what the hell happened to my brand new bike?

[tmitchellof PG]

ORIGINAL: flyinlow Don't know the answer to this, so I'll just throw it out there. Do the bikes come shipped with the battery installed or does the dealer install the battery? If the dealer installs it, well there's the answer. I don't think you can blame a design flaw on the dealer. What happens when the customer does a routine battery change? It might be different if HD had a big warning label on the battery that stated " If the cables are not attached at an exact angle the motorcycle may burn to the ground" or better yet HD could correct the design problem and recall the models that need to be altered. This is how it is suppose to be done in the normal business. Tom

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[kah]

Brand new CVO Springer, pulled up to the shop to show it off to the ladies at work, and smoke, flame and hot oil everywhere!! Same thing, shorted battery and melted return oil line. Now, when the kid with the trailer from the dealer picked it up an hour later, we noticed the positive bolt was loose. Surely something as dangerous as this should never have rolled outof the factory in PA, or should have a recall fix, or service bulletin with big red and yellow warning signs all over it. My real concern is can you ever really be sure other components have not been damaged? Not to mentioned the cosmetic damage. Gorgeous bike, but I can get that kind of design flaw for a third of the price with a YamKaSuki -- actually, to be fair, I probably could'nt get a custom design flaw of that quality from any of the Jappa's.

It's been two days and not a word from the dealer.

Now its been6 days...

10 days and no Dealer initiated contact -- I called several times, each response was that they hadn't started on it yet. Third call from me after 8 days and they said a tech from the factory was being sent out because of a "hold" on the work because it was a 2007 CVO. That info should be passed on to the owner, wouldn't you think? Any similar experiences out there? It is possible it is just as they say--they are very busy, and they will take care of it.

Finally got a call today, and the repair should be taken care of in a week. So, if all repair and restoration makes it look like new, then despite the wait, it's just a lesson for all of us -- check that new bike over for cable clearance, etc. Now, here's the short list of dealer prep errors: battery cable not configured correctly, front turn signal loose (actually flopped around on first ride), rear turn signals not aligned, seat not mounted correctly (front bracket missed frame bracket), clutch line loom not put on straight causing line to rub fork and mar clearcoat paint slightly and rub cooling fins, shifter pedal not adjusted (could not get foot under pedal for upshifts), master fuse holder not secured in mounting hole provided for that purpose. Let's hope that's it.

18 Apr 07 Still not fixed. Parts on backorder. Sounds like a lot of this might be happening. Oil tank needed replacing as well. I WILL be arrangingfor proofingassembly of this bike when I finally get it back, and taking pictures to share.

3 May 07 Finally fixed, this bike broke down on 26 Mar 07. New Oil tank, new oil lines, new vent line, new battery, new cable, and a few other things. MoCo repaired under warranty and under a brand new Recall; prompted partially by this particular incident. Heritage Harley in Lisle IL sold me the bike and did the work -- good on ya! Other than the long, longwait, from what Icantell so farthey did a good job. However, there is no longer a protective plastic cover on the positive terminal and no longer a plastic mount for the master fuse.

Dealer got in another plastic part to isolate battery--screwed something up during the install, so bike is not running. I give up. FXSTSSE for sale...

[tmitchellof PG]

That sucks. Hope they get your bike back up to speed real quick.
When I read about this problem, a few months back, I rechecked my battery cables. I couldn't see any way that theywould ground out on the frame or oil tank, no matter what angle I positioned the cable onto the battery post.
Good luck,
Tom

[Finalcut]

Hey - where did the pict that chops posted go????
I'd like to see those

[Citoriplus]

Its been discussed here before a couple of times that I know of and here's a couple of links to those discussions.

http://www.hdforums.com/m_887550/tm.htm

http://www.hdforums.com/m_1355104/tm.htm

I'll link a couple of the pics to this thread for the lazy among us. But you should read the above listed threads, it has a lot of info on the problem, and the "cure".





Scary looking pics, can't imagine cruising along and suddenly be riding on the "Ghost Rider"bike.

[chops]

I ran out of space in my gallery, and had to delete them

[shineybike]

That's a pretty scary story. I took a look at the underseat setup on my 2004 Heritiage classic. It's still snowed in the barn with the battery out. The positive battery cable has a second layer of red plastic about 1 inch long covering the wire at the end near the battery terminal. I also noticed there is black plastic zip tied to the frame rails where they wrap around the battery box. It came from the factory like that. If I understand the earlier posts, those seem to be the trouble spots. Are these things missing from the newer models?

[springerdave]

you guys made me paranoid, so i went and looked at my 06 fx springer. It appears my positive cable is wrapped in plastic wire loom all the way to the connector. It also appears that the battery is sitting up high enough that the the battery post and cable end are higher than the top of the battery, level with the plastic tray that the wires all run in. I wonder how much assembly the dealers do when they get the bikes in and maybe some dealers take more precautions than others. my concern is the wire harness for the battery tender. i have mine currently running in the plastic tray with the others and then dropping out on the right side through the opening in the bottem of the oil tank. anyonewith some good suggestions for this?

[deadeye]

Because of this thread, I inspected the battery cables on my new Train. I'm not sure if it would have caused a problem, but the ground cable insulation had already worn through to the wire where it touched the oil tank. This is a bike with < 50 mi. on it. I wrapped it up with electrical tape.

Can't tell you how much I appreciate the information I've gotten from this site during the last several weeks while I waited to pick up my Train. I can tell you after owning many other brands, there is no other MC community like the Harley community -- not even close.

[lionsqrne]

Ur dealer is/was pissing around. They should have classified this as a down'd bike. The parts would have been overnighted. When I had to have my oil tank replaced the service manager made it a downed bike even though the weather wasn't nice out at all and they overnighted the oil tank the next day. It still did take them about a week to get it done though but replacing an oil tank isn't really that easy and they were down tech's as well.