I gotta tell ya I just bought this bike in may , I put 1000 miles on it then i changed the pies to Vance and hines side shots.. I took it to the stealer and when they did my first service,at 1270 mile they dynoed it and said it did not need to be remapped, cuz it wasnt running lean.I asked if i should put on a fuel pak or something ,, they said "only if you get a breather to go with the pipes". I drove it for another 1000 miles, ran great, then on my way back from Maine with my wife on the back it started running like CRAP!!! engine would pop and fart, backfire, and it wouldnt idle, I thought it was the gas so i put alittle drygas in it and ran the tank dry and refilled with premium,, still runing bad so i schedule a appointment at the dealer, they have had it there since JULY 5TH!!!!!!! they dynoed it again, no codes,, so they changed things , injectors, 02 sensors, ECM, still nothing.. so they call HARLEY ,, they aask me to bring my stock pipes back so they can install them to see if its the pipes doing it...Im like ?? It ran great for 1000 miles after i put the pipes on?? so anyway i bring the pipes back over to them ,, they install um.. still nothing.. 7 days go by and NOTHING!!!! I call them and say " you better have an answer by tommarow" or someones gonna have to do some aweful fast talkin!!! they call me back bout 4 hrs later and say Its FIXED!!! I said ,,"what was wrong"?? the service manager told me A FRICKIN SPARK PLUG!!!!!!!!!!! I said NO WAY ,, that woulda showed up on the dyno!! ,,I gotta tell you guys Im not impressed at all with HARLEY DAVIDSON , there service or there product! 2559 miles and its in the shop ALREADY??? I missed over a week of riding cuz some lame tech didnt change a spark plug? tell me your thoughs!!!!

 

afraid to say.. but the little stuff can be HARD to find..

was running a hopped up 5.0 ho with spray.. pulled a 13.2 while burning up a clutch.. went to read plugs and one plug was TOTALLY clean.. was like WTF.. come to find out when i put the harness plug on the injector an injector prong got bent.. in other words only 7 of 8 cylinders were firing and i found the problem by accident.

i would like to see the plug. i have seen spark arc through a cracked porcelin insulator.. GET this, I ONLY caught it because it was dark outside and happened to have the hood up

 

Always check the simple stuff first . I hate throwing money at a bike but sometimes a simple check of the plug wires , plugs and battery connections can go a long way. Up here in the mountains premium fuel sits for months in the tank because no one can afford to run it. I have gotten some horrible fuel because of that . Hope your problem gets fixed soon. Im not real jazzed about Harley dealers either but still love the bike.

 

Techs are human, and generally speaking, humans look for the more technical, costly crap, and miss the simple stuff. first thing is always look for the little simple stuff first, and even that can be hard to find at times. Imagine all them hours they spent diagnosing technical things, changing exhaust twice, and finding out it was a 1 minute fix all along.
I wouldnt give up on them yet, they learned a hard lesson and the tech is probably kicking his own butt for being stupid.

 

bet its the first thing both you and him check next time, life can be like that but now you both know right?

 

 

What doesn't make sense to me is why a dealer would put a new bike on a dyno just because pipes were changed. Not one dyno run but two.
So what kind of bike is it?

 

Oh i forgot to mention that also it had a "squeling noise " when under acceleration. know what the stealer told me? he said a shock bolt was rubbing on the tire!! DUDE its a engine noise not a damn scrubing niose,, It only does it when you really get after it in say 3, 4 or 5th gears ,, squels hard,, he said i test drove it in the parking lot and i didnt hear anything,,I said " can you get it in 3rd gear in that little parkinglot"???? WTF you gottta be kidding me. I mean the bike is pretty and all ,But I wanna ride the damn thing not loook at it! Last harley ill ever buy !! Its been nothing but trouble! I want my damn money back!

 

they dynoed it the first time to make sure it wasnt running lean,, but it turned out to be ok,, that was at the first service i had,, but the second time they dynoed it they were trying to diagnos the problem with the engine,, according to them the dyno wont pick up a bad plug,, Anyone know if thats true?? its a 2011 dyna wide glide, wanna buy it?

 

Maybe, just maybe if you read the service manual you won't need to take it in for service every time you hear a different noise. Besides it will give you a chance to get to know your bike on a more personal note.

Then you will know before hand what is really going on with your machine.

Just a thought!