I have a 2018 Road Glide Special, owned it just under 4 weeks and done 1600 miles.
Last saturday I did the 'Wreaths across America' run and had a great time. Got home, parked my bike in the garage and looked forward to doing a big toy run the next day.

Next day came, rolled my bike out the garage, started it, put it in gear and immediately felt the bike trying to pull me along without letting the clutch out! I stopped 50 feet from my house and noticed the clutch felt wimp and weak, tried pumping a few times and put it in gear, bike lurched forward and stalled, no clutch!

I pushed the bike back to my house, tried pumping the clutch again and managed to get it to just about work enough to get my bike into my garage.

I called my dealer and explained my woes, they immediately arranged for a tow truck to pickup my bike and investigate what had happened.

I called back later in the day and they told me the clutch slave cylinder had gone out and would have to order the parts from Harley tomorrow (Monday) and they should get the parts Tuesday and get the biked sorted and backs to me first thing Wednesday morning.

I rang them Tuesday to see how my bike was progressing, I was told 2 out of 3 parts had arrived but the third was on back order until Jan 5th. I lost it, after only having the bike 3 weeks and paying cash and then Harley not having the parts to fix my bike I was furious, lucky for me I have the General Manager of the shops private cell and called him, he said give me 5 minutes to look into this, to his word he called straight back and said they will rob the required parts off a brand new bike in the shop.

My concern is, why is a fundamental part off a new bike on back order? Is this a bigger issue that has not yet come to light?

 

This happened to a friend of mine on his '18 SGS with about 300 miles on it. Dealer "fixed it" and it lasted about 100 miles. Took it to another dealer and they replaced the parts and it has been good ever since. It took the dealer about two weeks to get the replacement parts as well, and that was about 6 weeks ago.

 

Man the sucks new ride but this stuff happens haven’t heard about many clutch problems with the new M8s yet but this is how it starts. Hope you get up and running soon thanks for posting Happy Holidays to you.

 

That is a stand up dealer you have there! They did not have to pull parts off a bike from their floor to get you going.

It is a shame that HD goes to production without the full complement of replacement parts but that is pretty standard of OEM's these days. I had the oil leak issue on mine just after delivery. I called around, no shop had a primary gasket in stock.

 

I found a new street glide on the showroom with zero clutch pull, lever just basically fell back to the grip, told the salesman they had a bike that might need some attention, service guy came out and said "oh crap" and wheeled it off the floor to the back. Not sure what the problem was but I was thinking how the hell does that get missed during inspection before putting the bike on the showroom floor.

 

The dealership delivered my bike back to me today as promised before midday.

I have only put about 20 miles on it so far but doing a longer ride (100+) tomorrow so have to wait and see it if holds up.

The dealership is doing everything they can to keep me happy and I would thoroughly recommend them to anyone, its not their fault that new bikes develop issues.

I will update again if I have similar problems.

PS, about a week before this happened I was at the dealership at the end of their toy run and looked out to the road and saw new Freewheeler experiencing exactly the same problems I had i.e. no clutch and jumping and stalling when trying to put in gear, we had to push it onto the dealerships lot, I remember thinking oh crap!

 

The problem is paying the tech 10 bucks an hour, they're going to do a 10 dollar per hour job

 

I'm betting you are good to go!

Enjoy the ride!

 

Did you consider that the "oh crap" was because you found the bike they took a part from for a warranty claim they never saw before?

 

So the short answer is the 2017 and 2018 bikes are experimental. We are there test riders. As with any new design including clutches, single cam s, tranny s etc. unfortunately its we riders who have to deal with the inconvenience's. While Harley gets to learn first hand from the owners and riders of the17 and 2018 design. as well as out sourced parts short comings. Its the nature of the beast. .