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[cigarmike]

Well fellas, I have nothing good to say. I picked it up, of course, sun was setting, looked great in the shade, got her home, put the flashlight test to it, this is a joke. Mega scratches in the clearcoat, some areas are clear, some are cloudy, like someone dropped a rag on it before it was dry, and then tried to color sand it, and rub it out, multiple scratches on all parts, some very deep, spots in the paint, looks like a few spots of primer on the fairing, and the outter fairing has areas where there is no flake what-so-ever. Tank has too much flake, almost looks purple now. Tank also has cloudy spots the size of a softball here and there, Obviously rubbed out, The fender has what is 2 dark .....what I can best describe as 'fingerprint sized round spots on surrounded by a big cloud of milky clearcoat, and a big fat scratch top deep center, If its like this with a flashlite, it will be like this in the sun. This looks like nothing more than a cheap fix, a body repair paint job. I want a new bike paint job. This is NOT one. And its not Even close. Wifey looked at it with me, of course, the same old grief..."why didnt you look closer at the bike when you bought it " Thanks just for that MoCo. she also says "Sue Them", might be the first thing we agree on now.

[SEULTRA]

Well fellas, I have nothing good to say. I picked it up, of course, sun was setting, looked great in the shade, got her home, put the flashlight test to it, this is a joke. Mega scratches in the clearcoat, some areas are clear, some are cloudy, like someone dropped a rag on it before it was dry, and then tried to color sand it, and rub it our, multiple scratches on all parts, some very deep, spots in the paint, looks like a few spots of primer on the fairing, and the outter fairing has areas where there is no flake what-so-ever. Tank has too much flake, almost looks purple now. Tank also has cloudy spots the size of a softball here and there, Obviously rubbed out, The fender has what is 2 dark .....what I can best describe as 'fingerprint sized round spots on surrounded by a big cloud of milky clearcoat, and a big fat scratch top deep center, If its like this with a flashlite, it will be like this in the sun. This looks like nothing more than a cheap fix, a body repair paint job. I want a new bike paint job. This is NOT one. And its not Even close. Wifey looked at it with me, of course, the same old grief..."why didn't you look closer at the bike when you bought it " Thanks just for that MoCo. [highlight]she also says "Sue Them[/highlight]", might be the first thing we agree on now.

And so your long road takes another twist .....  

You must be ready to puke! My heart goes out to you Mike... all that effort only to wind up with nothing better. I'll be interested to hear what the dealer has to say when you take it back armed with a flashlight to show them what you've just described. I wish you the best of luck
I will be going out and buying a new binford 2000 megawatt flashlight to take with me when I go to inspect my new parts when they arrive... thanks for the very valuable lesson. Sorry it was at your expense.

[cigarmike]

Yea, trust me, I am sick. Let me qualify myself here...........I owned a body shop/detail shop from 1984 to 1989. Got outzoned by the city, and then the new state regualtions that were required to open a new one somewhere else, new downdraft booths etc. money wise,  made me go back to Contracting, Im pretty sure I know what a bad paint job looks like. I have had one sitting in my garage for 11 months now. My God, I know at best, marginal painters who could get a glossy even look when painting.  

  Ever since I have purchased this bike, I have looked VERY Close at ALL new Harley Paint jobs, every event I attend etc. The Haze, even the green SEEG's I have seen, look like perfect compared to this. Id like to see GM try  to put out a black Escalade paint job that looked like this.....This is Harleys Escalade. and Its a f***ing joke.

[RJ749]

[size=48]CRAP[/size]




[size=10]what else can I say, just crap,,,,,this is what I have to look forward to[/size]

[Twolanerider]

Mike, with all the marks and other pollution on it that you described is it possible the parts are not a new paint set but a returned bad set that went through the early "buff it out" attempts and that they've then attempted to repair and pass them on?

[Boatman]

I'm with 2Lane, maybe they sent Mike a returned/repaired set?   [smiley=nixweiss.gif]  Either way, it pretty well sucks.  Hope things turn around for the better soon.

[Midnight Rider]

Mike, with all the marks and other pollution on it that you described is it possible the parts are not a new paint set but a returned bad set that went through the early "buff it out" attempts and that they've then attempted to repair and pass them on?

My thoughts exactly...Know any lawyers?

[napalm]

That brings up a good question, What does Harley do with all the returned defective painted parts.  On my 2006 SE Ultra they replaced the front fender, outer fairing, gas tank, side covers and one upper saddle bag lid and both lowere saddle bags.  Dealer returned all to HD.  Hopefully they are not using USED parts to replace parts on other bikes in the system....HMMMMM..........

The only new part I saw on the bike was a replacement saddle bag lid & it did not have as much red flake in it as the original & did not really match the one on the other side.  I feel for all those still stuck with this issue.  It ain't right.

napalm

[cigarmike]

I dont think they are using repaired parts, but who knows, without going thru the paint on the fix, would be hard to tell. I gave this new paint , one more chance this morning, The suns out and bright, So I waxed it with the best wax I have ever used completely using virgin micro-fibre rag. pulled it out of the garage and into the sun, to be honest, not bad standing back and looking at it, but its still an optical illusion. Laurie says, "I can almost count the flakes" as she is looking at the fairing and the front fender. There are only a handful that you can even see without straining your eyes to look. They are buried in the black if they are there at all. The Tank also just has too much flake. The lower bags are about the best match on this. [highlight]BUT[/highlight] The true judge of a quaility paint job is with regular old flashlight in an enclosed area. The waxing (3 coats) seemed to help, but doesnt do anything close to correcting this. The clearcoat is still cloudy compared to the Lids and inner fairing. Nice crisp clear compared to cloudy color sanded scratched rubbed out clear. Yes, you can see the sanding marks all over. maybe they stopped the step down process at 400 grit looks like to me, Id of finished with 2000 grit if I was the painter. Idealy, the last coat of clear is a non-sanded one, thats how you get a factory finish. That isnt what happened here. The fairing is the worst, theres 3 spots of what looks like gray primer in/under the clearcoat, and the over all fit is terrible on this, doesnt line up on the edges like the old one did. also, on the edges, they didnt get enough black, so have a purple/pink edge where the inner and outer meet clearly visable by even a blind person, and again, hardly any crimson flake to speak of. Im calling today when I am a little calmed down, and speak with San Ramon and call John Selensky. Im sorry, I cant accept this. To their credit, MoCo is trying, and San Ramon had been awesome thru all this. But I want what I paid for....A new bike that I can keep the paint perfect on for as long as I possible can, What I have had so far is a Defective paint job from day one, and now a bad repaired paint job.

[cigarmike]

Fairing, these are about the best I can get some of these photos, more obvious to the naked Eye. The purple/pink edge on fairing

[cigarmike]

again

[cigarmike]

Tank

[cigarmike]

Tank, here you can clearly see the cloudy clear on the left, and the clear clear on the right.

[cigarmike]

Bags

[cigarmike]

Bags again