Well we just got back from a South Dakota trip (which was awesome except from dodging a tornado in Iowa, Hail Storm in South Dakota and high winds) . Back to the thread though, We were fixing to pull into the Black Hills HD parking lot when one of my buddy's engine light came on and then the heat temp light came on next.
Well they took the bike back and low and behold a water pump failure at 32,000 miles. Cost him $634 to get it replaced which they did in about a 1.5 hours. Now on the trip home we were in Kentucky and my other buddy's engine light came on as well and then his engine temp, Man Of War HD was 15 miles away so we stopped and yes, another water pump at 22,000 miles, he had Extended Warranty so it was $50. The bill though would have been only $544 if he had to have had to pay'd for it.
Now we were back on the rd. for about 15 miles when my other friend said we have a problem, my charging system is going down, we went another 10 miles and he was on 1 cylinder when he had to stop. We called Wildcat which was 20 miles away and they said they couldn't pick up the bike so we called a roll back and had it towed to there shop. The stator was gone and since his was a 2015 CVO it was an up graded system not the common stator would work but they had one and fixed it, it took about 5 hours to fix while we waited. This guy also had his water pump replaced at the Myrtle beach Bike rally this year which was a month ago, his bike had 40,000 miles on it.
This water pump deal is way out of hand, they told us at Black Hills they replaced over 100 of them during the Sturgis rally last year and the tech at Man of War said he replace 15 or more just himself at Biketoberfest as a part time gig during that rally but here's the deal, we asked the service mngr. at Man of War and he said we don't see hardly any problem but the tech told another story though.
Just think if Black Hills replaces over 100, how many do the other dealers replace at the rallys and threw the year? I guess were a bit pissed because the guy who led us was one a Goldwing which had 115000 miles on it and it ran like a scalded dog with no issue's. My friend who has always been a true HD person over many years said I don't want nothing Harley has right now, man he was pissed. I do wonder, will we have to replace a water pump every big trip we take? By the way, I replaced my water pump at 36,500 miles for pre maintenance before the trip and I had no issues what-so-ever.
Now all you English Scholars, please excuse my writing skill's which we all know sux, LOL, I'm just trying to point out some of the issue's we all know exist which HD denies.

 

 

If i were to change from Harley, i would look hard at BMW cruiser.

 

Are these water pumps made from gold? Wow that is a little expensive most dealers are 100 to 150 an hour labor rate which indicates these pumps are roughly 300 to 400 bucks.

 

Pumps from most dealers are $434, I purchased mine from Surdyke for $312 and had it installed for $65.

 

If you look at Consumer reports reliability ratings, BMW is one of the worst rated. HD is rated in the middle of the pack. The Japanese brands are the highest rated.

 

I recently saw a Goldwing for sale that had 250,000 miles on it. Damn, that's better than a lot of cars.

 

One thing about my old shovelhead it's never had a water pump failure.

 

when any company has failures at this rate they should have a class action lawsuit filed on them. Make them fix their junk designs ! the paying consumers should not have to pay the cost for testing their junk parts.

 

2 words for you. Street glide, no water pump to fail ever.

Batman