Re: 60mph front brake failure 06 Dyna
Only just come across this thread, and shocked by what I've been reading.
Does anyone have any experience of any other brake pads delaminating? Or indeed any MoCo pads from other years?
We need to establish a baseline for what would constitute an 'acceptable' failure rate - nothing is perfect but if the MoCo's rate is 2% and EBC's is 0.5% that information needs to be fed to riders, making them aware of the risks and able make an informed decision, and then back to the manufacturers: not the people who wrap them in their own packaging, but the people who actually produce them because they are in a position to do something about it.
It could be a simple as the bonding compound: it may be that they have resolved it, in which case we need to know if there's a way of identifying the improved version from its packaging: it's sickening that VOSA are not taking a more proactive stance, because at the very least they should be ensuring that all pads from the known suspect batch are removed from the food chain.
Hate to say it, but is there any merit in building an on-line database of component failures for this massive and vociferous forum, and does anyone have the programming skills to be able to knock it up? We need to work out a way to share this information, so we can present it to VOSA and to Harley-Davidson, and share among ourselves.
Doesn't need to be anything more than part (part number if possible), make (because Harley will not be alone), model, year, mileage, how the bike is stored (garage / shed / cover), and any other salient info that has a bearing - no pun intended. Make something positive out of this, and speak with a single coherent and rational voice that can't be ignored.
Right, what did I come in here for? Oh yes ...
Sounds good Andy, but if you trawl through the whole post, you'll find we have been here already. The pads are made by Hayes brake, and they were my first port of call. Unsurprisingly, they would not engage in correspondence, and said I should speak to the dealer. After a campaign to get people to forward their failure details, what we had was compiled, and sent to both VOSA (who are responsible for recalls) and the HDUK. VOSA never took the issue seriously, and from the start engaged on a campaign to discover some facet of the case that would throw the responsibility on the rider, and take it away from the manufacturer. After discussions with HDUK, they discovered small print in the owner's manual that states that brake pads are part of the pre-ride inspection, and ignoring the obvious, that such a get-out clause is completely unreasonable, impossible for the lay person to carry out, and was placed there as a check of pad wear, and not a measure of imminent collapse, they continued to insist that black was white, because that was what they had decided from the start.
Correspondence was sent to HDUK also, but they did not even have the courtesy to reply.
Had more people been involved, then perhaps some direct action might have been appropriate, and had 500 or so club members descended en masse on Oxford or VOSA, then the resulting publicity might have forced some kind of action, but the fact remains that VOSA, rather than taking up the baton, actively collaborated with HDUK to suppress any dissent, and had made up their mind about their stance right from the start.
Our club represents only a tiny fraction of the Harley-Davidsons registered in this country, and as many of the remainder are serviced by factory dealers, the statistics you seek are unavailable, so we would be unable to present anything meaningful to support our case.
The best we could hope for was to publicise the problem internally, so forum members at least could exercise their choice, and buy their pads elsewhere.
Are H-D worried about that?
No.
We're not their target market, and sales of machines and clothing continue unabated....