Motorcycles: A bit more explanation

Before I bore you, check out this unrelated comic. I don't care what your politics are, this is funny (you'll have to click on it to see the whole thing):


see more hipster robot webcomics and pixel t-shirts

Anyways, I realized that I want to say more about Harleys and give additional explanations to my last post.

Yes, Harley's quality stinks. Yet, I do feel that a Sporty, specifically an 883, is a good beginner bike. They are fairly light, have a very low center of gravity, lots of low end torque, yet are not very quick, quite anemic actually. They handle OK, but don't do anything fast, that is, they are not "twitchy" or in any way sensitive. They have a very low seat height. They are very simple, basic machines. Parts are plentiful and easy to get, even for 30 year old models.

But I have 2 laws of Harley buying that are very important to this whole blog:

The first law of buying a Harley:

NEVER BUY A NEW HARLEY. ALWAYS BUY A USED ONE, PREFERABLY OVER 4 YEARS OLD

You see, a new Harley is guaranteed to have some kind of awful design defect, which may not show up for thousands of miles. This is as true today as it was 20 years ago, though a better situation than 30 years ago. There are numerous examples, such as el cheapo cam bearings, defective cam tensioners (there were actually 2 or 3 separate defects here, spanning I don't know how many years), offset wheel alignments - the list goes on, it could fill a book. How would you like to dump $25k for a bike that is equaled or surpassed in performance and features by an under $20k Jap bike, and then have the cams shred all over the inside of your engine in a few thousand miles?

But both the motor company and an unbelievably huge aftermarket will quickly come up with fixes for the defects as soon as they are uncovered. Your job, as a smart Harley buyer (no such thing really, but I've been there and may again, so I say "smart" instead of "not quite criminally stupid"), is to wait until the particular year and model defects are discovered and a fix developed, then buy the thing, knowing now what you need to do to make it roadworthy. Better yet, wait until a previous owner has done the fix and then buy the bike after.
Also, there will be some assembly line defects, such as loose or ill fitting parts, that will cause you some inconvenience. Better to let someone else take care of all the assembly line gremlins and buy the bike after that.

This brings up the second law of buying a used Harley:

NEVER BUY A HARLEY WITH LESS THAN 5,000 MILES ON IT

This seems like a no brainer based on over 4 years old, but with Harley's t'aint necessarily so. Riders of other bike brands will commonly refer to Harleys as "Hardley Ablesons" or in the context of this blog "Hardley Riddensons" You see, it is very common for people to buy a Harley and only ride it an occasional short distance to show it off. Check the classifieds and you will see 4 year old Harleys with less than 3k miles on them, and I'm being generous. Bikes referred to by the term "trailer queen" are almost always Harleys.

But you can't be too sure that all the assembly line issues have been exorcised until at least 5k miles. Keep looking.

So, a used Harley, while grossly overpriced, is a safer bet than a new one, provided all the work was properly done. Of course, that's usually hard to be sure of, so all the normal used vehicle precautions apply.

Now, the idea with my daughter's bike, if we ever do it, is to buy a Sporty that's pretty ugly, but not mechanically terrible. There aren't too many of those, but they can be found here and there. I have no problem with stripping the bike down to the frame, and in fact that is what we would do, then painting it as she wants (she won't paint it pink, so I can get away with this). The only super expensive, difficult work would be if the tranny, or some major engine component was bad.

I've probably sworn you off Harley's forever. That's not my intent. Remember that I do hope to buy one or more sometime down the road, and I will gladly let my daughter have one for her first bike. It's just that you cannot trust the motor company, you cannot buy a new one unless you can afford to go through a lot of troubles. Then too, new Harley's are enormously expensive to maintain, the service charges are astronomical. But the bikes are very basic and easy to maintain, so if you get a used one, well there's no warranty, so you can buy a service manual and do it yourself.

There you have it, a further explanation of my previous post. Hope you're not as bored as I think you are!