Rt. 66 Harley Davidson in Tulsa, OK.

Younger arrogant sales associates. (Possibly due to the new management change recently). Pushy sales, and were more concentrated on sell the dealership rather than selling me a bike. The guy that "helped" me was cursing a lot and trying to be "cool with me."

New owner was with Ride Now Powersports for many years so this does not surprise me as they think selling a lot of bikes i.e. volumn, makes them good dealerships.
R/Now adds as many fees as state law allows, and pushes them to the max.

 

Oh ya...took 3 years, 4 dyno tunes and about 100 insults as I was expected to live with a bike that sounded like a shotgun going off and pinged terrible...but they suggested every time I didn't know what I was talking about...the last dyno, I insisted I watch and would leave and never bother them again if the timing wasn't way off(remember they did it 3 times before this..each time the bike ran worse)....guess what, off 6deg under load...this old farm boy wasn't as stupid as they said I was!! It still ran terrible after the 4th tune so I put a ThunderMax in it and runs great with a little tinkering...Not just because of this issue....as their were many others....this was the worst vehicle purchase experience I ever had!!! And Geneva, NY HD will never sell me another...ever...insulting, condescending, ineffective shop and lacking in knowledge....and they took the $$$$ for the work they couldn't do...and refused to refund it....TERRIBLE....now the economy is bad and they have to earn our business....these people don't know how!!

 

My observation is this.....for years they couldn't build enough Harley's and a year wait wasn't unusual to buy one...they had a take it or leave it attitude, and got away with it as we all like the putt....Since 2008 and the the economic downturn they aren't selling like hotcakes, but the attitude and take your money without service is still with most dealers. We have 8 within an hour or so of me...(5 I know well)...the only two that I know that are customer oriented out of the 5, and want you happy are out in the sticks, Arkport, NY....and American Twin, Corning, NY they have always had to earn your business because of the location and know they aren't doing you a favor to talk and/or sell you something!!! Geneva, NY...worst in the area, TERRIBLE, next Harv's HD Macedon, NY...and then Cyclestop, Rochester.....(Syracuse and Ithaca, Batavia...I don't know well so can't say).

 

A couple of weeks ago I went to the local Victory dealer (NOT Polaris of Gainesville) to get the first set of new tires put on the XC before taking a trip up to the mountains of TN. I wanted to get Metzlers but nobody had them in stock. The local guys had the OEM Elite IIIs in stock and at the best price in town. The job was done in short order and everything looked good.

On the way home the belt started making all kinds of noise. When I checked it out I found that the tire guy totally screwed up the alignment. ¼” of clean fresh threads were showing on the pulley side adjuster. I fixed it that night and got the noise level back to about where it was before they messed it up (maybe a little better?).

Maybe I’m wrong, but I thought you could change the rear tire on the X-bikes without fooling with the tension/alignment?

Anyway…

A couple of days later I was on I-295 heading out of town on vacation and had to dodge some debris kicked up by the car in front of me. I was doing right at 85MPH when I made the quick adjustment. When I did, the bike went into oscillation. Scared the crap out of me. I immediately slowed way down and brought everything under control. Not that it was hard to control, just that I have never had a bike do that before.

I checked my load… pack was secure, bags were closed, everything felt smooth. I weaved around a bit feeling for anything weird, wiggled the bars a few times… nothing. I slowly increasing speed weaving a bit in my lane and wiggling the bars every so often feeling for anything until around 70MPH the bike did it again. I found that at 70MPH I could easily get the bike to oscillate, but not nearly as bad as it did at 85MPH. I kept it slow until the next exit and got off the interstate. I stopped in the first parking lot and checked the bike out. The only thing I found was that the tire pressure was 48 front and 50 rear. OK… I adjusted it to the recommended pressure and got back on the road. The oscillation was still there, not nearly as bad at 70MPH as before, but still unsettling at 85MPH. I stopped again but couldn’t find anything wrong with the bike. I finished the trip without incident (checked it a few times along the way), and enjoyed every mile of the 1,300 miles to Deals Gap and back.

Last night I had a few extra minutes and decided I would check the bike out again. No bolts were loose, put the bike on the jack and didn’t find any extra play in the front, but did find a little gap between the right fork and the wheel spacer (pinch side). When I tried to loosen the pinch bolts I had to put the bike back on the ground to keep from leveraging it off the jack. Both pinch bolts were WAY over torqued. Then I had to use a breaker bar and my foot to break the axle loose (ting). And then after the axle was loose it did not want to turn smoothly. I found aluminum shavings in the threaded fork leg, and then found the first two or three threads of the axle bolt were damaged, like it had been dropped. The threads in the fork are still there, but definitely damaged. The axle bolt does not turn smoothly even without the wheel in place. There is no way to get an accurate torque on the axle with the damaged threads.

So, damn. My first tire change on the Victory and the dealer screwed it up big time. They did fine on the other bike just a few weeks ago. What the heck happened?

Needless to say I will be paying them a visit this afternoon (if it’s not raining). They probably won’t own up to it, but there is always the chance they will make it right. I have to give them the opportunity.

 

I'm not saying bad dealerships, maybe I just had a bad experiance. Gaslight Harley Morden,mb I go in to talk to a sales person about buying my superlow. I stand in the show room for 26 min being ignored by everyone in the place, I walk out and call them ask to speak to a manager the lady on the phone says" you could try me" So I tell her that I came in to buy a bike and couldn't get service she says "huh did you want to come back and TRY again?" I said no as I was already on my way to winnipeg and I would look there. I get to Lonestar Harley in Winnipeg, MB Sales staff is great good deal on the bike no problem getting it ordered. Ordered the Bike and a Super reduced reach seat in Sept. last year told they could have it by end of Oct., End of OCt no bike pushed to end of Nov., end of Nov. No Bike pushed to Dec 23. No Bike Pushed to Jan. 2. on the second I call them they say the bike is in and it would be ready to go in a few days. A week later I'm in town go to see if the bike is ready, it's still in the crate and the techs are all on Holidays. Finally get my bike Jan.23 No seat. They say it just didn't come in, week and a half later I'm in town still no seat seems they forgot to order it. Parts guy says He'll fix it be there by Tues the following week. Tues. no seat. Person on the phone tells me the order had been cancelled, I asked how it was canncelled if I had already paid for the seat? I got a general "don't Know" Finally got the seat a week later. Whole thing was crazy. Like I said maybe it was just me and these guys are normally great but thats my experiance with them.

 

 

Dealer has gone above and beyond to make things right, so I have retracted my previous post.

 

Jersey H-D (Channel Islands)
I ordered an auxillary power socket for the tourpak. I heard nothing for a week and started to get a little frustrated. 10 day after ordering I recieved an e-mail telling me that the item was shipped. I replied to them telling them that I did not think that 10 days to process an order was very impressive. The reply came in the form of a snotty one-liner telling me that it was only the paperwork that had been dealt with that day.
When the package finally arrived it was clear from the date stamp that it had indeed taken them 10 days to wake up. I sent a last e-mail to point this out and expected nothing more than an appology and the whole thing would have been forgotten by me. (part is fitted and all is well).
You know what?..............I'm now banned from their website.
Guess they didn't want me to buy that Tourpak light bar from them?

 

Years ago, around 1984 actually, I had Van Nuys put front brakes on my 1979 Low Rider. Within 300 miles the left front brake caliper came apart ripping the brake caliber off the fork and into the mag wheel. Thank goodness I was only going about 25 mph. 5 minutes earlier was going 75 on the 101. People would have asked each other "I wonder what ever happened to Kenny"

Won the lawsuit about 10 years later.

 

Bridgeport Harley Davidson in Connecticut has to be included in this list. I bought a new Tri Glide from them in 2009 and this post would be too long if I told you of my experience with them. The only good person there was Pete in the parts department. What got me was that I bought Three bikes from them in previous years and had been a good customer for a lot of years when they were a small dealership. It seems their whole attitude changed when they opened up a new and larger dealership. Needles to say they are no longer in business and neither is the other dealership that they owned in Stamford. I think that the new H.D. dealerships are more interested in selling clothing and accessories. I am fortunate that I can do my own wrenching, but I feel sorry for the guy that has to depend on the dealership for everything that has to be done on their bikes. Sorry about the long post.