Chip, just think what your relationship and appreciation with the 09 bike would be if you had to suffer through a dealer experience that wasn't so exceptional. Repetitive errors with a shop that looked for ways to avoid or explain away problems rather than reach out and resolve them.
A mftr telling someone that a hydraulic lifter is actually ok when it drains back and lets a cold engine rap like a small washing machine is only giving license to any dealer who wants a reason to avoid doing warranty work. What a stupid thing for a modern OE to suggest. Hydraulic tappets stopped draining back before I was born....
Unfortunately, when unqualified corporate fools are allowed to overrule the trained engineers and cause multiple quality and reliability problems, they tend to try to cover those stupid errors by making even more ignorant pronouncements that the resulting crap is "normal". Look at the situation with pretty much every major issue that surfaced in 2007, from head gasket leaks due to el cheapo cylinders to the starter issues to the crankshaft from hell fiasco that still exists to this day. Ignore the problem, then deny the problem, then try to BS your way out of fixing the problem, then offer up a do-nothing cheap fix to make a little more time pass by, and then finally make a change in production but fight with some (but not all) customers who demand their older bikes get the fix. Better yet, just do like they did with the crank and keep changing the specs until the defective crap will pass.
Please, can someone pretty please explain to me why so many people keep letting these jerks get away with this stuff? I've read more than one post on this site where someone complained (at least here on the site) long and loud about all the problems on his bike that H-D and the dealer refused to fix, and then all of a sudden he fixed it himself by trading the POS in for another one. Yeah, that really hurt the MoCo and will make them do better in the future. I think psychologists call that "enabling". Here's a clue, it's not a good thing.
As long as people keep letting the clowns in Milwaukee do it to them, then I guess they deserve what they get. I've lost all sense of sympathy for the folks who should know better, and reserve my sympathy for the newbies who have no idea what kind of BS they can expect when dealing with Harley-Davidson. I think the term "caveat emptor" was created in response to the business practices of Harley-Davidson.
Jerry
Oh yeah, back to the subject. Muddypaws, what the dealer and/or the MoCo is telling you about the 30 second wait for the POS lifters to pump up is total BS. That is
not an industry standard, nor is it likely to be a blueprint specification for their particular lifter. It is most definitely not normal, and if they persist in the BS I suggest you take them to small claims court and kick their azz. I think you could find dozens of expert witnesses from the ranks of the automotive repair industry that could testify about how hydraulic lifters work as well as testify that major leak down and slow recovery is absolutely not normal.
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Topic: Lifter noise (Read 6326 times)