Go to any Harley dealership and ask the sales department if they've experienced any issues with the current model year CVO Milwaukee-Eight 117 engines and they will tell you that they haven't heard of any failures. Ask any honest service tech the same question and you will hear an entirely different story.

I've spoken to several Harley service techs over the last 3 weeks since my new CVO Street Glide kicked the bucket after only 1200 kms and I've been told that this is actually a common problem with the CVO's this year and that the failure rate could be as high as 10%. The new Milwaukee-Eight 117 is reminiscent of the Porsche 911 (996) engine that was manufactured between 1998 and 2004. During that time it was reported that 10% of these engines were failing due to an IMS bearing failure but Porsche denied that there was a problem and continued to sell them anyway.

Fast forward 15-20 years and a class action lawsuit later and it's a known fact that there was indeed a major manufacturing defect with these engines. Today you can buy a Porsche 911 with a 996 engine for the price of a Honda Civic because of that 10% chance that the IMS bearing could fail and cause catastrophic engine failure. Is it logical to fear the worst when realistically there is only a 10% chance of failure? Maybe not, but that still won't help the resale value on my CVO when the time comes to selling it!

What pisses me off the most is that Harley knows that there is an issue with these new engines but instead of sending my dealership a brand new motor to get me on my way they are still doing their investigation. It's been 3 weeks since my bike ended up in the shop and today I learnt that Harley is still requesting that my dealership take more photos of the motor to send to them for inspection. Really??? 3 weeks in the shop and they are still only in the picture taking stage??? What are they hoping to find that's going to be any different than all the other bone stock 2018 CVO's that have failed?

A company is only as good as it's products and the service that they provide to their customers, in my case the product failed and the customer service so far is NOT worth the $50,000 price tag that I paid. I just bought a new Harley Fat Bob a couple weeks ago to tool around on because Harley's extended warranty would only cover a loner bike for 10 days but I think it will be the last Harley I ever buy!

I just bought a new Harley Fat Bob a couple weeks ago to tool around on because Harley's extended warranty would only cover a loner bike for 10 days but I think it will be the last Harley I ever buy!