I knew something looked wrong! Guess I shouldn’t do this on my phone. Lol

Sorry friend been in auto,truck and equipment repairs since 68-70 and there has been tons and tons of engine,transmission and other major failures for years in everything mechanical. U just must be lucky.
hell in the 80s at Ford I changed 30 3.0 Taurus motors out of the Lima plant....that was just one screw up at one dealer . I could fill a book . Harley with a few chainers burning a few pistons ? Actually laughable .
way more good ones than the few seized pistons .
rupp sleds in the early 70s we burned up 20 out of 30
we sold. Sucks but it happens . Buy a 400 grand garbage truck and drop Alison trans after Alison trans in the early years of them. Nothing new just different characters. Lmao

I couldn’t tell you the rate at which cars & garbage trucks were blowing brand new engines in the early 70’s as I was only 6 or 7 yrs old so you definitely have more knowledge about engines back then but I did own quite a few used 1970 & 1980 cars & can tell you it wasn’t exactly the Golden age for reliable, excellently engineered vehicles especially for the Big 3 after 1973. Us auto makers in the 1970s & 1980s went from one engineering disaster to the other. Well the Ford Pinto did explode too as frequently as the M8 engine but that was when it was hit from behind so does that count? LoL! I know & it’s pretty common knowledge that current R&D, engineering, manufacturing techniques, materials, tolerances & technology have been vastly improved in the last 50 years. We’ve come a long way since then, that’s the problem, it’s 2018.

So is it your opinion that other high end, brand new, modern day motorcycles & cars are blowing engines at the same rate that M8’s are sumping/blowing engines? Name one.....Harley is an ultra premium brand for motorcycles, can you imagine if Audi, Mercedes, Porsche, Lexus, Cadillac or even less expensive brand new bikes from Kawasaki, Suzuki, Honda engines were blowing up at what a 5-15% rate & still didn’t have a fix & customers motors were still being blown up 2 model years later from the same problem after 7 part revisions? It’s every couple of days where another owner posts here that he’s got a sumper. Even if it’s only 5% of M8’s (I think it’s a higher percentage) but that’s 5 out if every 100 brand new bikes are blowing motors within a few thousand miles (& without a fix & more mileage, different conditions the # & % only goes up, not down) that’s SOP for a manufacturer? And some customers M8’s are blowing more than once & 2 years later still nothing. Where else do you see that as the norm for brand new premium or any kind of new cars or bikes? Harley owners are very loyal, to a fault almost, the more people just bow down & say ‘all manufacturers do that’, ‘nothing to see here, always been that way’ (at least till it happens to them) the more it gives Harley a pass & the worse it’s going to be for everybody that owns these bikes or that wants one & the worse it’ll actually be for the MoCo because if this is what’s expected, the newer, younger buyers that they really need badly right now will absolutely positively stay away from the brand like the plague.

Like I said I have been buying new cars & bikes for a over 3 decades, I’d say at least 50 in that time, big car & bike nut here so follow developments closely, always read everything I can get my hands on & I cannot recall a single time especially just thinking back over the last 20 yrs or so where you could follow issues on car & bike forums & information is instant on various websites where another premium manufacture had brand new engines burnt down at this rate and if it has happened, always possible, it’s definitely the exception out there, not the rule or ‘normal’ as you suggest, where it’s expected or accepted from customers that w/ normal use & proper maintenance people will be blowing new motors so frequently.

Sure some new models from some manufacturers have issues & I can name a ton of smaller issues off hand but my point was cannot recall any blowing new motors like this. I’d never hesitate to buy a first year model from some car manufacturers or from numerous bike manufacturers, not from Harley though (or Indian for that matter at all)

Hate to say it since I love my Harley’s, always have & want a 2019 M8 CVO SG but Harley seems to allow new customers to do a lot of the new engine /product beta testing that they should be doing before new engines/models are released. How many think they didn’t experience fluid transfer or sumping in their 1.5 million miles of testing, plz.

Well written & interesting,,,,,But “5000 bikes sold a week” that’s 260,000 bikes a year, in 2017 the number was 242,788 & 2018 looks soft but anyway that’s worldwide sales & includes all models like the Sportster & Street. They sold 147,972 TOTAL bikes in the US in 2017, ALL models, we’re just talking about the M8 & really more specifically the touring bikes which usually account for 50% of all sales so about 74,000 bikes.

Say it’s 1422 M8 touring bikes sold a week USA, yes 2-3 sumping reports here a week is not an epidemic but not everyone that buys a bike posts here, or would even be willing to talk about it, but what do you think would happen to the reported # of bikes that sump if each one of the new customers that bought those bikes sold a week were required to report their problems at this forum?

I said 5-15% because I think that’s fluid transfer & sumping combined but used 5% in my sumping example w/ 5 in 100 bikes. so that’s 1 in 20 not 1 in 6 but ok I’m following you; 698 dealerships so for 2017 (which is a good sample because it’s full yr) 5% of the 74k touring M8’s would equal 2 bikes that officially sumped per dealer over the course of a year, very possible imo. Laidlaw said they saw 4 that sumped.

Think it can or will go as high as 15% eventually based on the fact every single M8 touring can sump, the only difference appears to be riding condition, don’t think it’s a manufacturing tolerance or q/c problem, it’s a systemic design flaw, so what will the % of 2017 & 2018 bikes that sump be when mileage goes up on all of them & for riders that stay mostly local do a much longer trip, etc. etc, the % that will be affected certainly isn’t going down without a fix. Of the 2017 & 2018 bikes that don’t get fixed, that percentage will inevitably grow. There’s been no fix so until there is one, it is all but guaranteed this # will continue rising.

What we’re seeing here must be a very tiny fraction of all the bikes that have had the problem & from all the bikes that have sumped how many weren’t even diagnosed , bike idled down & no really ill effects immediately or brought to the dealer & customers aren’t even aware of the problem or why/what was fixed or it sumped but was told there’s not enough oil in the case, come back in 500 miles, or dealer couldn’t replicate the problem, doesn’t mean it didn’t sump.

A poster, one that believes btw that fluid transfer is I quote “bullschit” said he heard from a Australian rep that 1.2% of M8’s sump, is that all bikes that have sumped & the dealer couldn’t replicate or not enough oil in crankcase or just bikes that have had to be torn down because the motor is now blown? Sorry for being skeptical but anyway, Harley & the vast majority of dealerships are in survival mode now, even before this, if they worked on 5% of bikes that have sumped, they’ll tell you it’s 1%. When was the last time a dealership didn’t try to down play a major issue, that’s their livelihood, I can ask a dealership but wouldn’t bet on what they say & the MoCo doesn’t want them to tell us. I believe the MoCo will do all it can to play down the #’s/% of bikes affected.

But ok, let’s say it’s 1 or 2% whatever, semantics as no one really knows, polls taken here aren’t scientific but they do show a higher # than 5% but anyway my point still stands; I cannot remember another case where brand new engines are being burnt down like this. Truth is no one knows but if it was only 1 or 2 in 100 we do agree there; that’s still awful. Sorry but there’s no F’in way this is the norm for new vehicles, this is a major problem & wish there weren’t so many people defending what’s happening because it’s not going to help anyone having this issues, that will have this issue or that wants it fixed so they can buy an M8.