"McMike" (mcmike)
05/23/2014 at 08:39 • Filed to: two wheels bad, dealerships, customer service
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"McMike" (mcmike)
05/23/2014 at 08:39 • Filed to: two wheels bad, dealerships, customer service | 1
| 18 |
Harley enthusiast !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! is a pretty popular guy to the die-hard Harley-Davidson folks. The retired ex-state lawmaker, former state senator, and Marine Corps veteran travels across the country on his bike, advocating for veterans.
He travels the country, flying huge flags off the back of his bike. (I'm assuming they're NRA, USMC, USA, POW, flags.. Because retired Harley riding Veteran) While I think that's patriotic, I would never run big flags like that on the highway. Too much drag, too much noise. Power to him if he wants to - sometimes being that patriotic is hard work.
'MERICA!
He has a bike with a million miles on it in a Sturgis bike museum. Since that bike, he has had a few more, but switched to trikes after losing part of his leg in a 2011 accident.
Now, riding a 2014 Tri-Glide, he had a clutch failure on a recent road trip, and the manufacturer (maybe dealer) is now telling him that it's not covered.
Not covered? What exactly went wrong? While the Hydraulic action of the clutch is new for 2014, most of the internal clutch parts on the 2014 touring line are not new.
I would have an opinion, but there is no detail about the clutch failure. Was it worn out? Was it hydraulic failure? Some other mechanical failure? Who knows? All we know is that it wasn't covered under warranty.
Looking at the photo above, I see another grip and a lever alongside the fuel tank, right above the right floorboard. I'm pretty sure that is a suicide shifter and a clutch lever to aid with shifting since he's disabled. Could that be part of it? Did he convert the clutch back to cable action in order to facilitate this modification? Does that add to the PR nightmare?
This wasn't his first trike, so it isn't like he brought a bad habit to a heavier bike and it caught him by surprise. It isn't like he just started flying these flags recently either.
Fun Fact: He also field dresses his roadkill.
yamahog
> McMike
05/23/2014 at 08:46 |
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H-D should not have caused themselves a PR nightmare here.
PRBot II
> McMike
05/23/2014 at 08:48 |
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In order of preference:
2, 1, 3.
Crocket Bernet
> McMike
05/23/2014 at 08:49 |
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They should cover the repair and leave his warranty, it seems like with all the positive publicity he's given them it's the least they could do.
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McMike
> Crocket Bernet
05/23/2014 at 08:51 |
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I edited what I wrote. HD is not covering the claim. I don't think they voided the whole warranty.
Formula4speed
> McMike
05/23/2014 at 08:51 |
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I feel like there absolutely has to be more to this story somehow, unless there are some crazy clauses (or a relatively innocuous clause is being interpreted crazily) in the HD warranty. I hope this gets FP'd so we learn more.
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McMike
> PRBot II
05/23/2014 at 08:53 |
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Sorry, I edited my story. I don't think they voided the warranty totally, just did not cover this. However, what does this mean for future claims?
"Take off your flags, or lose your warranty?" What happens next?
Svend
> McMike
05/23/2014 at 08:55 |
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Excuse me but is there any fact in the title of Flying Flags Void Powertrain Warranty?
There maybe another issue as to why they voided it and making it into another issue regarding flag flying and war veterans to try and shame Harley into fixing the issue isn't right at all.
I don't want to get into a whole thing but more information is needed and assumptions too early on start to cloud over the facts as they emerge.
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McMike
> Formula4speed
05/23/2014 at 08:56 |
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Yeah, I have no idea what happened to this "clutch." Most of the internal clutch parts have been used for years, only the hydraulic action is new.
The Ghost of Oppo
> McMike
05/23/2014 at 08:58 |
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Harley is notorious for being a shitty company. Once they tried to sue one of their dealers for using the name Hog. They have also tried to patent the sound a v-twin makes and pretty much every feature of cruisers.
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PRBot II
> McMike
05/23/2014 at 09:01 |
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Hmm. I wonder how Yamaha handles warranty claims with V-Star riders flying the circle of the sun.
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McMike
> Svend
05/23/2014 at 09:04 |
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I changed the title. "Claim" was added.
I also added a bit about his mobility shifter, which could be part of the issue. I didn't' mean to publish this post so soon. I tried to save it and edit it later, but it went live. Oops.
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McMike
> The Ghost of Oppo
05/23/2014 at 09:09 |
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Actually, they tried to trademark their potato-potato-potato sound when Honda introduced the Shadow 1100 American Classic Edition (ACE) in 1995.
Why? Because unlike every other cruiser, the Honda copied the angle of the V and used a single-pin crankshaft, which is very unique to Harley.
All other cruisers up until (and for a long time afterwards) used a dual-pin crank. Most use the dual pin, because it's smoother and makes more power.
Racescort666
> McMike
05/23/2014 at 09:14 |
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I figured it would be worth weighing in on this. I'm sure I might get some flak for being "unpatriotic" (if this were FP, I certainly would) but I'm not really surprised that HD wouldn't cover this under warranty.
Lets assume for the moment that this actually got back to Harley Davidson Corporate and they declined a warranty request. Under this scenario, if I were in the warranty department, he is doing something with his bike that it wasn't meant to do. He's basically driving around with a giant parachute behind his bike. Albeit, a very patriotic one.
Flags cause a shitload of drag. That's why streamers are a common form of recovery for many model rockets. Throw that on top of the fact that motorcycles aren't exactly aerodynamic to begin with. You're putting a huge extra load on the driveline by doing this. Harley Davidson has to allow for some overhead on their driveline for various reasons but they have to draw the line somewhere.
!!! UNKNOWN CONTENT TYPE !!!
Many dealers do this because they don't think the OEM will honor the warranty request. From the story, this scenario doesn't seem as likely because I would bet that Dave Zien has a pretty good relationship with his dealer.
It essentially all comes down to the fact that the extra load of flying a flag probably isn't something the bike was designed to do. I'll put it this way, they can't test for everything that people will do with their bikes but maybe this is something they should consider adding to a test procedure.
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Svend
> McMike
05/23/2014 at 09:17 |
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No worries. Flag flying is a contention all around the world and sometimes it gets attached to things that have no connection other than shaming someone into doing something for fear of looking unpatriotic and creating a whole new issue and affecting sales.
Is the 'mobility shifter' a special conversion for the vehicle to make it suitable for his requirements? There maybe an issue with how much its usage is expected to be seen over its life and how much its actually getting used. Harley would be able to answer that question surely.
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The Ghost of Oppo
> McMike
05/23/2014 at 09:18 |
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Then why didn't they try to patent the engine angle/crank? That is something tangible you can put on paper
GhostZ
> McMike
05/23/2014 at 09:19 |
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I'm fairly certain this has nothing to do with flags as much as it does with "we don't have something written down explicitly for that, so to avoid other potential lawsuits, we can't honor the warranty right away without making some sort of change in our policy."
From what I've seen, most of these warranty-voiding-company-hates-good-hardworking-citizens things come about because the warranty wasn't written expecting these events, and if they backed out and didn't void the warranty, it would invite other people to start doing modifications that could damage the vehicle, which they would then have to honor. I'm not entirely sure, but it's almost never a case of "we don't want to support your warranty because you voided this piece of paper" as it is "even if we want to give you the repairs, we need to make sure that all the paperwork is correct or not voiding the warranty can put us in a bigger pickle."
jariten1781
> McMike
05/23/2014 at 09:26 |
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I read a different story where it had some quotes from HD corporate. They were adamant that they were only rejecting the single transmission claim and it was because he continually operated the bike with multiple gigantic flags in high speed and heavy load environments and that was outside the design operating envelope. That's fair enough, but it still gets them bad PR.
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McMike
> The Ghost of Oppo
05/23/2014 at 09:31 |
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No idea. Maybe it was on paper that way, and people ran with the "sound" theory because it's easier to understand?
I've never seen the USPT application.