I was shopping for Indians and discovered that Indian requires that routine oil changes and service intervals be done by their dealerships. Does Harley-Davidson require the same thing?

 

No.

And, if Indian dealers are in fact saying that, it is in clear violation of the Moss-Magnusson Warranty act of 1973.

They cannot require you to have your service work done at a dealership. In fact, they also cannot require you to use OEM oil, or oil filters, or air filters, or any other OEM parts.

 

I read the details of the Indian Warranty. You can go to any mechanic you like as long as you follow their maintenance guidelines. It didn't say you could do it yourself but it didn't say you couldn't either.

I didn't ask about doing your own maintenance because I wasn't buying a bike.

However, if you just looked at the signs in the showroom it made it seem like you had to come to the dealer for all services and you'd be covered forever.

 

No......

 

No, not for the factory warranty. However, if the dealer is offering their own warranty, for instance a local dealer is offering lifetime powertrain coverage, then yes they can require that services be performed there for their warranty to be valid. Hope this helps

 

They actually can require you use their dealer network for routine maintenance, but they would have to provide parts and labor for no charge. Harley doesn't provide anything like that for free, not sure about Polaris.

 

Lol! Yup! The "catch 22" that very few know about, and the MoCo has no intention of doing!

 

As long as you document everything with receipts you should be fine. I keep little composition notebooks with dates, milage, what was done and parts or fluids used. Biggest thing is detailed documentation.

 

I get a kick out of the receipt/documentation thing. All it implies is that you possibly bought certain merchandise from a certain vendor, on a certain date for a certain price. All of which could have easily been returned to said vendor a few minutes later. Has little to do with when or even if the merchandise was ever installed or used. Which leads me to wonder if anyone has ever been denied warranty service due to lack of following scheduled maintenance. I've never been asked to produce one shred of evidence of routine maintenance for warranty work on any vehicle I've owned for the past 40 years.

 

I work for a large automotive network and process warranty claims every single day, I can count on 1 hand how many times I've actually been required to submit maintenance records for a warranty claim. And 0 of those times has it been through the manufacture, always through aftermarket warranties. Of those few times it was always a major claim such as a transmission or engine replacement. Most claims are approved/denied (denied only due to lack of coverage) over the phone or internet without anyone from warranty company or manufacture seeing the vehicle. On large claims, again engine or transmission claims, the manufacture or warranty company will usually send a 3rd party inspector out to verify the concern and to look for signs or abuse, alteration, or lack of maintenance.

Oh and no one has ever asked for receipts of customers purchasing their own oil either lol