This spring i bought a 2008 FLHRC with 27,000 miles on it from Dill0n Brothers HD in omaha . great dealer . The bike now has a little over 30,000 miles on it.
A cpl weeks ago i was doing a preride safety check ,as i checked my front tire air presure .i saw that what apeared to be the front right wheel bearing seal pushed out onto the spacer. i could see in the race the dry ballbearings . looked like maybe a few were missing .? i put the bike on lift and checked for play and felt non. i packed some grease in and pushed the seal back in .
i then made the drive to Dillions i stopped a few times to check for heat ect .
Dillions advertises no wait drive up service .
when i got to Dillions i explaned the problem and told them i had extended service plan . they said your coverd . and took the bike right back to be worked on . after a half hour they came back and said it would be another hour .
All said and done ...they got it fixed right away and washed the bike to .
it cost me $50 ...the deductable on my extended service plan.
The tech told me he had seen a lot of wheel bearings failing recently.

 

My 2010 SG's front bearing failed at around 10K. Replaced with no problem. Crazy thing is I had no idea it crapped out. I brought it in for a service right after i got back from Deals Gap.

 

Here's what happenned:

I wondered why Harley scrapped the 1" Axles and went with the 25 mm units. Turns out that the bearings are cheaper, Single row ball bearings vs the double row on the older 1" axled bikes.

My bearings are at 94,000 miles ( 1" axles,) and I plan to swap them on the next tire change. You guys with the 25 mm axles just have to keep checking them and hope you can get to a shop before they fall apart.

You can add this downdgraded item to the list of Cast Crankshafts, missing Lefty bearings, 'catch on fire' brake light switches, etc. $$$

Shameful

 

I'm thinking the sealed bearings make it "out of sight, out of mind". evo bearings are serviced at 10,000 miles or with brake or tire service. They are not sealed bearings.

I think that the newer sealed bearings, people are just not on top of them------ and there are a lot of new riders who don't have maintenance on their minds.

i have 2 Pals who pooched their bearings because they just pressure washers on their bikes- one of them also destroyed his electronics

"uh, it was running before I washed it".

( same type of guys can't change their oil, I found out one of them has never changed oil on his 2006 road king garage queen)



so maybe the original owner of that bike didn't take great care of it.

hoping for many more trouble-free miles, Mike

 

well the bike seems to be in great shape . runs good and the previous owner seems to have spent about $5,000 on bling and performance upgrades . the dealer did a 25,000 mile service and new tires before i bought it. but i had no idea how it had been taken care of or how it was rode so i spent the EXTRA $$$ for the extended service and it paid for itself with this one .

 

You are wrong about the 25mm axle's. I don't have my micrometer with me at the moment but 25mm is very close to 1 inch. Also the bearing's are still double row sealed ball bearing's in the Touring bike's. Harley would not endanger people's lives by going cheap on wheel bearing's. I've said it before and I'll say it again, I think a lot of the problems owner's have and post on this forum is self induced by not taking proper care of their bike. anybody who takes a pressure washer to his bike deserve's what he get's. IMO

 

Yes, the axles are almost identical in size, no issue there. In 2008 Harley went to a cheap single row bearing.

Please google it.

 

well i didn't take the bearing out .but it looked like a sgle row? i would never use a presure washer ............................i learned that lesson 30 years ago on a sportster DOH ! ha ha

 

Dillon Brothers always treats me right!

 

I found a bearing house that had am bearings at 1/2 the price of the hd's. Put them in and had one fail in less than 2,000 miles. I'm back with the hd's. 10,000 is better than 2,000.