Anyone know of HD having a recall or extended warranty on the wheel bearings? I just had my front tire replaced at 12500 miles and the right front wheel bearings were shot! I have read of many such cases here in HD Forum seems to me that the bearings should last longer than that! I know that some manufacturers will extend the warranty if they realize that parts fail prematurely, that was the case for the power steering pump on my Van. Wonder if Harley would do something like t hat?

 

Liability...

 

Especially if tehy are going to replace it with the same brand bearing that just failed.

 

Why would they extend a warranty to an already failing part? Seems to me they might do a recall, but never extend a warranty.

 

Because they don't have to, is the short answer.

Also, having been on the manufacturer's side of these sorts of issues; the actual rates at which mechanics diagnose a part that supposedly "fails all the time"; can be extremely low, almost always far less than 1% . . . . and then when these parts are actually inspected, a large portion have NTF (No Trouble Found). Another significant portion were clearly just fine . . . . until the mechanic damaged them in the removal process. The actual failure rate of parts returned for warranty is usually less than 10% of the 1% that were returned to the manufacturer. That would be a failure rate of 0.10%, or put another way, one failure in a thousand vehicles over the lifetime of the warranty period. Just because a mechanic says a part is bad; Don't necessarily make it so. In all fairness to these manufacturers; after you've seen all the BS that gets returned as warranty . . . you can see why a manufacturer can get pretty cynical pretty quickly.

 

could it be that someone was using a pressure washer to clean their bike?

 

Seems like softails had a run of bad bearings. Wifes 08 heritage and sons 08 Nighttrain both had issues about the same mileage. Picked up Some SKF 6205-2RSH bearings at local bearing supply. Made in USA. Seals look more substantial than Factory bearings. Cost about 1/2 as much. Hopefully will last longer. Never used pressure washers or car wash, just water hose and hand wash.