well, hears my take, as a kid friends and myself would love to go to the harley shop to see the new bikes.

But come time to drop the wad- we dropped it on honda's or kawasaki's or what ever our individual favorite bike was. i always wanted a dirt bike , in new mexico, back in the 70's dirt bikes were the way to go. Lots of open land and no fences.

Hi. I found your webpage today and wanted to relate what happened to me. I bought a new 2007 HD 883 sportster(the standard model). After riding it for around 4 months, I really wanted more power. As I was told when I bought it, there is a HD factory 1200 kit, and that was installed by an HD dealer(I already had HD SE mufflers on the bike). I was also told that the HD warranty would continue on the bike as it was all factory. What I am going to show you here is the letter I sent to HD after the bike had been gone for 4 months in a 8 month period. I did post this letter onto a few HD specific sites on the web in the hopes of warning other folks what can, and indeed did happen to me. In those posts I said that YMMV, obviously this does not happen to all people, sorry if I ruffled some feathers by posting, etc. Obviously some folks called this a 'troll' and that the entire episode was either fabricated by me, mishandled by me (could be that one, I have never had to deal with this before with any vehicle, so how am I supposed to know the 'correct' things to do), etc. In any event it happened as the letter I sent to HD states, and is entirely accurate. I just wanted you to know what I had done up to now, so that if you choose to post this story, you are not surprised(and I do hope you will share this). Here is the letter:

Harley Davidson Customer Service
3700 W. Juneau Avenue
Milwaukee, WI 53208
414-343-4056

To whom it may concern,

I still haven't found the gear noise in my 2006 Electraglide. I just received my Nov issue of RIDER magazine. In the Tech Q & A there are two complaints about HD's, one is a 2009 Ultra Classic. No support from the dealer or the Mfg. I'm beginning to have serious doubts about owning another one. For those that have had good luck with their HD's, I say good for you.

Dale

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.