My two main long distance bikes are a 1990 Electra Glide Sport and a 2013 Victory Cross Roads. Not much dealer support for either.
My plan, which I haven't had to do yet, is if I break down along the side of the road is to have it towed to the nearest hotel I can get reservations at.
There I'll figure out if I can fix it there, make phone calls to local shops for help or advice and at the worst figure out a way to get my bike and I home.

 

Good intel. So now I guess it's a matter of finding those parts supply houses that carry a good amount of 10 years plus parts, I know of a couple around here, but it would be better to find one giant used parts warehouse instead of looking at three or four. I'm sure there are people out there who know some.

 

HD's latest attempts to .... well, let the video of HD's director of Marketing words speak for themselves.

 

This was all publicly announced back in 2016 at the big dealers expo, long term goals were to trim model offerings to push the higher end bikes and reduce production numbers to and this is a direct quote " Bring value back to the brand name " .

No big secret this has been a running long game by corporate headquarters.

 

The brand is changing from "bad ***" and "freedom" image to an upscale/luxury item. In the end it's all about the margins.

 

Back in the 80's that was their marketing design, and it was genius and probably saved the MoCo.

They wanted to pay homage to the past, while not giving any credit and distancing themselves from the Bikers who got them there.

There is a complete 180 from the guys I knew back then and the majority today.

 

One if the biggest blunders and what I hate more than anything Harley is doing is driving out the locally owned dealerships and allowing these auto dealership conglomerates to take over. They come in and buy all the dealerships in a region and they operate in an arrogant manner and do their best to screw over unsuspecting buyers. I have been to some of these places and you can’t even get a price! All they want is to talk payments and their sales people get a small bonus if they can get you to run a credit check! They drive up prices and drive out competition. I will never buy a bike at one of these places.

what I want is honesty and respect. I just bought a new Breakout at one of my local dealers and there was no pressure, no payment talk, no tactics to upsell and no BS. The sales manager has been there 22 years! The salesman I worked with is a retired Air Force veteran and did not pressure me at all. He also knows the product and is a long time rider and owns multiple bikes! Its just nice to go into a dealer and see pricing on every bike, broken down by each element. That is where we started and they came down from there.

 

Seriously, rare was the guy who nad a new or newish bike and we all were blue collar. Now the average family man can't afford a new one.

 

This is why I buy used and go aftermarket whenever possible and wrench on my own.
The local dealers were family ran for generations and the clientele also were generational .
I used to have a dealer I was loyal to and they were loyal to the riders. They'd help you diagnose what's wrong with your bike, had the parts in stock and if you ran into problems on install you could call them and they'd talk you through.
If the problem was above my talent they'd fix it at a reasonable price.
Now they're all run by multi dealership bean counters.
Ask them about an issue and all you'll hear from them is "we can get you in in a week or two" $125 an hour and they'll come back with a whole list of things your bike needs to be safe on the road.

 

<<<long rambling post alert>>>

When I moved here our local HD dealer was that type. Old-style, rough around the edges, etc, but once you bought a bike or merchandise you were treated like family. I can't put into words the good times and how good the brotherhood was; I'll just leave it at that. The last owner, who I became close friends with, was given an ultimatum sometime after the buyout, around '86'ish (memory fade), to move to the yuppieville neighborhood across town and put up a glass palace, or get out. He didn't have the resources, so he was summarily stripped of his franchise. He left town with 3 tractor trailer loads and stripped the place, i.e. screw-'em, come get me, I'm keeping my stuff. I think all parties let it lie and that was the end of an era of good times here.

Fast track to now. A crystal cathedral mega dealer out by the interstate owned by a car dealer conglomerate. Sales force of young hipsters with manbuns and a couple of , uhhh, lets just say weirdos. Half the store is t-shirts and chinese hd-branded doodad $h!t. Walk in and you're treated like a leper - you have to walk up to a guy looking down at his phone to ask for help and half the time he says I'm busy. They don't post prices. When asked how much $$ out the door, one a$$h@le actually said "Well, it's not that simple". There is literally nothing on the showroom that I would be interested in. Last time I was there they had 3 or 4 identical nauseating prospect puke gold Heritages with the black painted rims, a bunch of the new sportsters and a couple of pan americas sitting over in the "vrod corner" gathering dust, and maybe 25-30 used ultras out in the middle of the floor. The surcharge sticker was prominently displayed in big bold fonts on the headlight of each new bike. I don't see a lot of buying activity, but they must move stuff because the lights are still on; they must be meeting their overhead...

I don't like coming on these forums and posting negative curmudgeon stuff, but daggone it you hate to see such a storied old brand committing seppuku right before your eyes. But, as others will knee-jerk chime in with, it's been said before and they have historically always come back strong. Maybe that will occur; I sincerely do hope so. Oh well, panheadache out.