Picked up the bike today. As the dealership guy was riding it out to me, one of the rear side reflectors fell off. At least it did it where I could see it happen and I was able to walk over and pick it up. Cliche, but I guess I'm supposed to expect parts to fall off a Harley.
The front brake rebuild was allegedly due to the bike throwing a code. The dealer tells me that the front brake was not releasing properly and the brake light was not operating properly.

 

Learn to tackle the small repairs yourself. Fork seals are intimidating but they're not actually difficult. You'll need a couple of specialty tools and a few youtube videos. That's it.
Unless you're 'just not good with tools' these items are not hard to do... The guys on this forum are like having a mechanic on hand to teach you. Not exaggerating at all!

I spend more time wrenching on my 8 bikes than I do riding them... but thats me. I enjoy it and I've accumulated the tools and equipment to do it.

And yeah I still get trouble from bikes that sit too much! LOL!

 

vankaye - I would love to be able to work on my bikes myself, but between lack of space and lack of time, things that require the bike to be apart for a while just have to be done by mechanic. Back in the day, I did pretty much all of my own work on my bikes and my cars (especially the Saab Sonett III).

 

werd. 😎 I definitely understand.

 

You should ride your bike often enough that the engine never gets to fully cool.

 

Years ago I had the 1977 FXS, a 1951 FL, a 1975 FLH and a 1969 FLH ElectraGlide. It was nice having more than one bike but I couldn't ride them all at the same time. Soon the problem became that when I was out on one I would tend to wish I had taken one of the others and when I was on that one I was sorry I hadn't taken another. After a while it became a chore trying to decide on one over the others so I ended up selling them all except for one. These days I don't have to choose and I never find myself wishing I didn't have to leave three of them back in the garage. My only regret now is that I no longer have any of those original four. Ah but don't ya know that onmly fools are satisfied.

 

Sounds to me like you are just having a bit of bad luck. Brush it off and ride.

 

That's how I'm looking at it. And I did ride it last night after work.

 

Dude, you're gonna have to replace fork seals. Granted, dragging a bike around on a trailer will blow fork seals like crazy, and maybe that's what happened here, but... its a wear item. HD doesn't make the brakes, they just bolt em on.

I was sorely tempted to roll my old VFR into an arroyo, that thing was a POS. I can only assume they were on drugs when they came up with that wiring scheme, and fueling scheme. I didn't gripe about having to rewind the stator the first time. The second time kinda pissed me off.

I didn't even bother to check my valve clearances on my Ducati, I just didn't want to know. Evidently I guessed right as to when to service the final drive on my BMW, thank goodness for that.

Motorcycles are a PIA in general. I think people are just more realistic about HD, ironically. Tremendous brand loyalty doesn't prevent people from griping about them, in marked contrast to certain other brands, it seems. Hm. That VFR was the only bike I ever really hated. Had to replace the fork seals on that sucker, too. Twice. And the suspension was the best part about it.