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[Doc 1]

After reading about the intake valve noise I have to share with you all what a customer of mine told me a few weeks back. He had is bike tuned three times by a local dealership and they could never get the popping out and the tuner told him it was a fairly new bike and the carbon hasn't seated the valves yet....this is why we can't stop the popping, you have to get more miles on the bike and then it will stop.....
It is amazing what comes out or the mouth of a Harley tech......I only can hope some day, some where, one Harley Tec can actually speak the truth and say'' I don't know'' instead of filling people so full of BS. However sad to say it doesn't stop just at Harley Dealers, I had our local TV Cable company come to the house to give me a faster Internet connection.....once the tec installed the new modem and checked the speed I saw it wasn't any faster than what I already had.....his response was'' Oh it has to have time to break in''..... ....I looked at this guy and as kind as I could be told him to get out.....
They are every where these days......
Doc

[grc]

After reading about the intake valve noise I have to share with you all what a customer of mine told me a few weeks back. He had is bike tuned three times by a local dealership and they could never get the popping out and the tuner told him it was a fairly new bike and the carbon hasn't seated the valves yet....this is why we can't stop the popping, you have to get more miles on the bike and then it will stop.....
It is amazing what comes out or the mouth of a Harley tech......I only can hope some day, some where, one Harley Tec can actually speak the truth and say'' I don't know'' instead of filling people so full of BS. However sad to say it doesn't stop just at Harley Dealers, I had our local TV Cable company come to the house to give me a faster Internet connection.....once the tec installed the new modem and checked the speed I saw it wasn't any faster than what I already had.....his response was'' Oh it has to have time to break in''..... ....I looked at this guy and as kind as I could be told him to get out.....
They are every where these days......
Doc

Sad but true Doc.  I've never seen so many people unwilling to admit they don't know, or worse yet so many people that know better but prefer to lie rather than tell the customer the truth which will then mean they have to actually do something to fix the problem.  Ignorance isn't a mortal sin, but being too lazy and useless to tell someone the truth and then fix the problem is seriously bad.  When there is no attempt by management to address either of those issues, which seems to be the case in all too many establishments, the ignorant and the liars just keep getting a free ride to continue being ignorant or liars.  That's where I really fault H-D and many/most of it's dealers.  I don't see any effort at all from the corporate level to upgrade the quality of dealer parts and service employees, or to hold the dealers accountable for poor customer service and high complaint rates for instance.  We all know how intrusive Harley can be with it's dealers when it comes to things like advertising discounted prices or selling out of market area, so obviously they have the clout when they choose to exercise it.

As we continue further down the road toward totally disposable products, this will all become moot.  There won't be repair facilities or a need for knowledgeable technicians; when stuff breaks we will just dump it in the pile of other such crap and buy a new one.  Works for the folks selling electronics these days.  Sadly, with the abysmal reliability of Harley, continuing to buy and own them will really test the faith of the faithful, as well as their financial resources.

JMHO - Jerry

[Doc 1]

 :So very well said Jerry.....as usual.....

[tweeter13]

I also have to say that sometimes the tech tells the service writer and then he relays the information to the customer.   The service writer may not even have a clue to how a internal combustion engine even works.  So when the customer asks a question the service writer gives some bs answer to get them out of his hair.  Sometimes I have seen service people just talk over people's heads using big words and and not trying to put it into terms people understand. 

Also when a service writer takes a persons information does he or she understand what the customer is saying or just assume they know what's wrong with it before the mechanic works on the vehicle and then leads a mechanic in the wrong direction.

I wish each mechanic would talk to customers and write the service orders but most don't want to speak to the person who's vehicle they are working on.  Which is why sometimes, it takes several times to take your vehicle in to get repaired. 

But from a mechanics point of view you must first be able to duplicate the complaint to properly diagnosis the problem.  So it's the writers responsibility to ask a lot of questions for the mechanic. 

 It can be easier when it's a car because the customer can test drive with the writer and show the problem and know exactly what the problem they are experiencing.  But good service writer asks a lot of questions and writes it down. 



Todd.

[grc]

You are absolutely correct Todd.  In many cases the problem starts with the service writer, especially the lazy ones or the ones who think they know it all, because they don't ask the right questions and then pass along all the info to the tech on the work order.  For instance, the customer may just know they have a funny noise that seems to be coming from the front end.  The appropriate response from the writer might be to question the customer about the circumstances when he hears this noise to try to gain better definition to give the tech a fighting chance to at least look in the right area or under what conditions he will need to ride/drive to duplicate the problem.  But all too often the writer will just put down a few word description like "noise in front end".  The other common problem I saw when I was a service rep was the know it all writer who never wrote down the details of the customers actual complaint, but just made his own (often wrong) diagnosis and wrote down a specific repair to make.  Thus the tech gets a RO that just says something like "Adjust Steering Head" rather than "Customer states the bike has a low speed wobble when decelerating".  The tech just does what the RO says, doesn't do any diagnotics or road testing because he has no information giving him the reason for checking the steering head adjustment. 

When I talk about proper training and accountability for service personnel, I don't mean to throw it all on the front line tech.  The entire department needs to be competent and properly trained, from the service manager to the wash boy (who can damage a lot of stuff if he doesn't know what he's doing).  The system is only as good as the weakest link in the chain.

Jerry

[HILLSIDECYCLE.COM]

After reading about the intake valve noise I have to share with you all what a customer of mine told me a few weeks back. He had is bike tuned three times by a local dealership and they could never get the popping out and the tuner told him it was a fairly new bike and the carbon hasn't seated the valves yet....this is why we can't stop the popping, you have to get more miles on the bike and then it will stop.....
It is amazing what comes out or the mouth of a Harley tech......I only can hope some day, some where, one Harley Tec can actually speak the truth and say'' I don't know'' instead of filling people so full of BS. However sad to say it doesn't stop just at Harley Dealers, I had our local TV Cable company come to the house to give me a faster Internet connection.....once the tec installed the new modem and checked the speed I saw it wasn't any faster than what I already had.....his response was'' Oh it has to have time to break in''..... ....I looked at this guy and as kind as I could be told him to get out.....
They are every where these days......
Doc

Break in time...........
"Hey Moe, I was trying to think and nothin' was happenin' "................
Scott

[prodrag1320]

big problem with MMI/wyotech grads & HD techs.not sure if their taught that or just come up with it on their own.being close to both schools,i cant beleave some of the stuff customers tell me they were told by students (& grads)

[HD Street Performance]

And what is the current salary range for a qualified PHD HD tech? And a motor clothes salesperson, very close to the same I betcha.  My point, not nearly enough to attract good techs. Even if they had the talent the techs still have a parts and service infrastructure deficit.

[Jswerve]

And what is the current salary range for a qualified PHD HD tech? And a motor clothes salesperson, very close to the same I betcha.  My point, not nearly enough to attract good techs. Even if they had the talent the techs still have a parts and service infrastructure deficit.

Very well said. Kind of a "you get what you pay for".

[charles05663]

Very well said. Kind of a "you get what you pay for".

I wish that applied to the  CVO's.  I paid a lot for mine and still have to make upgrades to fix things.

 

[Jswerve]

I wish that applied to the  CVO's.  I paid a lot for mine and still have to make upgrades to fix things.

 

Oh man you're preaching to the choir. My baby is in the shop with 19k on the odometer and heads tore down!

[bikerboy53]

Well, I did get the bike out with the TTS and laptop (I have an "old" black TTS) hooked up over the weekend. The data recording showed that the spark retard was hitting 8 degrees without too much effort on my part. So it's not just intake valve noise. I've tried two different brands of octane boost, and have been steadily upping the dosage, but even the octane boost doesn't seem to make much difference.

Doc -thanks for the suggestion about increasing the acceleration enrichment, but this seems to be more a function of throttle position. Meaning that once I hit a throttle position that causes pinging, if I hold it at that position it continues to ping until I let off on it, or go to WOT. It may still be pinging even at WOT, but it doesn't make an audible noise at that point.

If octane booster kills the O2 sensors, then mine may already be toast! I used quite a bit of it on my old 120R (same sensors), and now the bike is back on the (octane boost) bottle again with the T124. 

I appreciate everyone's comments and suggestions. The shop that did the tuning is still working with me, but they're 400 miles from my house so I have to schedule a time to get it back down there. I have to admit that when I told the shop owner what the dyno operator said, he seemed pretty alarmed, but I was out of time and needed to head out on the 400 miles back home by that point...

[Steve Cole]

Sound to me like there are still a few tuning issues. IF you collect the data and have the ability to modify the tune yourself we can help you get it trimmed up so you do not have a pinging bike.