Believe me I've thought about it!

 

On my 4th comp myself but its probably just me.

 

With 60K miles on my 09 Ultra, I have had no issues with my compensator. I think these failures are directly related to the right hand. IMO ?

 

I replaced stock comp with SE Comp at 25K. In 2012, SE Comp became stock.

 

Replaced my stock '10 Comp with the SE comp at around 15k miles. With the 255 cams and the occasional hard start it sounded horrible when it bumped over and didn't start.

Turning the bike off now with 27k miles I hear the occasional "clunk,clunk,clunk" down there.

Changed out the Amsoil Super shift (NEVER USE THIS CRAP) with Formula + this weekend and pulled a fair amount of metal from the drain plug.

The supershift basically eliminated the friction zone. It was enganged or it wasn't. Formula+ makes it so much easier to shift properly.

 

I did some checking on line, it doesn't appear that the original compensator 40296-06A is still available. I've had good service from mine with 40K+ miles on it, but I did do a complete engine tear down at 13K and when I reassembled I torqued the compensator to spec and used red Loctite. I also use Redline primary oil which is synthetic. Maybe some, all, or none of these things account for the longevity of my compensator. The thing that gets me is I don't remember this being a problem before 2006, so why don't they just go back to that design? Seems if you had something that worked and you go to something that doesn't the cure would be to go back to the thing that worked.

 

I agree, guess they don't make enough money on what works!

 

Nope. The '09s (and a couple years following) have been problematic. I get 18-20,000 miles out of a rear tire, so you'll find few people that are more mellow and easy riding than me

Prior to the '09s you'd never hardly even hear of a compensator discussed on this forum. In '09 they made a "change" to it and it was just a bad design period. Numerous upgrades have been done to it since. We can only hope the last one "got it right".