Well I have a deposit on a Kryptonite and a Inferno Orange bike. The Inferno Orange bike came in Thursday, so I went to go look at it yesterday. Let me tell you, my 10 year old daughter could have painted the bike better. All tins need to be replaced except the rear fender and the saddle bags. The lowers were sprayed with too much clear coat and was dripping off the bottom, when they painted the pinstripe on the tank the gold dripped all over the black and then they left it and clear coated over it. The bat wing fairing edges were not painted black or the orange part and HAIR HAIR HAIR all in the paint. The dealer is going to contact Harley about this.
Isn't this the first year the CVO's are not painted in a separate building?
This is the first year the bikes are
assembled on the regular assembly lines, but that doesn't mean they are painted in the regular paint operation. In fact, I would doubt that anything has changed with regard to the painted part supplier, since the regular paint operation isn't set up for anything more ambitious than simple tutone paint jobs.
There have been many instances of really lousy paint on CVO's, and after the problems peaked in '06 they seemed to be getting better. Unfortunately, better isn't the same as consistently good, as you found. Quality Control isn't a high priority at H-D; they don't control quality, quality happens by accident when and if the stars are properly aligned and the gods feel generous. Obviously the gods were taking the day off when the parts in question were painted, and the stars weren't aligned properly when the assembly plant accepted the poorly painted parts and installed them on the bike.
I'd suggest that you insist the parts all be replaced
before purchasing the bike, if you are still planning to purchase it. Otherwise, you may find yourself even more unhappy when they feed you some BS about the paint meeting their standards, or they don't replace the parts on a timely basis, or they replace them with something just as bad or worse, or manage to damage something during all the replacements. Read some of the threads on the major paint issues from 2006 in the CUSE boards.
Jerry