I have been at H-D

Thanks! I am the most comfortable here. I was always out of place at H-D. Harley is in bigger trouble that anyone knows. Service numbers are down 15% across the country. This, I believe, is because people are riding less as they get older. Soon there will be a glut of used, low mileage Harleys hitting the market from estate sales as the the current bike owners cash out. Anyone that wants a Harley will be able to pick up a used one for a song. (the same thing applies to other markets like RVs, golf carts and boats.) This is not good at all for the MoCo. Indian (Polaris) is their hottest competition and their engines look period but are technically way beyond what Harley is building. Remember, the British motorcycle industry was on a high in 1969 and was all but dead 7 years later.

I bought a 2002 Buell M2 Cyclone to ride at company events. (I always wanted one anyway.) The Buell is two years younger than my VFR and it's an antiquated brick. The Buell is Heavy, slow and even with rubber mounting (which I replaced) blurred your vision at idle. To switch from the Buell to the VFR is just to wonder how a company can continue to build paint shakers and still be successful.

 

Motus made a decent enough bike, but that price tag...? Oof. It didn't have a strong enough name/reputation built and was just too far out of range for most guys to be sustainable. They should have started at a lower price point. If they couldn't figure out how to do that then it was doomed from the start.

 

I've come to the conclusion that unless you're part of the H-D culture it's hard to "get it." I certainly don't.

I have no hate for them. They make some gorgeous machines. Works of art really.

And the riders I've encountered run the whole gamut from a couple of poseur dentists who camped next to us in Colorado and turned out to be fun guys as far removed from Easyriders as possible to a neighbor in an apartment complex who left illiterate notes on my CB750 sharing his opinion on how "rize grindars suk."

Been flipped off a dozen times on the road (at least) which always makes me laugh for the sheer kindergarten mindset of it all.

But once you start discussing performance you've left the H-D building. It's not part of the paradigm. It's all "heritage." You pay the big $$$ to be part of the H-D "story." If they were less expensive it would cheapen the heritage. The high price is a selling point in a way same as it is for many luxury cars. If you can buy a new H-D you've "made it" to some degree.

Besides it's easy to get a H-D on the cheap if you just want to be part of the culture without shelling out the big dollars. H-D's have to be the biggest depreciating vehicles this side of Cadillac. The number of Hogs on the secondary market is huge and they go for dimes on the dollar. The photo below shows 1 of 10 bays in this bike auction warehouse in Atlanta (one bay is from the wall to the gray pillars, so you're only seeing about 10% here). Non Harleys occupy the two rows closest to the wall and part of the third. The rest of the warehouse is all used Harleys (with the odd Indian, Victory, custom).

Note the giant American flag because every Harley comes standard with a huge dose of patriotism.

Though I can't help but wonder since H-D is now a publicly traded company with factories in Brazil and India (and soon to be Thailand) who's making the real rice burners?

 

I have to disagree with this. You might be able to score a HD for a decent price, but it is everything that comes after that you have to go through if you really choose to ride it instead of have it sit in the garage. You want parts and service, you are going to pay a premium to get both. Wear out those cam chain shoes and you will be paying through the nose for repairs. I also know of several guys with twin-cam Harley engines needing the top ends rebuilt because of them. I wouldn't but a Used Harley for this reason alone. Sure you can get a gear drive system for $800, but still.... Why not just have it in there to start with?

How many Honda engines are hand-grenading at 40K because their parts wore out? None of mine, and no one I've ever know with one. Hell My magna is 22 years old has 40K on it and is mechanically all original except for the normal wear and tear parts (Tires, clutch plates, brakes, etc...), the R/R, and a vacuum petcock (Rubber parts wear out...) and the front cam chain tensioner. It still runs like new.

I'm not saying Honda's are perfect but they aren't designed from the factory to fail either.

 

https://jalopnik.com/how-harley-davidsons-all-in-bet-on-its-past-crippled-it-1830332227

 

This was a really interesting read. Thanks for sharing.

 

Here you go. THIS is why harley is doomed:

"We're trying to appeal to younger riders".. . (starts with a $21K+ price tag)

A Closer Look at Harley-Davidson's New FXDR 114 Power Cruiser
Official HD Website

How many young people have that kind of disposable income?? So help me they are going to implode on themselves and it is going to be their own fault for selling bikes with such over inflated pricing model!!

 

Not knocking HD and owned a 08 Softail in the past. If you compare all motorcycle sales for the past 20-25 yrs, the current numbers in North America are about 1/2 of what they were 25 yrs ago. Something like 1 million units sold, 25 yrs ago and that number is less than 500 thousand today and gong lower all the time.

All brands are not doing that good in North America and the saving grace for the metric companies is that they are big all over the world and have a fairly diverse product line, quads, scooters, lawn & garden equipment, snowblowers, generators and you name it. They are in a much better position to survive the future. Most metric companies only have a couple of cruiser style bikes in their line up, and for the most part have left that segment to HD. The adventure segment has grown in leaps and bounds and I figure that area is going to tank eventually. They too have reached a saturation point.

Any business that has put all its money in one product line is going to have problems. HD is certainly trying to expand outside North America and only time will tell if it is sucessful.

Disposable income for what is basically toys for most of us, is not readly available for a lot of folks out there. Most of us older dudes got into riding small displacement bikes when we were 16 and then over time gradually moved up to bigger bikes as they became available. That doesn't happen anymore , so the manufacturers are unable to build a base of customers.

There are a lot of bikes on the used market, just check any of the selling sites, many are overpriced and bikes are a hard sell unless you are willing to basically give them away. Same with trailers, motorhomes and the like. I can't believe the number of those units I see parked in storage lots all over the country.

Not good times in the motorcycle business.

 

Agreed cycleman1. I actually like Harleys bikes. I just don't like the costs associated with purchasing and maintaining them not to mention the cost of adding a little go-fast which (quite frankly) I really shouldn't have to do immediately after dropping $18000 for the initial purchase.

As a consumer I don't feel that is a wise use of my available disposable income.

 

Inept management will usually fire the messenger, instead of addressing the issues. It becomes personal, especially to the managers that deep down inside, know they suck at their job. When that happens, it's a sign you don't need to be part of a losing team, with no chance in hell of surviving. Corporate America, Baby!

 

Harley's sell poorly outside of the states, because they are overpriced crap. Were they not American, they would not sell in the states either. There are far better options for your hard earned.

 

I love a good opinion but do you have any stats to back that up? Despite them not being my favorite choice they have a pretty good customer base globally.

I'd venture to guess a lot of it has to do with the displacement. India and China have HUGE economies they'll never be able to really take advantage of because the bikes are just too big to be truly usable.

OK, that's speculation... But I would imagine in a country with the vast majority of bikes being under 250cc's, a big 100+CI motor and a huge price tag to match probably wouldn't sell well.

 

I rarely see a Harley here, it's all Japanese and Triumph, few Ducatis. There are 2 Harley dealers in Scotland, that I'm aware of, plenty more of the other brands mentioned.

 

All the brand image aside Harley has two Huge problems at the moment. The first is over supply. They pushed thousands of technically identical bikes out into the market and now that market is shrinking. Most of these bikes are low mileage cream puffs and will hit the market over the next 5 to ten years. If you know anything about supply and demand or the liquidation of estates everything finds a buyer but that price may be incredibly low. I think this has already happened. I see massive numbers of Harley's for sale on Craigslist and I can't imagine they are finding many willing buyers.

The second problem Harley has is their marketing model. You buy a bike and then have to spend thousands to get the performance you want in a Stage I to Stage IV kits. Harley has a built in upgrade path the the modern buyer just sees as a way to get more money out of your pocket. Every thing at the dealership is design to turn their customers upside down and shake all the money out of their pockets.

 

Well, no one forces their buyers to drink the Kool-aid...

 

Nope they just gently steer you down the path to the poor house...

 

Actually one of the biggest American exports is our culture. People from other cultures and countries love the idea of a big country and freedom and the open road. Harley's sell in foreign countries for this very fact. I have seen a few reviews, from India, on the Harley XG500 and they love it. They are not hung up on what makes a "real Harley." They just know it says Harley-Davidson on the tank, it's a real V-twin and it's a big bike by their standards.

I do take exception to the notion that Harley's are "crap." Harley's used to be crap back in the shovelhead days. Today's Harley is as reliable as a Honda. It's funny but we VFR riders overlook serious faults like marginal electrical systems on our own brand or even the documented self-destructing engines in the VFR1200 but call Harley's "crap?" As my old boss once told a customer "even BMWs break!" This was after the customer said he "wanted a BMW so he wouldn't have any trouble on the road." Everything breaks down. EVERYTHING!

 

I do take exception to your taking exception that Harley's are "crap". I've worked on quite a few due to my step-son
belonging to a "club" that is almost exclusively Harley's. The "Twin Cam" engine/transmission is one big kludge after
another. From the swingarm suspended in rubber, to the compensator that self-destructs in less than 50,000 miles, if
it even lasts that long. Not to mention the cam lubrication problems, disintegrating primary drive chain tensioners, and
a clutch mechanism that would be at home on a '36 John Deere. And don't forget the Harley "death wobble", a problem
that my step-son described to me in great detail with a shaking voice, right after it happened.

So yep, IMO Harley's are crap, way overpriced, under designed, crap. But of course YMMV.

 

This.

 

I think Harley has had a lot of problems in the past that will continue to haunt them going forward. I'm curious to see how the newer M8 engines hold up.