They might have shipped 233,000 bikes last year but not all of them had ABS. Matter of fact, very few of their bikes have ABS as an option. I have ABS on my bike and it saved my @ss once. That's enough for me to consider ABS a must.
This being said, my rear brakes are extremely hard to operate and I never felt comfortable with them. I use the front brakes 99% of the time and they work fine. If I use the rear brakes alone, the stopping power is extremely poor. I had HD and an indy mechanic check the system several times and they couldn't find anything wrong.
Go figure.

 

I learned to ride and drive WAY before ABS was available on any vehicle, let alone bikes. If a bike I want comes standard with it, then I'll have it. I'd never pay extra for it, though.

But that's just me, if a person feels they need it then they should pay whatever it costs to get it.

 

Ditto. By the way my wife and I were in Boulder visiting my mother and friends just the week before the Aurora mess. Having lived in California for the past 31 years we couldn't help but think maybe we should move back to Boulder and enjoy the beauty, serenity and sanity that Boulder and Colorado seems to offer by comparison to California. That illusion didn't last long thanks to the so-called Joker.

 

F**k "the Joker"! That guy is a brain-dead psychotic freak. He'll be sent to prison and rot there for the rest of his miserable life.

Hell yeah you should get out of Cali & come to Boulder! Way more freaks and crime there. The only reason stuff like the Aurora mess makes the news is because it's so relatively rare here. Plus, that happened in Aurora, not Boulder.

 

same here, the rear brakes on my '12 LTD are virtually worthless, dealer says it's *normal* for ABS to act this way... yeah, right

 

What makes the rear brake worthless? Does the ABS not engage or engage too early or what? Mine works like a charm.

 

worthless may be a little strong, but the amount of applied foot pressure for a normal stop is totally unacceptable, I have stood on it full pressure of my 250# weight and the ABS hasn't triggered yet.. it takes a LOT of dedicated pressure for a normal stop... it only has 500 miles on it though, dealer says give it a couple thousand to loosen up

thats the only fault I can find with the bike though, but it's a big fault

 

Getting off track here. But Isn't the guy, James Eagan Holmes, from California? Says he was born and raised in San Diego.

 

Sounds like the ABS system electronics worked as they should. A mechanical valve stuck as will happen will mechanical things. Given the low miles on the bike I would suspect a metal fragment or burr in the manufacturing process. I would no more not trust the brakes on the bike going forward than I would if a bulb burned out and I had to replace a bulb or a tire blew out and had to be replaced. While I don't know exactly how the ABS system functions I would expect the controller activates or deactivates the valves, not that it would specically know there position. I would not expect a "code" with this type failure.

 

Let us recap here. Brake system on new bike failed.
Customer took it in to dealer.
Dealer said "We don't know what happened but will call factory and see what they say".
Factory sends out new parts. Dealer installed ASAP.
Customer picks up bike and takes home.
Looks like everybody in the story did what they are supposed to do and the system works.
Yet I still sense the customer and many forum readers are still unhappy and are left with a bad taste in their mouths.
Some things just can't be resolved to everyones satisfaction.