I only have one Harley warranty bad story and, I kid you not - this really happened.

I had purchased multiple bikes from a certain dealership over a ten year (or more) period; this incident happened in about the middle of that. The service manager always treated me right and the dealership was OK, as far as dealerships go but the service writer was a biatch!

I had a Harley Davidson tachometer from the P&A catalog installed by the dealership. Accessories are warrantied for one year. Within one year of the tachometer's purchase and installation it went Tango Uniform. I rode the bike to the dealership and the service writer says, honest to goodness this is the truth, "We have no record of you getting your 5,000 service done - I cannot warranty this."

It got straightened out in about two minutes after I briefed the service manager on what she said. Ultimately I was offered either a full refund for the tach or a replacement (which they didn't have in stock. I took the money and never bought another Harley tach again.

I think these stealerships, see there I go ... I used the word... try to pull crap and see if they can get away with it.

 

I had a leaking front fork on my FXLR that was fixed under warranty last Sunday, in and out in 3 hours, warranty was approved on the spot. On top of that they fed me beef brisket and pulled pork BBQ while I was waiting.

 

So the dealer does a couple thousand dollars worth of work on a bike, and the MOCO denies the warranty claim. Then what?

 

I live in MN, land of the Polaris, and I see single digit Indian bikes a year. Dealer's are few in this area. I see more G.W.s than Indian

 

I cancelled my own warranty by installing an aftermarket cam myself. I knew that it would void the warranty before I began.

 

don't know about softails, but rinehart has a touring exhaust with cats in the mufflers.

 

Yeah.... that's not going to happen. The one who pays makes the decision and that's the MoCo. See below.

 

Fat bob has the cat in the pipe so slip ons are suppose to still keep the warranty.

 

The dealers are supposed to be staffed with trained professionals capable of determining if a repair should be covered under warranty due to a defect in material or workmanship from the factory, or if it should be customer pay due to outside influence.

If the dealer makes a bad call they should eat it. I could look at just about anything and determine if it should be warranty and I am no mechanic, a experienced Tech and Service Manager damn well better be able too as well. Of course there are exceptions and one off circumstances where it may not be totally clear and they need an assist, they have field people for that.

I suppose it is possible, but I cant believe every dealer has to pick up the phone and describe a repair to the Harley Davidson mother ship to get approval prior to performing a warranty repair. That is a huge waste of time and space while waiting for approval. But if that is Harley's rule I stand corrected.

They didnt need to pick up the phone for any of my BMW's, my Honda or previous Harley's. Auto dealers dont have to do that either. I have been in the service / parts / warranty game for just about my entire career on both the retail and manufacturer side, it aint that hard.

Maybe they have to get approval over a certain $$ amount? I have seen that at times throughout my warranty travels over the years, but the $$ amount was high. I hope that isnt policy but honestly nothing surprises me anymore.