My painful odyssey with John Conely and Conely's Fairings
Appreciating the styling and stated quality of Conely’s Retro T-Sport Fairing for my multiple FXR’s, I ordered one through Ebay prior to ordering an additional three for my in-progress builds I had underway in several phases. I received the fairing, painted and mounted it, and was pleased enough with the purchase that I ordered a second for my other FXR.

The second Conely’s fairing was received and stored (unopened) until my shop (Cycleworks of Thousand Oaks, CA) was able to get my second build--a 94 FXRP--up on the rack. After unpacking the fairing, the shop owner called me and said that there were several major molding flaws and gaps on the fairing that were going to require sanding and filling prior to painting. Pissed, I headed over to the shop to see for myself how bad the flaws actually were. Suffice it say, they were obvious and bad enough that I agreed they would have to be fixed prior to finishing and painting. My shop’s painter quoted me $200 to repair the problems put the fairing in the condition of the first Conely Fairing I had purchased.

I wrote to John Conely—who I had a lengthy phone conversation with about my multiple FXR builds prior to purchasing the fairings—and explained the situation, asking for him to split the cost I had incurred in repairing his faulty product by giving me a $100 credit against the two additional fairings I planned to purchase from him. This was his reply:

"This is not the way we do business. You had 14 days to return it and it is now past 50 days. If you had a problem you should have notified us immediately. But to wait 50+ days, file a case with eBay, then ask for a credit of half your original purchase price.. this is unreasonable. Please remove your eBay case/claim. We cannot be made to compensate you for work that you commissioned on an item you purchased from us after 14 days (of ownership) without properly notifying us by phone or email of any damage or concern. Had you chosen to contact us immediately, we would have addressed your claim of an indentation & a 2mm bump with an offer to replace the fairing. As this item was ordered over 50 days ago, we cannot qualify your claim as a result of failing on our part.”

Following that, he stopped responding to all of my further emails. And or the record, I asked him for a $100 credit against my future fairing purchases from him—not a 50% refund and was willing to make a leap of faith that my experience was an anomaly.

So, it was my fault that they had sold me a flawed product and I hadn’t opened the box within 14 days. As I first mentioned, I never unpacked the second fairing until I was ready to start the second build because I assumed it would be the same quality as the first.

Having no real recourse, I ate the $200 finishing repair and spent $400 to color match and paint the fairing Birch White inside and out. Overjoyed with my finished build, I put the entire issue behind me after making the decision to never purchase a Conely’s product again.

Or so I thought.

I returned from my first long ride with the new fairing on a sunny, hot SoCal day, parked and noticed that the black windshield portion of the fairing was now concave. It had essentially softened and caved inward about 10mm during the first long ride on a 90 degree day.

I turned the issue over to my shop—who is a Conely’s dealer and he contacted John himself with a firsthand report and photos. This began a month long odyssey between the owner of my shop and Conely, who said the problem stemmed from a run of fairings that were 2-ply fiberglass instead of the 3-ply that were advertised and sold. After being pressured by my shop owner to replace the fairing that I had now invested an additional $600 over purchase in repairs, finishing and paint, or they would no longer rep the line—John Conely finally agreed to paint (with paint that my shop shipped to him) and send a new fairing that was made with the 3-ply fiberglass that I originally thought I had purchased in the first place.

After a couple of weeks, the new faring arrived from Conely’s with a rookie paint job on the interior and a small flaw in the paint on the outer fairing surface. But to add insult to injury, they had the cujones to emblazon a 6” red Conely’s logo under the clear coat on the inside of the fairing on my otherwise beautifully restored white FXRP. Until I repaint the inside of the fairing, I get to see this f***ing thing as a daily reminder of the worst quality control and customer service experience that I have had in 40 years of Harley ownership—and that says a lot.

Ironically, I own the Deer Lodge in Ojai. CA and talk to literally hundreds of Harley owners weekly. John can be confident that I never miss and opportunity to share my Conely’s experience whenever I have a chance.

 

sucks man, i have a conelys hd 1/4 fairing that i recently took off (to switch things up)

i bought the painted version and whoever he uses for paint stevie wonder could of painted it better, the paint was ROUGH and not smooth and after one week i had chips that went thru the paint real fast


i had to get it professional painted, luckily my friend is good friends with a painter and he painted the inside and out black and its perfect and has been since

 

Stories like this one that include BOTH inferior product quality AND horrendous customer service were why I chose a JD Customs & Fabrication FXDXT fairing and are also why I will soon be purcahsing Leatherpros FXDXT repro saddlebags and not Conleys.

 

Conelys parts have been terrible quality since day one. There are a couple of T Sport fairing manufacturers that are really making fine products now. No need to deal with Conelys.

For about 700 bux u can have a real nice t sport fairing now, that doesnt look like it was molded in a garbage bag (Conelys). JMB79 can vouch for JD Customs, and I have the Leather Pro bags myself. Top quality stuff, from real people who care.

 

No OEM FXRP fairings left?

 

Have heard nothing but crap about Conley's stuff and his horrible customer service. Finally got to check out his repro t sport bags the other week and I'm so glad I got my leather pros instead. His bags are absolute crap. Worst mounting brackets I've seen in a while and the material and craftsmanship of the bags felt like something you would find at the dollar store. Not to mention he puts that stupid logo on everything.

 

I'm surprised your first fairing you got from him looked decent. I haven't seen anything from conleys that didn't look like it wasn't made in a kindergarten class.. Horrible quality and I'm hearing more and more about horrible customer service. Their bags sag and look like **** after just a few months of normal use. I have the leather pro bags and they could easily charge more for them because they are a much higher quality then the conleys junk, plus you get great customer service from Garry at the same time. I'm waiting to see if they end up coming out with a tsport fairing, but if they don't I would definitely go with the jd. Sorry to hear about your bad experience and thanks for sharing your story...

 

It sucks you had to go through a that , but how about some pics of the FXR?

 

None in good shape that can be had for under about $1500. I actually really liked the Conely fairing design but the execution turned out to be junk.

 

Don't get me wrong, the first one didn't have the serious flaws that the second one had, but it was no beauty and I was willing to accept it under the "unfinished" disclaimer and have it sanded and smoothed for finishing/painting.