I got some bad news about your brakes.....

Aren't the HK radios in the Ultras almost $1000? I don't understand the $500 raincheck?

 

Agree, the earthquake has affected a lot of companies that need electronics or electronic components. From what I've read, this has really slowed HD's financial recovery. This shortage has hit HD during the largest selling time for the year.

http://www.foxbusiness.com/2011/04/1...n-shares-fall/

"Harley-Davidson declined to name the manufacturer of the Japanese-made part that could hold up shipments. But it said Tuesday it was looking at other options for obtaining the microchip that helps run displays on the Harman-Kardon audio radios featured on its touring motorcycles. Harley-Davidson did not disclose the cost of the chip."

 

Labor is only part of it. China (and other emerging countries) get away with stuff that the EPA and OSHA will not allow here.

Yes I'd by a 2012 without a radio. Discount the bike accordingly (a radio delete option).
For the same price I bet I could install a better sound system.

 

" These are sub-tier suppliers. In other words, we buy our radios from a U.S. supplier. But they then source chips and other components from sub-tier suppliers who in turn might source something from yet another sub-tier supplier," Chief Executive Keith Wandell told Reuters in an interview."

 

I have a buddy that just installed Hog Tunes speakers and he loves them.

 

This is a good reason why everybody needs to vote out the politicians who would create the Alphabet Soup Agencies that regulate American business to the extent that leaving the country to produce is more attractive than putting up with the BS.

 

I figured that we would be hearing "No forks for you!" before a radio problem. The forks are Showa, right out of Japan. I would have thought these would be the bigger problem.

Another example of the Just In Time manufacturing model that is coming back to bite them. Having virtually no supply of parts and relying on other companies to deliver them 1 to 2 days prior to manufacture is a recipe for disaster in a global market that hinges on natural disasters, internal strife, wars and piracy on the high seas.

 

The big picture is that Japan got decimated with the earthquakes and tsunami. It's real easy for me to sit in the Midwest of the US where all I have to b!tch about is snow and cold, but that was a legit natural disaster that affected millions of lives, and to a point now is affecting millions more with secondary and tertiary effects. If I was in the market and I had my heart set on a certain 2012, I would buy one. It's not HD's fault for the natural disaster. It's a Global Market now. If the new radio would be shipped to me for free with free installation, and a $500 gift card on top of it, Sold. Seems like the MOCO is trying to right the wrong until a better solution can be found.

Best case scenario, buy the 2012, put in a better deck (a lot of riders seem to do that anyways), sell your HK when it comes in, and enjoy living in America with a roof over your head in a home that wasn't destroyed in an earthquake or tsunami.

 

That would be a 'situational' call for me.

If it meant that I didn't have a bike for that period of time, then I would take the $500, buy an aftermarket head unit, then take the HK head unit and sell it when it came in.

 

I though everything was made in China.