Well the phone call just came in from the dealer and it’s not good.

Sunday a week ago during an overnight 500 miles ride in the Western Carolina mountains we turned 45k miles on our 2017 CVO Limited aka “Olivia”.

We were having an excellent weekend and 90 miles from home when something happened. The engine kept running, but sounded terrible, power dropped to nothing and we had just enough to safely get off the road into a paved driveway.

I called the Asheville and Hickory, NC dealerships and the first thing out of their mouths was we close in an hour. Sure I get that but can you come and pick us up, we’ll pay. The answer from both was NO.

Decided to hire a flat bed and we got home safely around 9:30pm. The local dealership that we purchased the bike from picked her up on Thursday and they checked it out this morning. We had a lifter failure and the engine is full of metal. The good news, at least so far is we have the ESP and it’s good through September. The dealership has already contacted them and due to the extent of damage and cost of the repair they must come out and inspect it which will happen later this week.

The dealer said the engine is loaded with metal and they do not want to repair it.

So where have I been on lifter failure? We all talk about sumping but I guess I have been asleep on the lifter issue. Looking online and on YouTube it is a thing with the M8. The housing bore seem to be part of the problem along with the plastic lifter cuffs.

We purchased this bike new in October of 2017 after the new 2018’s were already out. It was built in May 2018 and was 100% trouble free at 30k miles. We then installed the 117 Stage III kit and again she ran flawlessly for 15k more miles until last week.

That final morning when leaving our hotel in Cherokee, NC we had a slight uphill to a red light. The light turned green and the bike felt like it was in second gear leaving when it was clearly in first. It ran fine from there for 100 miles until the failure. Knowing what I know now I wish I had realized this may have been a sign and taken it serious. I can only assume this was a lifter issue causing the power loss?

I’d love to hear from the experts whether the lack of power that morning was a sign of the coming lifter failure and if anyone else has experienced lifter failure or maybe upgraded to the better S&S cuffs.

I’ll keep everyone updated on how we move forward. This is my wife’s baby and it ain’t going anywhere. Just glad we have a second bike to enjoy while it’s down.

 

I put in S&S lifters in my ‘17 M8, when I went to stage 2. I replaced the originals because I got cold start up clatter after the bike sat over night. The S&Ss do the same.

OP, did your lifters clatter on cold start up?

 

yikes..glad it's under warranty..a buddy has his Rushmore CVO with 110 in for engine repair diagnosis..he only has 23,000 miles on it...same symptoms..terrible engine rattling nosies and lack of power..maybe it is the lifters..out of warranty and he had already put a downpayment on a 2022 CVO RG which is due to arrive in Sept..bad timing to have is trade in possibly with a blown up engine..good luck and hope you get taken care of properly

 

No, not at all.

 

the lifters on our 4 M8s always have made the 'working as designed' cold start up slight clatter for about 15 seconds..just as the MOCO says they will do briefly..we have over 150,000 miles on them, 2 107s, a 114 and a 117..so far that hasn't proven to be a concern

 

Ridiculous that neither one of those dealers would help you out. Glad your local dealer cared enough to do something. We're the cuffs not swapped for metal ones with the 117 kit?

 

That is a great question that I do not know the answer for. I plan to run over there later in the week, maybe Thursday to check her out and get the answers.

 

I know its over and done with, but how far were the Asheville and Hickory dealerships from you where you were broken down? Just curious...

 

25 miles to Asheville and 35 to 40 miles to Hickory.

 

25 miles there and back (and taking into account loading the bike) would have been easy to do in an hour and a half. Maybe two hours. Def not unreasonable. I know that's not the point of the post, but I spent a lot of years in customer service and those situations really get under my skin.