I have a friend who is really OCD when it comes to germs and that sort of thing. One day he gave me a ride to pick up my car. We'd just left a meeting and we were still in dress clothes. He parked in the lot by my car, his plan was to change clothes in his van since it didn't have windows.

I took my time about getting out, and just as he had one leg out of his dress pants, I let a rotten one rip. He was totally captive in the small van while I was laughing my head off when I got out and closed the door.

 

Ok, couple things,

First and foremost. The bike is now running ok. Whatever they did, fixed the issue. They told me and billed me $150 for a brake fluid flush/replacement. (Where some of you are getting "Oh that was too inexpensive, thats suspicious!" I have NO idea. It was a brake fluid flush that they charged for. I mean, I get it, its' HD, but FFS they aren't THAT expensive!)

Secondly, and more importantly. Barnby (or whatever his name is) and others accusations about my credibility. I came to warn people of a serious issue. I really dont give a damn if i have any "Credibility" to you. The ONLY thing I cared about was warning people of a SERIOUS potential issue.

Third - During a long talk with the dealership, I repeatedly asked about the ABS System. Dealership repeatedly insisted that was not the issue. If they were being straight with me or not, I cannot say. Im NOT a mechanic. Nor do I pretend to be. Nor do I want to ever be one.

Fourth - I (as others have pointed out.) am a daily rider. Short-medium trips. There was zero warning. Despite dealership claims that it should have "showed symptons before failing."

Fifth - My brake PADS are fine. This is NOT a rider issue. This is NOT a brake pad issue. This was NOT a brake Line blow out issue. All of my lines, pads, etc, are in pristine shape. If you need actual pictures, I'll go out and take them just to appease the unwashed masses.

Sixth - Yes, Ive been through 3 HD's in 1 year. 1 of them had electrical wiring damage, (all of the lights failed 200 miles in, dealership kept the bike 3 months, couldnt find the problem. Replaced the bike.) 2nd was a new 2018 Heritage that within 1,000 miles began making a nightmarish squeeling sound when riding. Spent 4 months in and out of service trying to track THAT down, only to give up and send the bike BACK to HD. At which point they told me "You can trade it in or you can lemon law it in court for a year or so." (about 2 months later I was told that it was the belt rubbing on something that was causing the noise... they couldnt figure out why it was rubbing even after replacement.) The bike was my only transport at the time, so I caved and accepted their offer. Frankly, this is COMPLETELY outside the issue, but people like Barny Fife over there wanna act like somehow this is relevant. It isn't. Its a combination of bad luck and shitty bikes. You can take your pick on the %'s of which is which.

Seventh - Ive been riding for over 15 years. I am not some novice that rides around with his foot on the rear brake while drooling, I actually know what Im doing. Am I the be all end all of riders? Hell no. Am I competent and confident in my riding ability? Absolutely.

Eighth - Finally... the issue has been resolved. Im up to almost 11k miles, and havent had any issues with stopping. Brakes working fine. Of course, they were working fine before, right up until they didnt. Dealership is still insisting ALL they did was flush out the brake fluid.

In closing, Short of hiring a lawyer and filing a lawsuit, Ive gotten about all Im going to get out of HD regarding the issue. Even calls to the corporate office resulted in either stonewalling, or the runaround, or the 'we'll have to get back to you." response. As I have said before, and I will say again, if you have the newer braking system on your Harley, call the dealership and make sure your brake fluid has been swapped out to the platinum dot 4. Something tells me I wont be the last to have this issue, and the next person may not be so lucky as I was. At the very least, the time/date stamp on my posting can be used in the future in case this happens to someone else.

I wish you all the best of luck.

 

Thanks for reporting back. Glad it all worked out for you.

 

A run of crappy luck for sure. And still perplexing,I thought the biggest (maybe the only) symptom caused by inadequate or contaminated brake fluid is the effect of thermal expansion which would cause brakes to apply and drag when the fluid warms up. I had this happen about 35 years ago on a sportster I took for a short ride,the master cyl. was right close to the exhaust, the rear brake came on after a few minutes and continued to apply till it was full on. A brake fluid flush to fix your issue,---just don't ring true to me. Hope this never happens to another one of us!
I loath so much of the brand new technology in any vehicle I operate,including anti lock brakes ---on Anything! I hope my 06 electra survives many more years,it does what I tell it to do and it doesn't do anything without my command! And after 51 years of riding I still like being in charge and the maker of my own fate. I've yet to drop a street bike and only a couple of soft drops while dirt biking back about 35 years ago.

 

Holy smokes! Glad you and your wife are okay. Definitely shady.

 

He needs to look at the production date. Even so two year old brake fluid shouldn't cause this. How many people flush the brake system in their car? Do they have problems stopping?

 

I would not accept a claim that simply flushing the brake fluid would fix the problem that was described. Don't make sense to me. Something like this requires a root cause understanding of what happened and a fix for that specific cause. I don't think that happened.

 

Your car comment was discussed at length in the thread comments.

 

Yup, having reliable brakes is a priority.

 

I stand by my previous statement. As far as I'm concerned you have zero credibility. You started this thread on 10/20/2019, and stressed no less than 5 times that the bike was only 10 months old, yet you started another thread on 10/ 7/2018 reviewing the same bike, so you obviously owned it for more than a year when you started this thread. Makes me wonder what else was exaggerated when describing the whole chain of events in this thread. For that reason, I will continue to question the validity of your posts, past, present, and future.