Electra Glide

hello my name is joe from north ontario canada. i have been a harley owner for 29 yrs 14 harleys and no 1/2 harleys all big twins my first 1968 FL was a dream come true for me being a poor boy. harley dealers have always been liars. i can remember all the bikes in the dealership having oil on the ground under them. they have come a long way from those days. and if it wasn,t for us guys there wouldn,t be harley davidson i have been building bikes for over 29 years.

Thanks Clayton, I appreciate how much work it is to keep a site like yours up-to-date.

The latest with my bike is actually good news for now. The good, albeit slow, El Cajon Harley[1] came through ultimately. And they did it with an excellent attitude. I have a new full-floating rear rotor, new rear caliper, new rear master cylinder, new (from the factory this time) motor with matching serial numbers, and a new oil cooler. As for the oil temp sensor, they ended up installing an adapter directly into the engine, so now I get real-time engine temp readings instead of the way it comes in the kit where it only starts moving the gauge after the oil cooler thermostat opens. Very nice. Still, the bike was down for almost three months total.

They comped my 500-mile oil change too. I highly recommend El Cajon Harley Davidson for their great service department. As for the bad guys, Biggs[2] in San Marcos, we're meeting in court in January - if they're still in business. I hear they're stocking even fewer and fewer parts, so I hope that's a sign that they're about done. The last time I went there, they threatened to call the Sheriff on me and threw me out. Guess they didn't want to talk about my service issues. I'll tell you how the Small Claims suit comes out after it's done. Don't want to give away anything in case they actually do have someone there who can read.

Thanks again for all your help,
Rich

[1] http://www.elcajonharley.com/
[2] http://www.biggsh-d.com/

Hello Clayton. Rich King here. Got back from a 4-week trip and was looking forward to riding the Harley once again. Of course, we both know it just wasn't going to be that easy, didn't we. Here's the latest for your web site.

Went to pick up the bike (2007 110" Ultra P.O.S.) Friday, October 24th. They've had it two and a half months. Three things to do:

1 - Replace Engine (flush all oil, passages, primary gaskets, etc.)
2 - Replace Oil Cooler
3 - Rear Brake calipers (4 sets of pads in 16,000 miles - something's wrong)

Pam and I went down to personally meet the head service writer before we left. Wanted to let him know I was going to be gone and wanted to meet him in person since I had only talked to him on the phone. When we were down there, I again reiterrated those three things. They were on the work order written by the other service writer, when I first brought the bike in. I also called from Italy last week to see if the bike was done. Gracie said it was all done. I mentioned the three items again and she said "yes, according to the ticket, it's all done."

So you might imagine how ever so slightly pissed I was this morning after asking to talk to the mechanic who worked on the bike to explain to me what he had found wrong with the brakes (in case I needed to keep an eye on something in the future). His answer: "what brake problem? - guess I missed that on the work order."

Don't know where to start. I've had problems with the bike from the day it left Biggs Harley-Davidson[1] shop in San Marcos, CA. Dealer's kept the bike without doing work or calling to say the parts are on back-order, shoddy work, trying to add parts to the bill that weren't in the estimate, etc. In 15 months, the bike has been in the shop 100 days. Leaking head gaskets 6,000 miles after they finally got around to installing the 110" kit (which took three months to arrive), etc. Then, with only 17,000 miles, it literally blew up - lost all oil pressure followed by lots of metal-to-metal noise.

Nothing but trouble. I feel that the Harley engineers are using crayons to begin with, then the dealer compounds the problem by being incompetent. I am pursuing the dealer hard with all means at my disposal with a campaign to let the world know how they treat their customers. I hope to someday be able to say: "I had a hand in putting them out of business." Sad that I have to resort to that, but I don't like being screwed with. I've owned about 50 motorcycles. This is my first Harley and I've never encountered anything like this - EVER. So far, I have posted my letters to the dealer and the logs of my encounters at the following web site:

http://www.kingtrips.net/projects/biggs-letters-emails.htm

I have also sent a copy to the dealer and to Harley corporate. Still waiting to hear their reaction. For all looking to buy a touring bike, go with the BMW K1200LT. A friend has one. Of course, after 120,000 miles, it does need a valve job.

Thanks for your time,

I bought my first Harley new in 1997(FLHT). Had a failure under warranty at about 6000 miles. The retainer clip for the crank bearing race popped, and the bottom end got wiped. After that, put on another 65,000 miles without incident. I traded it in last year on a 2007 FLHT and have put on 11,000 miles without a problem. It is very quiet with the stock pipes and I like it that way. The new 6 speed tranny is also nice, but 5th gear has a little whine to it. Other 6 speed owners have also voiced this to me but I haven't heard any problems associated with it.