Am looking at an 04 Heritage Classic with 11K miles. Price is $11.9 so think that is fair. Anyway, it is carbed and was wanting input if that is a big deal. The bike is perfect condition. Should I pass on a carbed bike and look for FI. Will be my first Harley and am 49 years old.

Thanks!!

 

Tad high on the $$$ if you ask me. Carb's are great if you like to tinker and dont mind a "cold blooded" Harley, but if you want a little less hassle I would look for a FI model. I have both carb'd and FI bikes, I can say that FI is the way to go.

 

I vote for FI. No fuss, no muss.

 

Yea that does seem a bit high on the dollar side.

There are pros and cons of both. Carb idles great, has that classic harley sound. FI idles nice and fires right up every time. Carb not so much.

FI you don't get off your scoot at the end of the day smelling like a fume factory, carb you will.

I would go FI.

 

I am torn between the carb and FI... My Sportster has a carb and my Bones has the FI... Sure the bones starts up right away and is ready to go... The Sportster fires up right away... but it does take a few minutes to warm up...

I guess if you gotta go and you gotta go the instant the thing fires up then I would say go FI.... Then again... whats a couple of minutes...

The Sportster is 3 yrs old... got 25k and fires up every time...

Now when you start talking problems... you start talking a whole different story...

Personally if I had the option on my Bones to wheather I wanted a carb or FI, I would take a carb any day.... A couple of minutes warm-up don't mean that much to me...

Charlie D.

 

If you're like me and are constantly changing intakes/pipes, then FI is the way to go. Jetting is a pain on the ***.

 

HD, I would buy the bike. I bought my first bike, a Wideglide, new in 03. It's a carby model too. Done 23,000 miles on it without missing a beat. Same battery, starts every time. Even after 6 weeks of sitting in cool weather. Of course I warm it up for 5 minutes before riding but I do that with my new Rocker too!! It ain't gonna hurt a bike to warm it up!

You wouldn't get a bike like that for under double the price here in Australia!!! You guys are spoilt!!

 

I have a carb 04 fatboy and it's a cold blooded beast. It has taken a little to get use to but now it not a big deal.

Is the bike still stock? If not and you like the pipes they have on it then warming up will be the only real issue.

With the FI if you plan on doing any uprading then you have the added expense of remapping the engine which could run a couple hundred.

My bike had some nice pipes on it so I didn't have to do anything to it. If it was a FI the added cost of remapping my have prevented me from doing any upgrading for a while.

Your probally more confused then before but I'd bet you'll have the biggest sh*t eating grin regardless which bike you get.

bill

 

Any motor needs a warm up period to allow the mechanical parts to expand properly, so warm up time is a non issue. It only takes $10 worth of jets to make a carb bike run right with any motor changes vs. several hundred for a f.i. tuning device and dyno tune. My carbed bike starts right up every time, runs good, and has never had any problems.

 

carb for the win. easy to make changes without all the computer bs. however fi is more efficient and smoother.