I agree.. They should have bored and stroked it then gotten the peak HP down to 5500 rpm so the BT riders didn't freak out. Full liquid cooling..

 

Agreed!

 

The difference is that the M8's are defective right out of the box, dead-stock, no hopping-up required to screw 'em up. They come pre-screwed straight from the factory!

 

Not sure you can say that with complete accuracy. There are plenty of ppl with some high mileage on their M8's that have had no issues.

We see the bad here, but consider that at most we might have a thousand members here complaining about an issue. There are probably hundreds of thousands that are not members and have no issues.

With that said, I feel for ppl who spend that kind of money on a bike and have issues. Its a shame. As long as harley has been building bikes and they still have issues on decades old technologies and systems.

 

70 years old and into my 6th decade also of having H-D's and seem to have had the exact opposite experience with them that you have had. Started with 2 new AMF's in the early 70's and will pick up my 2018 SGS on Fri.

If being stranded on the side of the road is one barometer for measuring the H-D experience then they are batting 1000 for me. Never once have they left me. Sure the AMF shovels leaked and I did have to have the base gaskets changed (under warranty) on my new 1993 Fatboy but it ended up giving me 45K trouble free miles, then 40K trouble free miles on my 02 Roadking, 50k trouble free on my 2009 Street Glide and 40k trouble free on my 14 SGS.

In addition to trouble free, most of those miles were exhilarating and have helped me to live and enjoy a wonderful life. I am sorry that you haven't been able to have that same experience. Good luck in the future.

 

Congrats and good luck on the new bike.
Keep the 14 as a backup.

 

For you guys not following my other problem thread .. there is some interesting info related to 2017 ultra limited values out at

https://www.hdforums.com/forum/milwa...l#post16768873

 

Well, it seems to me that all of the bikes must have the same built-in defects from the factory, but some show symptoms and some don't.

My point is that spending BIG bucks for a defective product with no known fix for those that have the issue(s) is not somethin' I'll ever do. I'm in no way rich and don't have any desire to spend what to me is a substantial amount of money for ANY product like that, regardless of who built it or what it is.

I've said it in other posts and for me it's true - buying any H-D product has always been a crap-shoot. Sometimes ya win, sometimes ya get a total POS - I've done both with H-D's over the years. I've owned 2 brand new ones. The '03 RK was nothing but trouble from the get-go and was sold at 2500 miles (with full disclosures as to why - the guy bought it anyway) and the '15 Limited has been the exact opposite, so I'm battin' 500 with my personal experiences.

I knew all that and took that gamble with my '15 Limited anyway. Sounds like you did the same with your '17 with the same good results.

Guess we both are lucky and we done good!

 

Why? Do you know something about the cause of the fluid migration that the rest of us don't?

 

thought that the oil migration issue was common knowledge?
Only with tour, not the softail... Read it many time how the rod that connects from the primary is hollow. But seals are slso a weak link. Unless maybe I dreamed it?