So being a new Harley rider....well a year now. What sound would one hear with a bearing going bad? I do hear some kind of noise only when cornering to the left, but just figured it was tire noise.

 

Interesting. I've never had bearings fail and figured there would be some warning. Scary stuff. The cheap bearings they use from the factory give me no consolation or comfort if the dealer just replaces with the same bearings again. Damn, that seems awful soon for bearing failure.

 

yeah, one would think there would be telltale noise, but honestly, with my hearing, exhaust and my Shoei GT Air helmet which is like the 'cone of silence', and my other helmets I wear ear plugs, I could understand missing something

 

I had my '17 RK at the dealer last week for a new safety switch and to replace leaking front cylinder gaskets. When they test rode the bike after fixing the problems the tech noticed a "roar" from the front wheel and they replaced the wheel bearings. I had not heard anything, but I'm glad they did.

 

I used to work on postal automation machines. Each machine used hundreds of sealed bearings to drive belts that carried the letters. What I learned about bearings doing that work, is that there are quite a few different failure indications. They don't all make a lot of noise. But usually they do make some noise. The quality of the noise can be grinding, or howling. Often there is vibration. Some bearings don't make enough noise to be heard over the ambient sounds of the machine, but oily dirt will start to show up around the bearing in the early stages.

We would use infrared heat to get early detection of bearings nearing end of life, and try to replace them proactively to avoid downtime.

Many times, a bearing would start to howl and the pulley would fall off the shaft a few minutes later. Other times, a bearing could howl all night long, but keep running until end of shift so it could be replaced during maintenance periods.

I figure these sealed wheel bearings will also have a wide range of failure indications.

 

I'm not familiar with the 20K service yet............flushing hydraulic system, steering head bearing adjustment aren't part of the price for 20K service. I would think it would be 20K service plus cost of rear brake pads and new tire installed.

 

yeah, the service schedule in the manual states 2 years for the the fluid flush which is an extra service..they say the steering head should be adjusted as part of the 25K service..but is an extra charge if you want it done outside of that interval, which I did..I don't know if there are dealers that would include that in their 25K service, or any interval or not, ours doesn't for the same cost. the 5,15, 25 service intervals are much less involved and require less items being done...the thing is, as far as my experience goes over many years, bikes and miles...dealerships don't follow the MOCO service schedule verbatim by default..some replace spark plugs at every service despite it stating every 2 years or 30K miles, some do tranny fluid every 5 or 10K despite it stating annually or 20K, etc, etc..lots of interpretations and manipulations going on by the dealerships which are allowed to develop and provide services at their discretion..bottom line is it is not consistent across the network in what they do and how much they charge

 

 

One of my local dealers is the same, if you dont specify by the book, then you get "their 5k interval service" which is all 3 holes and new plugs, plus the time savings of them skipping over most of the checks they are supposed to do.