My son purchased a bike from a dealer not in our area. The bike was transported on a commercial bike hauler. When he got the bike the barrery was dead. Not in transport mode. Charged battery and now the ECM is bad. Long story shortened the dealer here says the SE Tuner will need to be replaced to match the ECM. Is this true. Also they say he has to pay for the new tuner. Shouldn't Harley have to cover that under the SE Tuner lawsuit? Thanks in advance.

 

Why isn't the dealer he purchased it from, correcting the situation? Unless already specified by selling dealer, that the ecm was bad, seems odd to me

 

The tuner is married to ecm. Lawsuits? The selling dealer should be stepping up they are the ones that sold bike and prep bike for transport. IMO

 

How does a dead battery kill the ECM?

 

I'm wondering the same thing. Sounds like a bunch of BS to me.

 

^^What he said^^^

 

I'm hearing a dead battery can damage the boom box too. I hope I misunderstood.

 

The only "true" transport mode is the battery completely disconnected. In Harley's transport mode itwill just disabled the alarm motion sensor in order to keep the battery from running down, in which sounds like exactly what happened to his bike.
The battery discharging WILL NOT cause an ecm or radio issue EXCEPT loosing radio settings (it's a can bus system) and the loss of battery for the ecm or tuner will be just that, loss of power (electrical) and that's all. Wire shorts can cause this issue and so will a defective ecm/tuner but not a dead battery. All settings on the programmer and ecm are written to a computer module (ram-rom) where it's stored until called on via ecm/programmer with the bike running etc... When there is no power/battery, well there is nothing that happens. Its electronic not mechanical.
The real possibility is that either you were shipped a defective (already having the issue) bike or when it was hooked up to charge the bike it was hooked up backwards. THIS alone can do that damage.
It is an electronic system and god knows anything is possible BUT your not the shipper, they are. It's their responsibility to deliver it to you in the same condition it was purchased.
I'm assuming your son test rode the bike prior to purchase? If so I would demand the dealer to correct the issue as it was delivered to you "damaged/defective".

 

@tesnevo regarding test riding the bike, it would appear that did not happen since the OP stated his "son purchased a bike from a dealer not in our area." Do we know for sure what condition the bike was in before the purchase? I tend to think, as you mentioned, that the bike had issues before it was delivered. Do we know for sure the bike was purchased from an H-D dealer? There are a lot of dealers out there selling used H-D motorcycles. You would think if the bike was purchased from an H-D dealer, they would have put it in transport mode before loading it on the hauler. I don't think we've got enough background of this story to give educated advice as to the son's legal options. Since it wasn't a new bike, the perfect-tender rule doesn't apply, so I'm thinking, as unfortunate as it is, it's let the buyer beware.