Been riding the sporty to work even though it's been quite chilly in the mornings, and today I'm putting her in the garage after work and notice she's got oil weeping out of both the upper rocker box seals. I thought I was safe, 4K leak free miles and now this. Very ticked off about it. Now I have to see if they will do anything about it. That means getting to the nearest dealer an hour away, and having a ride to get back home, IF they fix it. Why do these things do this? Less than a year old...and now I have to tell people it's a Harley, it's supposed to leak...

 

Dealer will fix it. This seems to be an increased problem over the last couple of years. I had a slight leak on my bike at the rocker covers, but that was after about 50,000 miles or more.

 

yep
My 08 did the same thing
First the rear and about 50 Miles later the front did it as well, they fixed under warranty.

 

My 08 had a leak on rear rocker cover... Fixed under warranty, no questions asked. Even waited while they fixed it.

 

Had both rocker gaskets replaced at under 3000 mi on my 09 883L, only took 2 hours and was covered under warranty.

 

Bummer. This is why I say that Harley really needs to up it's quality. Why should we have to put up with this when the darn things cost so much?

 

Funny, wasn't there a thread dealing with the "better quality" of Harleys over Hondas?

"better quality?!?!?! the fricken fury has plastic rocker box covers and a plastic fender!!!!! how is that better quality?!?!?!?!"

Maybe the answer is that the Honda's "fricken" rocker box covers don't leak. Why is is acceptable, or even expected, that Harleys will leak? Why?! A $10,000 motorcycle had darn well better be able to keep it's internal fluids...internal. We don't accept that kind of shoddy quality from our new cars.

 

if you're gonna quote me, at least give me the credit.

I had 10,000 miles on my 06 sportster before i got my softail and never experienced any rocker box leaks. I rented an 07 883L in north carolina with less than 1000 miles on it and that bike had a bit of a leak out of the rear rocker.

Leaking rocker covers seem to be common enough to warrant better gaskets, not plastic covers.

 

If it's a common problem, then it's a quality issue. Where's the factory recall? Like I said, if a new car manufacturer had these kind of problems, no one would tolerate it. And certainly no one would tolerate that from a Honda or Yamaha. Funny thing is, they don't have those problems.

Why are dye-hard Harley riders willing to put up with this kind of crap? Why aren't they screaming at the company to improve?

 

The dealer didn't blink an eye when I brought it in for a leaking rear rocker box cover--two days before my warranty was up.

They replaced both, actually.

I don't know why it's an issue, but I know that HD changed the gasket for the primary inspection cover from rubber to paper. That leaked like crap and my dealer found rubber one in the parts room.

Maybe they're messing around with other gaskets, too.