morning, im a newbie to the board,and i guess to riding. last rode 30 ! years ago. im looking for a used dyna, .when does hi mileage become a consern? assuming the bike looks otherwise cared for? thanks

 

Don't really know what is considered too high. Harley's can be rebuilt. Of course, I know
you probably don't want to buy a bike that has to be rebuilt immediately. I'm sure you would like to ride it for a while before that. I've heard of bikes going well up to and over 100,000 miles. More than likely there have been bikes that needed some work before that. There are a couple of people on here that are good mechanics and will probably post some average mileages before too long.
I have a 1.5 year old Low Rider and have 18,000 miles on it. Based on my experience, I wouldn't hesitate to plunk down the coin on a bike with that kind of mileage and less or even a little more as long as I was sure of the history of the bike. Was it serviced regularly? How was it ridden? Are there any obvious signs of abuse? You know, the regular things you would wonder about buying anything used.
My bike looks fairly new. There are the swirls in the paint from washing and rubbing on it. The spokes have some brake dust caked on the inside where I can't squat down long enough to take care of them. There are a few other minor cosmetic things that come from 18,000 miles but, the bike is practically new as far as mechanical things are concerned. It has a lot of miles to go. Hopefully!

 

Hard question to answer. It's alot like someone asking what is high mileage for a car. A 20 year old car with 100,000 miles is only 5,000 a year which is below average. Would I buy a 20 year old car with 100,000 miles on it? Depends on overall condition and "price". I think the same theory applies to bikes.

 

As said above, it all depends on how it's been cared for. If you get one with over 20k, you will want to have the cam chain tensioners checked soon. They are a known weak point in Twin Cam 88 motors. Outside of that, you should be fine.

The only drawback to buying a well cared for high miler is you might have troublemoving it if you decide that you want to move up to a biggermachine. Regardless of the reality, perceptions count atresale time.Anything over 20k andbuyers start getting a little gunshy. Over 40k andits really hard to interest people in it. I traded my 02 Dyna for an ElectraGlide last October. It had 38,500 on it and with LOTS of miles left.I would have kept it a lot longer except I definitely wanted a tourer, andI felt like the window of opportunity for making an acceptabletrade was rapidly closing.

 

thanks for the input, so far. as you guys indicate, ive seen alot of dynas in the general price range im lookig 10-13K. which dictate the year, and milage im likely to see. then ill see one with 50,000 mi. . although the price drops alot, i wonder how much is left.

 

Are you going to ride them Or are you going to sell them. Ride it along time. Sell it one time. Ride or Sell?

 

my o4 with 40 thou. on it is considered by alot of people to have high mileage
my neighbors o3 fatty only has about 10 thou.
I bought mine to ride. 10 thou a year should mean the bike was well taken cre of so it will another day

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welcome from maine

 

high mileage and well maintained (and documented) beat low miles and low maintainance.....in my opinion

some guy was talking about this bike he found that sat for 5 years..... allI could think about is how much dry rot there could be....plus gunk and rust where you couldn't see it...

 

I guess it depends what you want to do with the bike. I have a 1994 Heritage with a brand new rebuilt evo engine. Most is screamin eagle parts. I'm happy, the bike runs great. At this moment I wouldn't trade it for anything else. So mileage isn't important if you have aplan. My 2 cents worth.
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