So the last thing I want to do to my Heritage is add some custom wheels. Nothing fancy just perhaps a simple chrome eight spoke rim. So after searching I am learning these rims are going for $1000 each.... BS

Anyone have a link to a site that has some nice wheels at fair prices? He'll I got four beautiful rims for my Challenger SRT8 that were only $250 each. Makes sense I can buy a nice wheel for $250 and not $1000.

 

I hear ya - I've been thinking about some wheels lately too.
But these $1500-$2000 prices some vendors want for ONE WHEEL make H-D prices of $650 seem downright reasonable.

I don't want them that bad.

 

If guys stopped buying them the prices would come down. It's just like anything else.

 

I am a bit weird in that I am happy with my stockers, but I feel your pain.

If it helps to know my son just paid in that range for wheels on his bicycle!!! Serious bike, he can well afford it...but come on....they sell bicycles that cost more than a new Harley every day.

 

Just so no one gets surprised, the raw cost of the 2 wheels is just PART of the cost.

Many (most?) wheel changes also require that some or all of the following also be changed:

- brake disk rotor mounting (to properly align brake disk with new wheel)
- brake disk appearance (to look good with the new wheels. Former rotors often look awful with new wheels)
- rear sprocket / pulley
- Mounting hardware
- Special skill sets labor

To give people some idea of how those costs add up, those chromed turbine wheels on my 2014 Breakout were FAR more costly than the $750 front and $750 rear wheel costs would suggest. I had the dealer do mine as part of the new bike deal since I lack the knowledge, experience, and shop equipment to do it myself, and the raw PARTS totaled to somewhere around $2500, and the labor took it over $3k.

That's the reality.

Jim G

 

I agree with all of the above. I think it's all a supply and demand thing. I would guess wheel manufactures don't keep most wheels in too big a stock as there is not a lot of call for them. Car wheels are more in demand so I would think they make more of them

 

The last thing you want are some cheap *** wheels on your bike . Your life depends on them wheels and when your rolling at speeds of 80 or 90 miles an hour you want to be rolling on something well made. Some of these wheels are made from one chunk of expensive metal the machine that cuts them is expensive and they have to be fit with bearings chromed ect.I agree they are expensive but you know the old saying you get what you pay for. there are some modest priced decent wheels out there but I think for the $250.00 you have in mind your better off rolling with the stock wheels they are not bad.

 

Keep an eye on Ebay Motors, sometimes you can find a deal on something that interests you.

 

I get what you're saying but we're being made to pay for the cost of that expensive machine. How much is a chunk of aluminum or magnesium? It shouldn't cost 4 to 5 grand for wheels. Aluminum is around .79 a pound and magnesium is 1.25 a pound wholesale as of today.

 

So, if YOU, a customer, don't help pay for the expensive machine that is needed to make your wheels, who DOES? The manufacturing company owner's personal savings? The government? Some guy who likes to give away money? Or, do you just want OTHER customers, but not YOU, to pay for that machine?

By your measure of value, you should eb able to buy a Harley for the raw cost of the steel, alloys, and plastic in it, and everyone's time and CNC machinery should just be donated, to you, for free, right?

If a machine costs $500,000, works 3 shifts, has downtime of only 10%, and has a useful life of 3 years before it is obsolete, and if it miraculously required NO maintenance money (e.g. the cutting tools last forever ), the buyer of the machine gets about 5500 hours of work from it, so the cost per hour of just OWNING the darn machine is $91 PER HOUR, or about TWO GRAND PER DAY and that's assuming there is no loan on the darn thing on which interest needs to be paid each month. The owner should give you that time for free???

Oh, and by the way, the cost to chrome two wheels PROPERLY in small volume production outside an HD factory is about $1500 all by itself.

Get real in your thinking.

Jim G