Mine is a 1 week old SG, but it has been sitting at the dealer since Nov. 2011...The desert will suck your battery dry, especially if the battery sat.

 

If you read your post it says changed your battery instead of charged.

 

So, I hope the you get your problems taken care of quickly. I can't even imagine being stranded out in the middle of nowhere.

That said, before I bought my 2009 Ultra, I was uo in Traverse City, MI at a Harley dealer that we stopped at cause one of our group needed something. As he was shopping and I was checking out the goods, I wound up chatting with a guy who was in getting a new tire. He was from out of town and during the course of our conversation he mentioned he's been to just about everywhere north of Mexico including every Canadian province on his Ultra. The one thing that stuck with me was when he said that he was riding with a friend who rode a BMW and , during their trip one of the rear caliper bolts worked it's way loose and fell out somewhere on the road. Well, they were about 150 miles from nowhere and the bolt wasn't anything you could get from a hardware store and could only be had from a BMW dealer.

He also mentioned that the nearest BMW dealer was over 300 miles away which put a major damper on their trip. The interesting thing he also mentioned was their were TWO Harley dealers within 45 miles of where they were.

The moral of this story is basically about the HD dealer network. It's huge with many, many locations. That basically sealed the decision for me. I would hate to be riding with my 12 year old daughter in the middle of nowhere on a (insert any non HD brand here), have a break down and be stranded.

Anyway, that's my story and I'm sticking to it.

 

I worked at a suzuki/honda/kawi dealer in college. They did just that with rear pads on a ZX7... and forgot to replace them and sold the bike. I know this to be 100% true because i was the guy who initially went out to see what this guys problem was with less than 100 miles on his brand new bike.

 

I ride with a buddy who used to put 20000 or more a year on his BMW. A few years ago he was stranded in Amarillo Tx for a week because the nearest dealership was Dallas or somewhere. He sold the bike after that experience to get a RG because he like the bike and like idea of Harley dealerships everywhere. His wife didn't like the RG, so he got a Gold Wing. But the BMWs are still his favorite.

I don't quite get some of the reasoning that Harleys are a lower quality product because they are redesigning parts. Maybe its because I'm an engineer, but is'nt fixing a bad design a good reflection on a company? I don't have trouble with folks venting because of a bad day or they bought a lemon, those things happen even to the best of products. But its not fair to suggest that the Harley brand is a bad because one or two parts on new models need to be redesigned, expecially when they are redesigning those parts. Harleys are as reliable as any bike brand out there and they usually try to meet the customers needs.

Beary

 

Suit yourself.
Good luck

 

I agree that there are lemons out there but there are a couple reasons why people are more familiar with Harley problems over Japs/Victory problems. First reason is that there are way more Harley's on the road than Japs/Victory's. So naturally you will hear more about Harley problems. Second is if someone has a problem with their bike, they go searching usually on the internet and then forums to find a fix for their bike or vent about their situation. The guys who are not having problems are not going to start a thread saying, "Hey everything is great on my bike, no problems at all".

I have an 02 Road King Classic that I have owned for two years. It has about 30,000 miles on it and it's been a good bike. I redid the top end because I had some blow-by but honestly I really just wanted to do a big bore kit. The blow-by was minimal.

My friends have all been happy with their Harley's.

 

The black regulators are on back order because of this problem (seems unique to 2012 models so far), but the chrome ones are easily available (usually in stock at the dealer).

Give the dealer a hard time and get the chrome version, buddy of mine had his bike back in 24 hrs (picked up and delivered).

 

Perhaps the ability to produce a new Harley every 89 seconds isn't equating producing a WELL BUILT Harley every 89 seconds. A lot of things can happen when a company ramps up the speed, and that includes workers missing some of the little things, and engineers missing some of the BIG things.

Every time I think about changing out my old 98 for a new one, stories like this make me wonder. At least I kinda expect issues with my 13 year old Hog.

 

I've never had any issues with any of my Harley's, "knock on wood" but I've never had one long enough to put 50k on it either.