This is preposterous. If what you imply is true, then dealer service departments across the nation would be backed up with M8s. That is just not the case.
My dealer (which is high volume sales) is not seeing this. They have had fewer than 5 over 2+ years of m8s.
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I agree that these sumping and bad lifter and tranny fluid migrations issues are rare, very rare, but not rare enough. I've owned harleys since 2008:
2007 Ultra, had to buy an isolator rear pully to get rid of bucket of bolts noise in 5th gear, no help from the motor company.
2009 Ultra had to buy a compensator and lifters with no help from the motor company.
2012 CVO lost a valve spring so full rebuild on my nickle, had to pay for a shifter shaft stripped out on my nickle. Did the lifters as preventative maintenance every 15k miles.
2013 RGU very noisy lifters at 7 k miles, motor company said they all do that, replaced and fixed on my nickle.
2018 Heritage 114 Sumped at anything over 60mph for more than 20 miles. Riding around town no problems....dealer said it was the K&N oil filter I installed at 3k miles. Lost my butt in a trade and traded for a 4 year old
2014 Limited with 4 k miles on it. Bought the extended service plan, lost the water pump at about 7k miles replaced under esp with same style (not the new style) pump.
So the idea that you may or may not get a "good one" is indeed gambling because you have no way to predict. Lifters and water pumps are small change, but a sumping motor is a major failure and anything more than one is a trend in my opinion.
With what a CVO costs one should expect a trouble free motor at least, at the very least. These motor do not put out the horsepower and torque that one would expect to lead to premature failure. They are usually not ridden in a manner that would lead to premature failure.
I really like my 12 CVO SG but got tired of things breaking. I really like my 18 Heritage 114. Blast to ride, but unreliable, could not take it on a 6600 mi cross country trip (Run for the Wall) because it was sumping and the dealer said "I'll call Harley." So my 14 Limited still failed with the water pump but was fixed quickly.
Go ahead, roll the dice.