I had to goto the store yesterday afternoon when it was 100º and noticed my VFR idling strangely like one spark plug is about to go out to lunch when I came back to her to go home. So this morning I fired her up and that strange idle persisted. Now she is at the dealer and they are hooking her up to the computer to diagnose the issue.
I hate it that I cannot work on this bike because I am not allowed access to the Honda computer, leaving my motorcycle in someone else's hands makes me nervous considering I am a vintage Honda motorcycle mechanic.
Anyone else have idling issues with their 7th gen VFR?
Update on my bike is this;
"The Honda hand held computer says that the ignition is 11.7º out of range and we have a phone call into Mother Honda to find out what that means." :huh:
I love it :angry: that they need to call American Honda to find out what is wrong with the bike and am really glad I bought the extended warranty for the bike.
It's tough to let others work on your bike - especially when they don't show much confidence in what they are doing. Hope this gets resolved for you soon.
Think of it this way...this is the first post I have seen saying a 7th gen has had to go back to the dealership and they actually have narrowed down the issue so it seems they are on the right track. And it being a new model they probably haven't had a lot of them to work on beyond standard maintenance yet.
They did a reset to the ECU and fixed the timing issue and she runs good again, I just heard it and congradulated the tech for figuring it out without Honda's interferance. I am on my way back to the dealer again for the 3rd time today to go pick her up now after dropping off my CBX at home.
That CBX is doing fine though, right?
I guess it's just part of the evolution. Things become more complex and prone to new failures.
But hey, you should have expected something of the sort when you bought the technological showcase of the Honda fleet.
All in all, this wasn't much of an issue and it did get resolved rather quickly.
the lesson is, buy extended warranty - Something I was and still am totally against when it comes to simpler things. In this case though it may be worth it.
[image: View Post]YoshiHNS, on 14 October 2011 - 01:58 PM, said:
Welcome to the future where you won't be able to change your oil without accessing the computer to tell it you did an oil change.
Yes and no, think we will always be able to do an oil change just have to buy the interface to reset it. As far as anything else the days of a backyard mechanic are waning. Everything is stuffed in there to save space and this tool is needed and then this tool, it's not simple anymore. It is amazing though the horsepower and torque numbers some of todays engines are putting out and quite a few are very little emissions. It's like one time was in back of a Camaro late sixties early seventies and the exhaust gas was atrocious, it was in bad shape though but hopefully you get the point. Just two cents!
[image: View Post]fasterspider, on 14 October 2011 - 03:20 PM, said:
They did a reset to the ECU and fixed the timing issue and she runs good again, I just heard it and congradulated the tech for figuring it out without Honda's interferance. I am on my way back to the dealer again for the 3rd time today to go pick her up now after dropping off my CBX at home.
What might leave me a bit troubled about this though is that they did not seem to mention or know why it went out of spec. Seems like if they can't identify the cause then they have no way to assure you it won't happen again (probably at some very inconvenient location). At least on cars they standardized the ECU protocols in the mid '90's and I think that's still true today - so you can buy one scan tool that would work on all cars. I shudder to think what that proprietary Honda scan tool cost. Most likely prohibitive for a 1-time fix. The ability to read the ECU must be new in 2010 - as AFAIK (from what I've read in previous threads) that up through '09 there is no scan port - it's all accessed through the codes that blink on the panel.
[image: View Post]Cogswell, on 14 October 2011 - 05:45 PM, said:
[image: View Post]fasterspider, on 14 October 2011 - 03:20 PM, said:
They did a reset to the ECU and fixed the timing issue and she runs good again, I just heard it and congradulated the tech for figuring it out without Honda's interferance. I am on my way back to the dealer again for the 3rd time today to go pick her up now after dropping off my CBX at home.
What might leave me a bit troubled about this though is that they did not seem to mention or know why it went out of spec. Seems like if they can't identify the cause then they have no way to assure you it won't happen again (probably at some very inconvenient location). At least on cars they standardized the ECU protocols in the mid '90's and I think that's still true today - so you can buy one scan tool that would work on all cars. I shudder to think what that proprietary Honda scan tool cost. Most likely prohibitive for a 1-time fix. The ability to read the ECU must be new in 2010 - as AFAIK (from what I've read in previous threads) that up through '09 there is no scan port - it's all accessed through the codes that blink on the panel.
The "computer" they use plugs in behind the battery and the thing looks kind of like a Fluke multi meter with an almost real computer monitor.
I am not going to be keeping this bike for the rest of my life as I thought I was going to be doing, it will be going up for sale in the next year or so after my thrill with a brand new vehicle for the 1st time in my life wears off. I have had her for 16 months and the thrill is still there but, it will not last much longer if this bike keeps giving me shitfits.
To me it sounds like things that happen in the automobile field all the time. I was a Mazda Tech for a few good years till everything went to hell in a hand basket with the economy and got shit canned. But anyways I was amazing how most driveablity issues were with bad programming or sensors and nothing mechanical at all. Which be glad your bike only has one ECU in or maybe the automatic VFR has a TCU in.I have spent quite a time on hold calling Mazda Hotline to get info on some new "fix" from the gurus at Mazda HQ-ZoomZoom. I don't think I will ever buy a new bike because most company's keep trying to make there bikes have all the comforts of cars. I ride my bike because they have no creature comforts and it a raw experience. Same with doing any maintenance to your bikes.
End of thread · 11 posts recoveredWayback Machine snapshot 19 Oct 2011