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Hi everyone. I had a near dead experience past week due to my 2010 Honda VFR1200 having a major braking malfunction. I have owned the old school 2002 and 2004 vfr800 and they have been nothing but a blessing to ride, so I decided I give the vfr1200 a try. Got one a few months back in almost pristine condition and with only 13k miles. The other day I took this bike out for a ride in the back roads. Towards the end of my ride (I was riding a pretty good pace) Im going about 60 mph I apply the front brakes and nothing I apply the rears and nothing. The entire brake system it seemed was disengaged. I thought for sure I was going to crash but I somehow managed to make it out of the turn (If I didn't I would have been on the bottom of the mountain and pretty dead). When I came to a stop I noticed fluid dripping all over my rear tire which seemed to be coming from the rear brake caliper. After I came to a stop and restarted the bike in like 2 mins the front brake was working fine now but the rear brake was still gone. I got home inspected the brakes and I will include pictures of what I saw. I have never seen anything like this. The rear brake pads which were pretty new have been grinded down to bare metal, the disk pad is shredded and the caliper pistons have been pushed out with such force that they have peeled back into themselves like a banana, in the process the o-rings have blown and all the rear brake fluid has been leaked out. I would like to add that the front brake system is absolutely fine. You can imagine at this point I'm quite upset. I have a few questions from the VFR experts and mechanics in here. Look at the pictures and give me your input on what might have happened here cause i'm clueless. Can the ABS system on this bike completely disable both the front and rear brake systems? If yes isn't that a big safety issue? What would cause the pistons to act in such way? Any input appreciated I will soon talk to an expert mechanic that will inspect the bike and a lawyer.

My brakes pulse badly after installing new OEM pads. I probably hit the new pads too hard, too soon in the bedding-in process. Any input/insight would be greatly appreciated. Preamble: I did a delink with 5/8" front master cylinder and RC51 SP2 calipers [32mm/30mm pistons] on my 5th gen. These brakes were operating smoothly, running Galfer street/track pads with 80% pad left. Then I rode member RVFR's 5th gen. His full CBR600F4i front brake system [5/8" master cylinder and F4i calipers with 32mm/34mm pistons] running OEM pads STOPPED LIKE WOW with full control, great modulation. The actions I took: [1] Installed OEM pads in my SP2 front calipers. I carefully scuffed the existing stock rotors with emery paper, starting with coarse, then medium, then fine, to remove material the Galfer pads had deposited on the rotors' surface. Cleaned the rotors with brake cleaning fluid until rag came away clean. [1A] Noted that the brakes with new OEM pads were working normally on surface streets and freeway on the way out to the country road where I would bed the pads. [2] Bedded the pads in to transfer pad material from the new OEM pads to the just-scuffed rotors. All brake applications were made smoothly, starting with light lever pressure then increasing quickly to high lever pressure, then releasing steadily, never 'snapping' the lever pressure off. Made 6 hard decelerations from 70mph to 30mph, with no cooling time between brake applications and never slowing to less than 25mph [Never coming to a complete stop]. [3] After the 6 decelerations from 70mph to 30mph, was careful not to come to complete stop and rode with no brakes for several minutes to allow full cooling of the brake components. The result: Front brakes pulsed intensely from high speeds [80-100mph] or mid speeds [50-70mph] all the way down to 20mph or less before they smoothed out. Even at 20-30mph, strong application of the brakes caused pulsing. Hypothesis: I believe I started too hard on the bedding in process; I probably should have done 4-6 decelerations from 40mph to 20 mph with modest lever pressure before moving on to repeated heavy braking from higher speeds. In the bedding process I applied too much brake force too suddenly and deposited pad material unevenly. Attempted solution: I went back to the emery paper and scuffed the rotors again, doing three rounds on each side of each rotor with coarse, medium, then fine emery paper. The pulsing smoothed out somewhat, and now, 1200 miles later, has smoothed further, but is not gone. Research indicates uneven deposits of pad material may be a major cause of pulsing brakes: https://forums.bmwmoa.org/showthread.php?21352-Not-warped-discs-but-pulsating-brakes! Post #16 here has some pointers: https://www.pnwriders.com/threads/cure-for-pulsing-brakes.194058/ Next steps: [1] Definitely purchase dial indicator and check rotors for warping/runout [2] Possibly have rotors bead blasted. [3] Possibly send rotors to truedisk [truedisk.net] to have them ground flat. [4] Possibly install new OEM pads after bead blasting or flat grinding.

I knew of the minor weight difference (25 lbs, 10kg) between the 1200 DCT and F models, but never realized that was enough difference for Honda to address it in the brake design. I mean, at 600 lbs, with luggage options and the like, a variety of rider weights, etc., is 25 lbs enough to make different size rear brake pads? Apparently it is. I need to replace the rear pads, and decided to stay OEM because I love the brakes on this bike. Why fix it with aftermarket? So, I trundled into the local dealer to get parts, gave the parts guy the make/model info and he ordered them. The following weekend I fitted them, or tried. Damn pads just would not go on. After some swearing and the like, I gave up and trundled back to the dealer to explore why. The parts guy checked the numbers on the DCT fiche, then checked the numbers on the F fiche. The PN's appeared both places, but he then noticed a second PN on both fiches. Eventually, he figured out the two models had different PN's for their rear pads! Who knew? Funny, the fiches didn't really specify which belonged with which model. So, I ordered the other PN and figured between the two I'd have what I need. The parts showed up a few days later, and sure enough, they are different. I was surprised to see the pads are smaller on the F model. I also noticed the reason the F model won't fit into the DCT caliper - it has a small flange that won't allow it into the DCT caliper. Trust me, it is effective. Below is photographic evidence. The MGE-D01 (top) is the DCT model pad, the MFN-D11 is the F model. The screw driver tip points to the flange on the F model pad that denies use on the DCT. You can see the DCT pads are bigger. Apologies to those that already knew this, but it was news to me and the Honda parts guy. Wonder if it is the same on aftermarket pads?

My GF's 2000 VFR with a Superhawk front end has a high speed (above 60 mph) brake shudder. Below 50 or 55, I can't really feel it though. About a year ago I rode it and felt it, so I pulled everything apart, made sure the front end was tight and torqued it all to spec using the Honda steps. She said it was better (I didn't ride it again though) and never said another word. Well, I rode it a couple of weeks ago, and it felt worse now than it was a year ago. Apparently it has been there a while but she never said anything. Maybe it just slowly got worse with time. I bought a dial indicator and set off to measure the rotors. Found one about .010" and the other about .004" runout. I used a cresent wrench to bend them a little back to straight. Seems both are back to about .002"-.003" but I still get a shudder. Spec is .012", so I should be well within that limit. Since the bike has the Superhawk front end on it, I also played around with the calipers a little. They weren't exactly centered on the rotors, so I bought a few washers and tried different ones to get them more centered on the rotors. They seem to be pretty center now, but it didn't change anything. What am I missing here? Do I need to pull the rotors off and clean the surfaces using something like this? http://www.amazon.com/Flex-Hone-Flywheel-Surface-Silicon-Carbide/dp/B00063VDR0/ref=wl_it_dp_o_pC_nS_nC?ie=UTF8&colid=1D22E2FJV7TF4&coliid=I2PEVBKHTUQYBY Maybe pull the pads off at the same time and sand them down? Anything else to check or do?

I have already mentioned that the previous owner took no pride in this 99 VFR. It is obvious to me from the amount of cleaning that I have done that it sat outside for long periods of time and the guy was lazy about maintenance. I have noticed that no matter how many times I clean the wheels the next time I clean them they are filthy again with black dust. I am going to assume that the brake pads are the OEM ones that came with the bike since as of this weekend I am just over 13K miles on the bike. At that mileage, I wouldn't think the pads need replaced. A friend of mine who is far more mechanical said there is plenty of life left on them. Those of you who use OEM pads, do you notice excessive brake dust? If not, can a brake pad go bad from age? Amazon has EBC pads on sale for $30-ish right now. I could probably sneak the money past the wife, but I don't want to spend $90+ if I don't have to.