Rear ABS not working on my Gen 1

I was slowing to do a U turn and as I banked the bike over at about 6-8 mph, the rear brake locked up on my 05 ABS. Scared me a bit. I recall somewhere reading that the ABS doesn't work below a certain speed. Is this true? Even so, I'm thinking that what just happened is not normal. I don't recall this happening before. I did discover that the front ABS is fine a little while later when I grabbed too much brake in the parking lot at maybe 10mph over some sand. It's working fine.

Advice?

Gary

darksider #44

What happens at a faster speed, or straight ahead when you try to bind up the rear wheel? I would guess you were at a speed where the rear ABS does not function, or you didn't have sufficient speed to activate the ABS, or speed differential between the front and rear wheels was not detected. ABS does not keep the wheel from stopping unless it detects sufficient motion in the other wheel to indicate a skid. I would guess you stopped pretty much instantly. Slightly faster, and the rear wheel would have actually had to skid enough to trigger the ABS if it's functioning.

Non-technical guess...Fred W should be here shortly.

Gary,

I recently had an odd ABS (maybe) experience the other day too. I saw that I was taking a turn too fast. The reason was there was dirt and gravel in it that I did not see until I was right on it. I grabbed a lot of brake, both front and back. The back locked for a second and the tire skipped a bit to the side. My guess is that I was at or below about 20mph when the skip occured. What surprised me was that I did not feel the ABS kick in at all. I would have thought either traction control or ABS would have kicked in.

This was on a 14 A model. Never had that ever happen before on my 06 or my R1200GS which had both traction control and ABS.

TomInCA said:

...Non-technical guess...Fred W should be here shortly.

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Well, I'm not Fred but I do have a reply. According to my FSM, the minimum speed for ABS actuation is 6 mph, the manual says that the ABS will be disabled at 5 mph. With the needle gauge speedometer it would be nearly impossible to tell the exact speed, so anything around 6 mph makes ABS being enabled a guess.

On the way to school, I hit the rear brake pretty good at about 15 mph. It locked up. Now I've got an even bigger problem. Read ABS seems to be on the fritz. Front ABS seems to be fine though. Uggh. This is the third problem I've had with the FJR. Actually I can't complain. Not bad for 42k miles.

First problem, soaked and corroded wires leading to the coils during some cold rainy weather in New York: dealer fixed it for a couple hundred.

Second problem was my front brake light switch on the handlebar, which I replaced: easy enough thanks to a generous forum member.

This is the third. Looks like my ABS for the rear brake isn't working.

Guess I better start researchin' this amazin' forum for some answers before I start leavin' black streaks all over Pasco County.

Gary

OldButNotDead said:

(From OldButNotDead above)

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OldButNotDead said:

Gary,I recently had an odd ABS (maybe) experience the other day too. I saw that I was taking a turn too fast. The reason was there was dirt and gravel in it that I did not see until I was right on it. I grabbed a lot of brake, both front and back. The back locked for a second and the tire skipped a bit to the side. My guess is that I was at or below about 20mph when the skip occured. What surprised me was that I did not feel the ABS kick in at all. I would have thought either traction control or ABS would have kicked in.

This was on a 14 A model. Never had that ever happen before on my 06 or my R1200GS which had both traction control and ABS.

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Old:

Seems to me that your traction control only affects the engine's acceleration when you on the gas, and wouldn't be a factor when you're on the brakes... for what it's worth. I do know that when my ABS was working properly, I never had an experience like the one you described. It worked immediately every time there was limited traction during braking.

Gary, welcome to the "Dead Rear ABS" club.

On a 10 year old bike, I'm not surprised, but you DID get about 4 more years out of your ABS than I (and several others) did.

Gary, seems lots of '04s and '05s are running into this rear ABS block problem. Seems,once frozen up, there may be no fixing it. Maybe try forcing it with the dash actuation, or even pull it off and try a sonic cleaner. Either that or buy a known good, used one. Don't know how possible that last option is. New ones are big money.

BTW, has anyone made a complaint to NHTSA? I'd consider this a safety issue, and maybe a recall is in order, since the only sure fix is new replacement. I would think properly working brakes have to be a safety concern. I mean, what if you have to brake fast on some ice and go down, Gary?

Seriously, I would see malfunctioning brakes as more of a safety issue than altitude sickness or wiring harnesses?

Not if you didn't have it serviced regularly, you'd have to have proof

Like we have "proof" of oil changes, spark plug changes, et al?? I'm betting not. Vehicles in general are very poorly maintained, yet recalls come every day. Without filing for it, it's all just conjecture anyway.

If it were my bike, I'd try it. Hell, a call to Yamaha about Gary's being the 7th or 8th, just on this Forum, might prompt a good will gesture, just to shut him up. Consider that the only time the brake fluid in my 1999 truck gets any attention is during brake jobs, and no one has replaced it except when the Master Cylinder had a leak. The ABS still works fine, just as a motorcycle's should; even without fluid changes every 3 months as some believe.

This would be a good 'n to stop by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration and file a complaint about the ABS failure. Everyone with a failure should file a complaint. This is indeed a safety issue that can cause unexpected and unintended loss of traction resulting in loss of control. Please use the words unsafe, dangerous and unexpected loss of control freely in your filing.

garyahouse said:

OldButNotDead said:

(From OldButNotDead above)

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OldButNotDead said:

Gary,I recently had an odd ABS (maybe) experience the other day too. I saw that I was taking a turn too fast. The reason was there was dirt and gravel in it that I did not see until I was right on it. I grabbed a lot of brake, both front and back. The back locked for a second and the tire skipped a bit to the side. My guess is that I was at or below about 20mph when the skip occured. What surprised me was that I did not feel the ABS kick in at all. I would have thought either traction control or ABS would have kicked in.

This was on a 14 A model. Never had that ever happen before on my 06 or my R1200GS which had both traction control and ABS.

Click to expand...

Old:

Seems to me that your traction control only affects the engine's acceleration when you on the gas, and wouldn't be a factor when you're on the brakes... for what it's worth. I do know that when my ABS was working properly, I never had an experience like the one you described. It worked immediately every time there was limited traction during braking.

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Yea, your right, my thinking cap wasn't fully functional. Since mine is a 14 and under 5K miles it should be under warranty. I agree with HRZ that this is a safety issue and it should be reported to NHTSA. One or two cases won't get their attention so everyone who gets this should submit. IIRC when you apply to NHTSA you do not have to submit any maintenance records.

Just to elaborate, I was very near or at vertical and had not started the turn. Could see nothing was coming so I was able to use the entire road. There was no pulsing front or rear. It was the tire sliding that initiated what I described as a "skip". So this had noting to do with the tire walking out due to loss of traction. I think I'm going to try some lock up in a parking lot over the weekend.

As long as the rear tire is still moving forward at close to the same speed as the front tire, the ABS (and/or traction control for the Gen III) will not activate. A sideways slip can happen without there being a large difference in rotational speeds.

RossKean said:

As long as the rear tire is still moving forward at close to the same speed as the front tire, the ABS (and/or traction control for the Gen III) will not activate. A sideways slip can happen without there being a large difference in rotational speeds.

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I hear what you are saying but I have felt this same thing happen on non-ABS bikes. Rear brake locks and bike slides to the side. The one thing I'm not sure of was the exact speed I was going. Maybe I got below the ABS threshold. When you are locking up the brakes and trying to avoid having your skoot laying on the ground, evaluating exact speed isn't all that reliable.

Sitting here tonight researching the forum, like I've done so many times in the past. Came across this helpful thread CLICKY from March 2011 started by Ionbeam. I trust that this info is pretty similar for both Gen 1 and Gen 2 FJRs. Anyway, lots of great info concerning the testing of the ABS system. I'm a learnin'.

Gary

ionbeam said:

From Ionbeam above:This would be a good 'n to stop by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration and file a complaint about the ABS failure. Everyone with a failure should file a complaint. This is indeed a safety issue that can cause unexpected and unintended loss of traction resulting in loss of control. Please use the words unsafe, dangerous and unexpected loss of control freely in your filing.

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Done: reference # 10652625.

Looking forward to the weekend when I'll have a little time to look into the problem. Still busy researching the forum.

Gary

garyahouse said:

ionbeam said:

From Ionbeam above:This would be a good 'n to stop by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration and file a complaint about the ABS failure...

Click to expand...

Done: reference # 10652625...

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Good for you! I worked with a NHTSA agent that got Yamaha to address the spider problem, if people with the ABS metering block failure all go to the NHTSA site and open a file it will get noticed and action taken. We may not see the correspondence between the NHTSA and Yamaha but it will take place. It is important that the filings indicate something like unexpected loss of control when the ABS fails, that is an actionable phrase for the agents.

Just a follow up. I checked all my fault codes and everything was clean. Rather than get the test clip I just went out and did a few stops in the neighborhood. Ran it up to about 35-40 and grabbed the brakes. Front actuated for a couple pulse but nothing in the rear. Problem with this test is the brakes are so darned good, you probably are below minimum activation speed so fast the rear doesn't activate. I'm going to try from a higher speed when I get time to get out on a safe stretch of highway.

OBND, you probably know this, but in case you don't; make sure you're grabbing a lot of front when you test the rear. If all you do is jam the rear, it's much harder to activate. With the front going hard, there's enough weight transfer that the rear will come on harder and faster.