Not a good day for me. First really good day of Spring here and my new wheels go out on me. I picked up my super glide from winter storage a week ago. Over the winter, they put on new Switchblade wheels. Had no issues last week. When I went out today, I noticed something odd in the handling. It was windy so I thought I might just be getting blown around a bit but it felt a little wobbly. A few stoplights later, as I pulled away, I noticed the ABS light came on. A couple more stoplights later, and I heard something like a screw rattling around from the rear. Stopped at a gas station to check things out but didn't see anything and the noise had stopped. Rode off and a few mintues later, I started hearing intermittent grinding noises from the rear.

Made it to the dealer. They came out a few minutes later and told me the wheel bearing on the new rear wheel completely failed. Waited around a couple hours for them to fix it. Then they came back and told me the ABS sensor was fried and they cannot release the bike in that state. No part in stock so they will have the bike a week or so.

I asked the dealer what happened. These are new wheels. Someone must have done something on the install of the bearings. I am not an expert on bikes but know bearings don't just fail like that within 20 miles.

This is my third failure on a new bike. Got the 2012 SG last August. Within a month it was towed to the shop. Bike wouldn't start. Turns out that the battery cells were defective and shorted out the electrical systems and fried a relay. A month later, the voltage regulator failed. All replaced on warranty. Now this. Very disconcerting.

Not the dealers fault on the first two but I suspect someone messed something up with the new wheel install. I got sheepish replies when I asked for what specifically would have caused such a failure. Not the end of the world, I guess. It is all covered by the dealer and only a week without the bike and there is plenty of riding to be had. But someone most likely screwed something up on this one.

FWIW: Western Reserve Harley Davidson in Mentor, OH.

 

'08 and later single row wheel bearings have had issues ( cheap cheap cheap,), and if they installed new wheels I would hope that they would have installed new bearings too given the reliability ( or lack thereof,) of those particular units.

 

I didn't get any info from them when I pressed. I asked for details on the installation of the new wheels and didn't give me any info. They just struck me as evasive. Stuff happens, but I think someone screwed something up. What can you do? I m just obviously not too happy and my confidence is not real high at this point. What sticks in my mind is will they fail again, this time on the highway doing 70? There was a slight wobble on the blvd at about 35. Felt like wind pushing around the bike, then I realized it was what felt like a rear shimmy. Obviously wouldn't want that on the highway.

 

Not only are the newer bearing lower quality. I have had bearings fail because the axle nut was over torqued.

Could of been a DOA bearing, could have been improper installation. You'll probably never know. But if you are not comfortable with the dealer, find another one for all future warranty work.

I do as much of my own work as possible, and always double check any dealer work for loose fasteners etc.

 

What I also don't understand is taking 1-2 weeks to get an ABS sensor in. You would think Harley warehouse would have these in stock. I asked the guy if it was a custom order or something and he just said it usually takes a while to get them. ABS is obviously a good safety feature but it is also another thing to go wrong and apparently the parts are hard to get hold of.

The accumulation of time my bike has been in the shop for reapirs or warranty is going to be one month out of 9. That's roughly 12% of total ownership so far where the bike has been sitting idle in a dealer repair facility waiting for something or being repaired.

 

I would call around to other dealers to see if any of them have the part on their shelf.

HD actually does a pretty good job keeping 10's of thousands of parts in stock 99.9% of the time.

But it is frustrating when they run out.

We buy a high quantity of parts from them that we combine with some of our kits. Right now we are back-ordered on two different part #'s. But this is the first time in about a year that we have been back-ordered from them.

 

Simply to save freight and paperwork, some Dealers only order their parts from HD and other vendors once a week or so also.

There is a Parts Locator all Dealers have which can tell them if Dealers anywhere in the country already have your part in stock. Ask any Parts Manager from any Dealer to check for you.

 

I understand. The cynic in me, however, says that if getting the part involved selling a new bike and making a profit, I think it is highly probably that the part would somehow manage to get there the next day.

But that is frustration speaking and looking at it objectively, I realize I am not the only one with a bike in the shop and the dealer doesn't revolve around me. They are under no obligation to expedite things for warranty work.

I looked for abs sensors online but need a part number. I looked in the service manual but no part number is given and there is vary scarce info on the the ABS parts and system. I am going to call tomorrow to ask for a part number then make calls and try to see if I can get it myself.

I am also going to make further inquiries with the dealer about the rear wheel. I just want to be confident that nothing about the wheel hub is out of spec or some other defect that might lead to the bearing failure. It's a matter of confidence. It obviously is kind of spooky when you get new wheels and within 20 miles the bearings explode.

On another note, I did a few searches online for Dyna Harley Rear Wheel bearing failures and there are quite a few entries. It appears that there are sporadic issues with this. One guy had experiences similar to mine. A few had failures on new bikes every few thousand miles. They tried dealing with the motor company and they seemed to always to blame it on poor maintenance or some excuse--if what one guy said was true, he was told not to ride the bike in the rain because it was what led to the failure. Anyways, a lot of people seem to have went to different bearings. I am thinking maybe it might be a good idea to go to an Indy and have them install quality bearings. Some of the things I read online about harley bearings gives me the *******--stories of wheels on relatively new bikes seizing on the highway due to bearing failures etc.

 

Modifications often lead to unanticipated problems.

No dealer wants to install parts provided by the owner. If you want it repaired, under warranty, wait for their schedule. If you want to pay to have it fixed, find someone with the parts.

Replace wheel bearings with US made bearings, only, even if you have to pay extra.

Buy the parts manual.

 

i had the same bearing failure but on the front wheel.
the shop installed the bearings and I put the wheel on the bike.
torqued to mfg specs. hopped on the fwy and a half mile into the ride noticed
the noise, pulled over and at about 10mph the front wheel locked up and almost dumped the bike.the bearings were imo a cheap brand so i went to my local HD dealer and forked out the cash for HD brand bearings. i also had to grab a new axle since it welded itself to the bearing, had to cut off my old one. this go round i installed the bearings myself and 300 miles later (knock on wood) all is good.