in CA, what kind of consumer protection/'lemon laws' do they have there? In extreme cases people have gone after uncaring dealers for fraud-something that if they have half a brain that they don't want to deal with-it's criminal NOT civil. Good luck, show no mercy. :beatdeadhorse: (the horse is the idiot dealers) :pissed:

I hope they are better than the honda dealers around here. They would just say they're riding it and bill you for man hours not used. If you get it back and it happens again. Take it straight back to them, Same day as the insident. Keep all paper work. If it continues more than three times with out a fix. i believe you can claim lemon law and the dealer you perchased it from has to buy it back for what you paid. Now double check you laws in this matter. But if your warrenty expires and you keep having the problem you can refer back to prior insidences and honda will probably make good and fix it for free. Might have to have a good one on one with the are honda rep.

No trouble codes? No FI light? Have you made any changes to your bike or even lifted your tank?

As well as being a member here, I'm a member of VFRWorld, the UK VFR1200 club, I follow the Dutch VFR board and the European (german) VFR1200 board and even a couple of blogs in Japan. I also keep a VFR1200 blog that gets a lot of visits and comments, and this is the first I've heard of anything to do with "dropping cylinders".

I hope it's something minor and they figure it out quickly.

My bike only has a little over 4000 miles and the schedule does not call for for valve adjustment until 16000 miles but, I have to change my air filter.
So no, I have not lifted the fuel tank yet.
The only time the bodywork & fuel tank has been removed is when the Lojack was installed.
I have done nothing to my bike except install a fused power supply for my GPS and external accessories like the center stand, tail hugger, rack & trunk and replace the broken front right signal light from a tire tread on the freewway. I changed the oil & filter twice too, nothing that could void the warranty.

I picked up my VFR yesterday because they said they could not reproduce the problem while they rode my bike for 21 miles using a half tank of my fuel. :angry:
Today when I was coming up the Snake on Mulholland Hwy in 2nd gear, she stuttered, sputtered then died on me and as soon as I got safely out of the way and stopped on the side of the road, the damn bike started and ran no problems for the next 60 miles. :huh:
I will bring her back to Honda again tomorrow.
I am out of my mind but, what else can I do?
I really have no idea how to make this happen, it just does and it is scary as hell.

Since you said that you were in 2nd gear, I'll mention that there is that nasty dip in the power band between 3-4k rpm. I've read a lot of people complaining that the engine likes to play games in that range because of it. It happened to me a couple times when I first got my bike (once in 2nd gear, once in 4th), and it did feel like it lost a cyclinder or 2. But I adjusted my riding style to fit the motorcycle and haven't experienced it since.
Not trying to down play what your going through......

[image: View Post]InlineSk8r, on 06 March 2011 - 10:01 PM, said:

Since you said that you were in 2nd gear, I'll mention that there is that nasty dip in the power band between 3-4k rpm. I've read a lot of people complaining that the engine likes to play games in that range because of it. It happened to me a couple times when I first got my bike (once in 2nd gear, once in 4th), and it did feel like it lost a cyclinder or 2. But I adjusted my riding style to fit the motorcycle and haven't experienced it since.
Not trying to down play what your going through......

I have ridden The Snake in 2nd and 3rd gear on this bike 35 times at least, this was the 1st time she stuttered and stalled on the Snake.
Stalled out completely and I had to hit the starter button to get gioing again.

[image: View Post]fasterspider, on 06 March 2011 - 10:55 PM, said:

[image: View Post]InlineSk8r, on 06 March 2011 - 10:01 PM, said:

Since you said that you were in 2nd gear, I'll mention that there is that nasty dip in the power band between 3-4k rpm. I've read a lot of people complaining that the engine likes to play games in that range because of it. It happened to me a couple times when I first got my bike (once in 2nd gear, once in 4th), and it did feel like it lost a cyclinder or 2. But I adjusted my riding style to fit the motorcycle and haven't experienced it since.
Not trying to down play what your going through......

I have ridden The Snake in 2nd and 3rd gear on this bike 35 times at least, this was the 1st time she stuttered and stalled on the Snake.
Stalled out completely and I had to hit the starter button to get gioing again.

She goes back againi tomorrow and we will see what Honda has to say about it.
Having a motorcycle lawyer in your pocket like I do is a good thing, I speak to him tomorrow too.

Hey,

Sorry about your problem man. I'd be really pissed off too!!

Once I had a car that was known for its electrical faults, and I had one such gremlin at one point. There was a short while turning on the right and it was coming and going. Since the dealer couldn't reproduce the issue, they said at one point that they could install some sort of electrical black box that would record everything for a few days. This way, they claimed they'd be able to trace it back and find the problem.

Is there any such gizmo or bikes?!?!?

One more question: why won't they replace the ECU and the wiring as an attempt to fix it?!? Have they tried anything at all beside riding it?!??!?!?

Good luck man! (I'd try everything I can to get it declared lemon under that lemon law so you can get a new one)
C

[image: View Post]fasterspider, on 06 March 2011 - 10:57 PM, said:

[image: View Post]fasterspider, on 06 March 2011 - 10:55 PM, said:

[image: View Post]InlineSk8r, on 06 March 2011 - 10:01 PM, said:

Since you said that you were in 2nd gear, I'll mention that there is that nasty dip in the power band between 3-4k rpm. I've read a lot of people complaining that the engine likes to play games in that range because of it. It happened to me a couple times when I first got my bike (once in 2nd gear, once in 4th), and it did feel like it lost a cyclinder or 2. But I adjusted my riding style to fit the motorcycle and haven't experienced it since.
Not trying to down play what your going through......

I have ridden The Snake in 2nd and 3rd gear on this bike 35 times at least, this was the 1st time she stuttered and stalled on the Snake.
Stalled out completely and I had to hit the starter button to get gioing again.

She goes back againi tomorrow and we will see what Honda has to say about it.
Having a motorcycle lawyer in your pocket like I do is a good thing, I speak to him tomorrow too.


Let them check the jiffy switch and the spring who holding the jiffy in the up possition.

Gosh F.S. What a shame that you are having these issues! Who is your friend that is having the same issues in San Mateo? Id like to perhaps invite him or her to tell their
story as well....

Ive got around 5K and not a hiccup. Rock On VFR.....................

The Lemon law does exsist here in California. I haven't heard of anyone using it on a bike. I have known a couple of people who have used it on cars. From what I understand, if the problem occurs three times and the dealer can't fix the problem, the dealer has to replace the vehicle. I think your rights are posted on the consummer affairs website. check out the link.

http://www.dca.ca.gov/acp/

Just curious, does this normally happen when going through curves or does it happen when you are going straight as well?? Maybe a tip-over sensor??

[image: View Post]fasterspider, on 06 March 2011 - 08:35 PM, said:

I picked up my VFR yesterday because they said they could not reproduce the problem while they rode my bike for 21 miles using a half tank of my fuel. :angry:
Today when I was coming up the Snake on Mulholland Hwy in 2nd gear, she stuttered, sputtered then died on me and as soon as I got safely out of the way and stopped on the side of the road, the damn bike started and ran no problems for the next 60 miles. :huh:

I am out of my mind but, what else can I do?
I really have no idea how to make this happen, it just does and it is scary as hell.


Normally this is an electric problem. If it is erratic, there is a poor connection somewhere or a melted connector.
Not easy to find and quite strange in a new bike. It happen quite frequently in the 800FI (like mine) and even more in the Vtec.

I did not drop off my bike again, I just called and told them that it happened again yesterday and Albert of NoHo Honda is on the phone with HONDA.
He told me that Honda would not screw me on this when my warranty expires June 13th, they want very much to know what is going on with my bike.
He knows about my friend's 2010 VFR1200F doing the same thing.

Do not go on what someone tells you over the phone, get the bike into the dealer's service bay! I used to work in the Corporate car industry.

California Lemon Law Arbitration (not sure about motorcycles) is three unresolved repair orders for the same complaint within 2 yrs/24,000 miles. Make darn sure those repair orders are completely filled out and legible.

Your clock is ticking.

What ever happened? I see you're posting in other threads, seemingly content..... Just wondering.

[image: View Post]Graves, on 04 March 2011 - 08:38 PM, said:

I hope they are better than the honda dealers around here. They would just say they're riding it and bill you for man hours not used. If you get it back and it happens again. Take it straight back to them, Same day as the insident. Keep all paper work. If it continues more than three times with out a fix. i believe you can claim lemon law and the dealer you perchased it from has to buy it back for what you paid. Now double check you laws in this matter. But if your warrenty expires and you keep having the problem you can refer back to prior insidences and honda will probably make good and fix it for free. Might have to have a good one on one with the are honda rep.


What matters in legal affairs always is the date of your first claim. I'd suggest you to ask the dealer to provide you a signed document (statement) confirming the fact of receiving the bike on that specific date and with your claim described in very details. Later, even if your warranty will expire and the issue won't still be fixed you will have a very good roll-back position :fing02:

Since you mentioned that you believe this to be a safety issue, you might consider calling the NHTSA complaint line and see what they say. While they probably won't directly address your issue, their website does say that "we do not have to receive a specific number of complaints before we look into a problem" - whatever "look into" means. If the dealer can't resolve the issue, it might be worthwhile to ask them to put you in touch with the Honda Factory Service rep and ask that person to be at the dealership with you and the bike to discuss the problem. Mentioning that you were thinking of filing a NHTSA complaint might get them more motivated. In their defense though, they do need to replicate the problem as that's the only way they would have to know that they have resolved it. I suppose this is the downside of advanced technology - if the problems baffle the trained techs, how are consumers supposed to deal with it? Best of luck on getting this sorted.

NTHSA

[image: View Post]Cogswell, on 31 March 2011 - 08:10 PM, said:

In their defense though, they do need to replicate the problem as that's the only way they would have to know that they have resolved it.NTHSA

Thanks for the link, I will put it to use. I see my lawyer again tomorrow anyway and we will discuss what he has researched so far. He is a Honda rider too.

You are correct, the service dept has to reproduce the issue before they can do anything and so far, it is not happening for them two out of two overnight stays with them using half a tank of fuel in 21 miles.