I haven't seen any other threads on the strength of the newer HD frames so I thought I'd start one. First, a little background. Until 2 yrs. ago all I had ever ridden were Panheads and Shovelheads since 1973. About 2 yrs. ago I bought a 2004 FXSTSI that I love riding, but had heard from some of the old time riders like myself that I know that the newer bikes were of a flimsy nature. I also heard that from folks who ride other brands of bikes. I'm here to dispel all of that.

May 30th, 2010, my wife and I were casually traveling along a two lane road about 45 mph at about 8:30 P.M. (dark). A car pulled out to as if it were passing the line of oncoming cars and was now coming head on into us. Now mind you, that all of this happened in a matter of a few seconds. I started to slow down and move to the right thinking that he would see my headlight and pull back into his lane. No, he just kept coming. At the last second I ran off the road in an attempt to avoid a collision, but he went right off on our shoulder with us and hit us. The left front corner of the car hit right at the primary/derby cover at an angle because I had gone to the right pretty hard. It hit us hard enough to crush a large hole into the primary and derby cover. It also literally moved everything back of the swing arm pivot about an inch to the right. Broke the axle bent the swing arm and everything attached to it. There was other damage like tank, bars, crashbar, etc. I won't even go into our injuries. Everything from the swing arm pivot back is now new. It took right at $8000.00 to fix all of the damage.

Here's my point of all this rambling. Harley of Tucson checked and said that the frame and tranny were OK and proceeded with the repairs. I had my doubts, but when I got it back about 3 or 4 days ago, it rode and felt as if nothing had ever happened to it. I would have bet that with that much side force hitting the swing arm that it would have also bent the frame. I would have lost that bet.

I no longer think that the newer HD's are anything but a well built, strong piece of equipment.

The guy ran, police never caught him.

Thanks for reading this far. Rant over

 

I'm glad your here to be able to tell us about it.

 

Glad you're okay. That's probably the most important outcome.

Also glad you have some empirical evidence that the new Harley frames are pretty burly. Even some data is a lot better than speculation.

I had a similar experience, but in a car, of being run out of my lane by some asshat passing a line of cars on a 2-lane. Like yours, my asshat ran also, leaving the accident scene that he/she (?) caused and the police never caught them.

Karma is a bitch. One day they'll reap the consequences.

Enjoy being alive...

 

robots are a great accent, they do great work, once they took the human error out they made sig changes to the plus side

 

What's all that mean in English?

 

Nothing to do with robots - everything to do with good design engineering and FEA...

 

Glad your ok. The weak point seems to be the neck. I ride with a guy who bent his frame on a street bob when he went down on gravel at maybe 10 miles per hour. The crash bar bent, and when it did it tweaked the frame. I was behind him, helped him up, dusted him off, and we went to his house to survey the damage. Clutch lever, bars tweaked, shift lever bent, derby cover scratched, 2 broken turn signals, and the crash bar spent. Not too bad. Insurance company said dealer repairs only, so I trailered it to a dealer for him. Write off. I would have bet against it.

 

Glad that you, the wife and bike are all doing ok. The new frames just feel more solid. I'm glad to know it's true. Watch out for the idiots.

Bubba