A Maddening Imperfection

It is said that perfection, by mortals angers the gods. It is for this reason that many cultures leave flaws in their designs. The VFR is one of the best, all round designs of any motorcycle ever built and yet it has, what is to me, a maddening flaw. I am talking about the wild swings of the temperature readout.

It was very warm today with temperatures at or near 100. The bike would heat up to, at one point, to 228 as indicated by the gauge. Sometimes it would cool down to 212 when underway but other times it would drop to only 219 or 220. I have checked the system. The thermostat is less than a year old. It has a new water pump (the old one had a leaking seal.) The system doesn't leak. It is clean and the cooling fan cycles. The VFR has always done this and I hate watching the temperature gauge mentally willing it to drop.

This just ruins an otherwise perfect bike.

 

What? It does not puke coolant or anything?
Wipe the sweat off your brow, hydrate yourself, roll on.

 

I agree with Lee-ride. It was on the mid-90's today here and the temps are what they always are. 220 at a stop light and 176 while on the move. Been that way since 1998.

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I do ride but the wide temperature fluctuations keep me from truly enjoying the experience. My VTR has the same setup with dual radiators and such and it never has fluctuations like the VFR.

 

You need to adjust your mental gauge then, as this is entirely by design. Unless it is above 245 ignore the temperature exists. Honda says overheating is 250.

Edit: the best part of my 8th gen (I still love my 5th) is that I can turn it to MPG instead of the temperature. Then I don't have to worry about it

 

That could be interesting.

I leave mine on air temp. If the coolant gets too hot it will change to coolant temp and start flashing.
Did this a few weeks ago, replaced the fan fuse and all good since.