Please share if you have or get a bulletin number about the SE compensator, I called customer service and was told the klunking at start is normal and they won't do a thing for it with my 09 SEUC. I said that the 10 has the new SE compesator and she said again that they won't do a thing for me with my compesator and that the clunking was "Normal". To say I was a little perturbed was an understatement. She spoke to me like I was a 5 year old. and just kept repeating over and over. So please share any info you get. I would love to call them back with a some info. Sounds like the new SE compensator has helped allot of owners on this site with starting issues. Thanks!
If you only mention a "clunk", you will get the standard answer that the young lady was reading to you from her computer screen, and it's the same answer they put out shortly after the launch of the 2007's. The clunk is "normal". Unfortunately, lots of chitty stuff is "normal" with a Harley, but that doesn't make it "acceptable".
They know perfectly well that the compensator design was junk from the git-go, and the fact that they finally made the SE design standard in 2010 tells me that they finally decided it was cheaper to upgrade the stock setup versus paying to fix all those starters.
Is your only issue right now the clunking sound? Or do you have the actual starting issues, with kickback and failure to start and grinding noises and all the other stuff? I think if you just call complaining about the clunk you will just get the standard answer, but if you have actual starter failures and other potentially expensive failures they will be more inclined to upgrade the compensator as part of the total repair to save themselves multiple repairs and dollars. At least that seems to be what has been reported by many of the folks who have had such repairs made recently. But if you just call wanting a free upgrade because you've read about others getting one, and you don't really have a starter or starting problem, it's highly unlikely they will offer to upgrade your compensator. They, and most other manufacturer's, don't normally work that way.
Jerry