Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[skreminegul07]

I got the opportunity to ride a 2017 Street Glide Special.  I have a 2014 Street Glide Special.  It starts much quieter, not violently.  The vibration is significantly less, the idle is lower.  The front suspension is great.  I went looking for every pothole and manhole cover and was pleased by the ride.  No metal clanking.  I had to change seats on my 2014 to get ride of the harsh bottoming.  The improvement was noticeably in the front.  The roll on power was   great although different feel which I feel is due to the cams?  The pull from 2-3 was outstanding.  The sound was good, now that I'm older, maybe good enough. The first gear whine is gone or diminished.  Now as far as the heat (rode in 90 degrees) it was drastically reduced.  I don't think the clutch feel is different, hopefully no recalls.  I was ready to buy it on the spot (very fair trade), but memories of owning one of the first TC110's came rushing back.  Wife said to wait a year.
I believe that one could own this bike and keep it stock, no tune or muffler change and be happy with power sound and heat.
Overall impressions, very refined, more Indian and Victory like.
Soapbox time:  They started designing this motor in 2011, which means that HD acknowledged all the complaints and told us they all do that and that's normal, while taking notes to develop a cure.  Doesn't sit well at all.

Phil

[Trigger-Man]

I think I must be cranky this AM but some of the responses are interesting at best.  Guys, you know we are talking about a toy here...  HD is not inventing the cure for leprosy or preventing world peace.  Face it, a motorcycle is a luxury item that we buy to have fun with and in some cases get from point A to point B.  Like most on this board I have owned many bikes over the years. Most have been HD brand...I think my count is up to 11 or so.  My point is I see folks getting upset over a rather silly thing...a piece of machinery. As someone said, if you don't like what HD is selling...don't buy the bloody thing.  Go get a BMW, or Honda, or an older HD if that is what makes you smile.  One grows weary of the constant discussion of the short comings of the HD offerings. They work.  Are they perfect, hell no, but then again it is just a toy...a hobby...a diversion...Life goes on no matter what HD does or doesn't do.  And now I will be quiet and my flame suit on.  Later.

Well said spook120
 :soapbox:Aaaah .......but some folks aren't happy unless they're constantly grousing about something ......kinda like "lifers" in the army .....LOL ! Pointing out product deficiencies is a good thing as it leads (eventually) to improvements ......but to some, the glass will always be "half empty". On a positive note, I'm looking forward to a 2018 CVO Road Glide

[ultrarider123]

Just trying to get the conversation back to the original subject...

I didn't ride one (not gonna...) but I did get a chance to go over a 2017 RG Ultra this past Saturday.  I heard it running (it was a warm motor, not a cold start) and it was quieter than...well, just about everything else the MoCo has put out to date.  This was a 107 and that oil cooler is REALLY out there right behind the front wheel with a VERY severe angle on it.  I could see that oil cooler having an incident on gravel roads or even from road debris.  I did notice a LOT of room between that cooler and the front of the frame so lots of room for a cooling fan placement...

I did not notice the "whirring" from the idling motor as some others have described but it was idled much lower than recent stock bikes.  I do want to see an actual oil pressure when I pull up that information, not "OK".  Didn't play with that enough to see if you can change it to a number.

Spoke to the sales manager who had ridden it about 10 or so miles.  He has a 2011 SEEG.  He did notice the suspension was a much better stock offering.  His comments: If you already have replaced the rear air shocks with the premium HD shocks, you won't notice much on the rear but the front is much better "planted" on bumps/turns/rough road. 

Speaking of fans, they showed me the dealer video of the new vent fan for the touring bikes.  Looking on the MoCo website, it's listed at the CoolFlow Fan.  It goes between the rear cylinder and the frame directing the heat from the back of the motor down and out the back in front of the rear wheel.  Again from the K'ville dealer, he had a chance to "experience" this fan in action and could really tell a difference when it was on and off.  Off, on or Automatic mode via the dashboard switch.  Off above 40 MPH, on below 35 MPH. 
A funny note:  the MoCo states a few times in their description that this fan is WATERPROOF!.  Well, that's good to know for a fan designed to be exposed to the elements....
May be something to look into...here's the link:
http://www.harley-davidson.com/store/coolflow-fan

One more thing on heat that I noticed.  The redesign on the exhaust pipe puts the catalyst back and more under the bike (as already described at length on this site).  What I noticed was the outlet for the clutch/primary side pipe that exited the catalyst, bent back toward the motor and then bent again across the front of the rear tire to the other pipe.  Where the cat is located along with that cross over pipe, there is a LOT of heat being directed right in front of that rear tire.  Put one of those CoolFlow fans on the bike and you are putting even more heat on that tire.  I'm wondering just how long those rear tires can stand up to the normal wear and tear of their designed duties but now with all that extra heat to contend with....just pondering out loud.

[WYD OPN]

I think I must be cranky this AM but some of the responses are interesting at best.  Guys, you know we are talking about a toy here...  HD is not inventing the cure for leprosy or preventing world peace.  Face it, a motorcycle is a luxury item that we buy to have fun with and in some cases get from point A to point B.  Like most on this board I have owned many bikes over the years. Most have been HD brand...I think my count is up to 11 or so.  My point is I see folks getting upset over a rather silly thing...a piece of machinery. As someone said, if you don't like what HD is selling...don't buy the bloody thing.  Go get a BMW, or Honda, or an older HD if that is what makes you smile.  One grows weary of the constant discussion of the short comings of the HD offerings.  They work.  Are they perfect, hell no, but then again it is just a toy...a hobby...a diversion...Life goes on no matter what HD does or doesn't do.  And now I will be quiet and my flame suit on.  Later.

There aren't any motorcycle manufacturers without warranties and dealer service departments.

[iski]

I think I must be cranky this AM but some of the responses are interesting at best.  Guys, you know we are talking about a toy here...  HD is not inventing the cure for leprosy or preventing world peace.  Face it, a motorcycle is a luxury item that we buy to have fun with and in some cases get from point A to point B.  Like most on this board I have owned many bikes over the years. Most have been HD brand...I think my count is up to 11 or so.  My point is I see folks getting upset over a rather silly thing...a piece of machinery. As someone said, if you don't like what HD is selling...don't buy the bloody thing.  Go get a BMW, or Honda, or an older HD if that is what makes you smile.  One grows weary of the constant discussion of the short comings of the HD offerings.  They work.  Are they perfect, hell no, but then again it is just a toy...a hobby...a diversion...Life goes on no matter what HD does or doesn't do.  And now I will be quiet and my flame suit on.  Later.

What happens here, my opinion, and on other forums is:  Somebody has a bike they have just spent $xxxx.xx on customizing, & that bike is 1-5 (or more years old).  To them,it is the best bike out there.  Therefore,any new bike, in this case a 2017 Harley, is of little interest to them.  The colors, features, improvements, etc. don't matter.  Why?  They are not in the market for a bike, they like the one they are on.  Also, they could be in a financial position not conducive to a trade.  some of these folks bitch about the new bikes, because they can.

Then you have the constant biatchers.  HD is bad, the bikes are lousy, all stuff HD does is crap, yadda yadda.  The cloud of HD impending doom follows them on their posts. And even that is the MOCOs fault. Could call it "Harley Derangement Syndrome". They have had a bike with problems invariably.  Others wonder why in hell they don't just sell that HD and buy something else.  BTW, I know plenty of people with "something else".  Recalls, part failures, service department issues, unreliability - yep, HD does not have the market cornered on that, it is spread across MC bike brands.  Somebrands are better, others worse, it is subjective as well as situational.

Also there are kool aid drinkers who don't see anything wrong with Harley. Love Harley long time, very happy with the MoCo, you just shut the hell up complaining. Fewer of them these days though.  HD ownership for a long enough time will take care of that.

Others have older bikes (or newer bikes) and are looking to maybe trade for a 2017, for a wide variety of reasons.  The criticisms when legit can be helpful to these potential buyers, pointing out real issues or valid potential ones.  Trick is to weed out the good stuff from the static.  And some days, there is a lot of static...

Does Harley have room for improvement?  Of course it does.  Service levels are a cost of doing business.  Have never seen any company at 100% service level, cost becomes too great.  Theory is should be as close as possible though. If service is bad a company gets a bad reputation and goodwill goes away.  Hard to ever recover that, cost then is even greater. My opinion is bike part failures, reliability factors, service, and other similar issues are all costs of HD doing business that they have addressed.  Sometimes for the better, other times not. The proof of the pudding is how well a company responds to and handles failures that are problems for their customers.  That's what counts.

A long way of my saying, if it was as bad as I read it is sometimes, or if I felt the same way, HD ownership would become a passing memory not a current reality.  Not the way I see it, therefore, it abides.

[FLTRCVO]

What happens here, my opinion, and on other forums is:  Somebody has a bike they have just spent $xxxx.xx on customizing, & that bike is 1-5 (or more years old).  To them,it is the best bike out there.  Therefore,any new bike, in this case a 2017 Harley, is of little interest to them.  The colors, features, improvements, etc. don't matter.  Why?  They are not in the market for a bike, they like the one they are on.  Also, they could be in a financial position not conducive to a trade.  some of these folks bitch about the new bikes, because they can.

Then you have the constant biatchers.  HD is bad, the bikes are lousy, all stuff HD does is crap, yadda yadda.  The cloud of HD impending doom follows them on their posts. And even that is the MOCOs fault. Could call it "Harley Derangement Syndrome". They have had a bike with problems invariably.  Others wonder why in hell they don't just sell that HD and buy something else.  BTW, I know plenty of people with "something else".  Recalls, part failures, service department issues, unreliability - yep, HD does not have the market cornered on that, it is spread across MC bike brands.  Somebrands are better, others worse, it is subjective as well as situational.

Also there are kool aid drinkers who don't see anything wrong with Harley. Love Harley long time, very happy with the MoCo, you just shut the hell up complaining. Fewer of them these days though.  HD ownership for a long enough time will take care of that.

Others have older bikes (or newer bikes) and are looking to maybe trade for a 2017, for a wide variety of reasons.  The criticisms when legit can be helpful to these potential buyers, pointing out real issues or valid potential ones.  Trick is to weed out the good stuff from the static.  And some days, there is a lot of static...

Does Harley have room for improvement?  Of course it does.  Service levels are a cost of doing business.  Have never seen any company at 100% service level, cost becomes too great.  Theory is should be as close as possible though. If service is bad a company gets a bad reputation and goodwill goes away.  Hard to ever recover that, cost then is even greater. My opinion is bike part failures, reliability factors, service, and other similar issues are all costs of HD doing business that they have addressed.  Sometimes for the better, other times not. The proof of the pudding is how well a company responds to and handles failures that are problems for their customers.  That's what counts.

A long way of my saying, if it was as bad as I read it is sometimes, or if I felt the same way, HD ownership would become a passing memory not a current reality.  Not the way I see it, therefore, it abides.

Understood, however you want an honest product for your money; you don't expect to be the uncompensated Research and Development Team of Harley Davidson as was the case with the suckers, which I was one, that purchased a first year production motor, yes the infamous 110 in 2006; too many of us know how that turned out. That being said, and 5 crate motors from the Motor Company later within 15 months during the inception of the 110, I would be very hard pressed to dive right in and touch a brand new Harley build merely on their word. Call it my experience, Harley's history whatever, yes they stood behind it, but when the bikes in the shop I am not riding it, and that my friend they call down time.

[TN]

Understood, however you want an honest product for your money; you don't expect to be the uncompensated Research and Development Team of Harley Davidson as was the case with the suckers, which I was one, that purchased a first year production motor, yes the infamous 110 in 2006; too many of us know how that turned out. That being said, and 5 crate motors from the Motor Company later within 15 months during the inception of the 110, I would be very hard pressed to dive right in and touch a brand new Harley build merely on their word. Call it my experience, Harley's history whatever, yes they stood behind it, but when the bikes in the shop I am not riding it, and that my friend they call down time.

If we got to explain, they won't understand. 

How's things treating ya these days?  Better yet how's yer FLTRSE3 treating ya?  I'm right at 50k on mine, gonna do a freshen up on the motor soon. Times are tough, I'm down to one bike, something will come along that catches my eye.

Got a rode trip coming up soon, I think she'll make it.  Come out and ride with us sometime.

TN

[FLTRCVO]

If we got to explain, they won't understand. 

How's things treating ya these days?  Better yet how's yer FLTRSE3 treating ya?  I'm right at 50k on mine, gonna do a freshen up on the motor soon. Times are tough, I'm down to one bike, something will come along that catches my eye.

Got a rode trip coming up soon, I think she'll make it.  Come out and ride with us sometime.

TN

Every morning I wake up a go for a ride it's a great day.
My 2009 Silver Beauty has 83,341 miles on it, motor starting to get a little noisier, compression 205 R / 210 F respectively; this motor has served me quite well. Believe me, I would love to ride the great roads in your neck of the woods.

[iski]

Understood, however you want an honest product for your money; you don't expect to be the uncompensated Research and Development Team of Harley Davidson as was the case with the suckers, which I was one, that purchased a first year production motor, yes the infamous 110 in 2006; too many of us know how that turned out. That being said, and 5 crate motors from the Motor Company later within 15 months during the inception of the 110, I would be very hard pressed to dive right in and touch a brand new Harley build merely on their word. Call it my experience, Harley's history whatever, yes they stood behind it, but when the bikes in the shop I am not riding it, and that my friend they call down time.

Also had an 07 110 CVO Ultra.  2 motor tear downs & rebuilds, then motor problems went away. Took some time though.  After that it was too many electrical issues over too many trips to make it worthwhile to even try to re-tell.  Easiest way to illustrate is: most trips of over 100 miles ended with that bike on a trailer back to the shop or limping back. So yeah had more than my fair share of down time, to the point of the local dealer giving me loaners to ride.  Traded the bike for a 2010 CVO Ultra, few problems, good bike. Had real problems with that Garmin 660 GPS though.  Garmin could never resolve them after 6 attempts over 3 months.  Harley did resolve it.  Corporate in conjunction with local dealer. They gave me a new one in the box after Garmin failed to fix the issues.  Guess which company I have a lower opinion of when it comes to backing their product?

My experience with other motorcycles & different brands of autos is similar.  Had a fairly new turbo engine in a truck, it had problems too.  Was I a beta tester for that truck?  That's one way to look at it. The problems were fixed, but not immediately, because they had not figured out how at first.  Have I had issues that were essentially similar - early adapter issues - with brands other than that & other than HD?  Yes.  Long time back same deal with dirt bikes engines - had some issues with "brand spanking new" ones. Early adapter issues.

In my case, thanks to reasonable folks at the local HD dealer & my not flying off the handle & spewing ..... nevermind.... these problems were all resolved satisfactorily on the HDs I have owned.  Therefore, the trade from the 07 to the 10.

Have had problems also with high end cars, never resolved.  Early adapter issues also. A German made product. My opinion of auto/bike manufacturers, worldwide, is that early adapters do indeed perform some beta testing.  Not much "Brand new" runs well until tested over time, and nobody I know of spends 10-20 years in R&D just to intro a new product.  So the time success/fail tests fall on the users and buyers.

Does HD have room for improvement?  Sure, said so earlier too.  Overall they are not the worst & overall not the best as to product reliability, based on my experiences.  Milwaukee 8 motor seems to be a good one.  Time combined with a lot of miles will tell, and so far nobody has put the time or miles on them to know. If there are no issues, that would be unbelievable a real surprise.

[fastfreddy]

So I made it to the motor plant in KC Saturday and got to ride a 17 CVO ulrta, it was the green one so no comment other than its not to bad looking also seen the black/red & black/orange SG the B/O the better looking imo. It was only a 15 mile ride a lill city, twisty, interstate course, the motor was quite only sound(s) was from intake, I flog it pretty good, power Gose flat about 4K but your moving, was hitting 90 to 100 in forth gear and was smooth, getting on the interstate got run thru the gears against two others an dynas and was able to pull them and I was two up. I don't ride a bat wing and probly never own one, stating this cause the buffeting was bad so it took my attention away from the suspension evaluation at speed, but felt good at lower speeds. That my take on the new...now I hope 18 will have a cvo RG and the new 114 holds up

[TN]

Anything mechanical can and will have some issues, more with certain folks than others.  When multiple people have the same symptoms, problems, and root cause it becomes a manufacturing/engineering/production problem. Yes, there are other big named goods and products that have these problems but that's comparing apples to peaches. I'm trying to stay on topic here.

It's how they deal with said problems after the fact that is important, HD customer service is all over the place with that, it seems like timing is everything and their prepared script is changed out multiple times a day. Call me a whiner but lets have some serious conversation about it, so easy to type this chit,aint it! Yep I ride a HD and like it too.


Or we can just ride


TN

[ultrarider123]

So I made it to the motor plant in KC Saturday and got to ride a 17 CVO ulrta, it was the green one so no comment other than its not to bad looking also seen the black/red & black/orange SG the B/O the better looking imo. It was only a 15 mile ride a lill city, twisty, interstate course, the motor was quite only sound(s) was from intake, I flog it pretty good, power Gose flat about 4K but your moving, was hitting 90 to 100 in forth gear and was smooth, getting on the interstate got run thru the gears against two others an dynas and was able to pull them and I was two up. I don't ride a bat wing and probly never own one, stating this cause the buffeting was bad so it took my attention away from the suspension evaluation at speed, but felt good at lower speeds. That my take on the new...now I hope 18 will have a cvo RG and the new 114 holds up

I'm with you on the green.  Hey, somebody will "just love it" and have to have one.  To each his/her own and more power to them if they do like it.
Thanks for the review of the ride, too, and enjoy Arkansas....

[FLTRCVO]

I posted my Harley experience with a Harley first year production engine 2006; wasn't thrilled to say the least, however, what would I do if my current ride was no more due to catastrophic / cost effective issues beyond repair?  I have to ride. I would go Harley, (I never said they didn't stand behind their product) I would go big, I'm not liking the color schemes on the Ultra's, so someone is going to have to blindfold me and put me on an Ultra to test ride and ultimately buy. Why, because, I buy Harley motorcycles. Would I regret it, probably, if history dare repeats itself, however, imagine the information gained by the members of this fine Group. Again, be advised this is only if catastrophic / cost effective issues beyond repair were to afflict my current 2009 FLTRSE3 with 83314 miles.

[Heatwave]

I posted my Harley experience with a Harley first year production engine 2006; wasn't thrilled to say the least, however, what would I do if my current ride was no more due to catastrophic / cost effective issues beyond repair?  I have to ride. I would go Harley, (I never said they didn't stand behind their product) I would go big, I'm not liking the color schemes on the Ultra's, so someone is going to have to blindfold me and put me on an Ultra to test ride and ultimately buy. Why, because, I buy Harley motorcycles. Would I regret it, probably, if history dare repeats itself, however, imagine the information gained by the members of this fine Group. Again, be advised this is only if catastrophic / cost effective issues beyond repair were to afflict my current 2009 FLTRSE3 with 83314 miles.

Pretty funny but I sorta agree. I'm at 60,000 miles on my 2010 CVO Ultra. Its a terrific bike that has been remarkably dependable even after the very serious engine upgrades I did. But I'd rather sell while the bike is running terrific and pulling like a freight train. I plan to use the new CVO limited with 4 valve heads to serve as a platform to build another bike with more than 130/130. Plus I get the improved suspension of the '17s and all the other upgrades of the Rushmores (water-cooling, Infotainment, improved seating, 1 hand closing on TP and saddlebags, factory LED lighting all around, better/more powerful radio) vs my 2010.

Will I regret my decision to upgrade to a 2017.... I certainly hope not!!!

[marko61]

The softail and CVO line with 103 and 110 must change for europe from january 2017.
Twin Cam was authorize for selling in 2016, but no more on 2017 !

What is you opinion ? New line in january ?

where did you get this news ... I'm Italian and I knew nothing ...