More like a design flaw in the manufacturing system. Keep in minds guys. As a consumer and customer that pays $20,000 for a bike 2 times in 2 years. I DON'T CARE who's fault it is..................FIX IT!

 

Akitakoi...you've gotten me confused with Gunrunner.......guess it's all that smacking yourself in the face!

 

Wwhhoo, that ruffled some feathers. Well I do know the pain, I bought a 2006 Street Glide that was in the shop many times for problems. I did get pissed a couple times, however I remained patient and my problems were worked out. I've put over 6000 miles on it this summer with out a single issue, I rode to Sturgis putting over 3200 miles in 7 days on it. I know these are expensive machines, i've owned 2 rockets and two HD's. With my first rocket, a 96 Honda CBR 600 F3 i had know problems with. My 2nd, a 2000 Yamaha R1 they removed the engine twice to fix problems. I bought both these bikes new, granted I was hard on these bikes on the track, but they were both superb bikes for what i used them for.

In 2004 I purchased a new HD Low Rider. Loved this bike, never had a single problem with it. I rode it out to Sturgis do about 3000 miles in 7 days on it. Well I sold it and bought a 2006 Street Glide. Had problems right of the floor. This bike ran way too lean, and it stalled when I was in a corner which cause me to drop the bike. I talked to my local dealer, of course they knew of no problems with the bike. I called the MoCo and told them what happened. They responded great. They called my local dealer and told them to replace anything damaged on my bike, which thanks to the crash bar nothing was damaged but they replaced that because it was scratched. Long story short they fixed the problem and then some. While being worked on the mechanic noticed the edge of my saddle bag was damaged when the bike went down, MoCo replaced that to.

So, I know about problems with new motorcycles, I grew up on them, owned several street and dirt bikes, raced them, broke them, beat them, and loved them. No matter what brand, how expensive, what manufacture. You can test as much as you want to, the true test is putting them in the hands of the people who are going to ride them. What a company does about the problem once found is what matters. No company is perfect and no company in world produces the perfect product no matter what the cost is and no problem is solved over night. All i'm saying is give it a chance and if your not getting anywhere with your local dealer, than find another that is willing to help you or do what I did and call the MoCo and speak to them. Hope you get your problems worked out soon, I know you are eager to ride it without any problems, I know I was. Ride safe.

 

The MoCo usually tests the new models for tens of thousands, maybe hundreds of thousands of miles before release. So what gives? Why are there so many tranny problems? You'd think they would have experienced the same things in the testing phases.......

 

Considering the ridiculous price we pay for these low tech motorcycles in order to take part in the Harley experience, there is no excuse for them not running great out of the box and have little or no assembly problems. These are simple motorcycles with simple tranny's and engines compared to automobiles and cost more then a lot of cars do, and cars are far more complicated and over all have very few problems even with a new model especially Honda's, Toyota's and the like.

 

Mr Wonderful,

I can't answer that for sure. I watched a program a long time ago about HD's testing process, real impressive. But these bike were also pretty much hand built. Now when the reach the manufacturing process this could change things with casting problems, quality control problems, assembly problems or maybe the company HD has contracted to manufactureparts for them is cutting corners. I look at it this way. I've never heard of a well know company that whats to produce thousands of vehicles and have most of them come back with problems. So you know it's not intentional. That's why they did all that testing in th e first place. They want to find problems be production.

As far as the tranny problems. They were first introduced on the Dyna's, they had some problems, they fixed them, and know all is good. I read somewhere that the tranny's had some changes made to them to accomidate the touring models so this could be some of the reason for the problems. The most common complaint you here about is the 5th gear noise. That does not say that it's broke, only that it's louder, but operated fine. Your bike it's more than likely running real lean (thank you EPA). Becuase we are such fans of the air cooled motor and the EPA is a fan of the perfect air quality, the MoCo ahs to run these bikes lean. I fixed mine with a SERT. I know more money, but I was going to do it anyways when I changed the exhaust to a 2-1.

 

Being from an industrial manfacturing backround, I,ve seen many companys, where the company gets ready to make a new product, they will get some parts manufactured to spec. then when they go into production, a lot of the close inspections goes away till the problem gets out of hand. also the employees will find out their old job,last years model is going away soon ,so they will go to another production line to start making the new products, which causes 2 problems, 1 the new guy doing last years parts is only a temporary help that could care less, and 2 the new guy dont have a clue what the new part is supposed to look like. also tooling,materials and process issues are still being worked out. as far as betting your bike fixed , do what I,ve been doing keep taking it to dealers till I get one of them to fix the problem, IT HELPS TO COMPLAIN IN THE SHOWROOM WHILE CUSTOMERS ARE THERE. they really love that. lol

 

Funny you metion that talking loud in the showroom works. It does! This also works great in a department store such as Best Buy or any major electronics super store. Just make sure you're talking to management and not some kid on the floor. That will get you no where. Oh and it works great a car dealership. I had a sales guy who would not give me by keys back (about 15 years ago) because he wanted me to stay. I blew up!!!!!!!!!! Funny now that I look back on it.