Unfortunately not anytime soon. See, the problem isn't quite the same as it was back in the late 1970's and early 1980's, when the Japanese car companies made the big leap in popularity over the junk the Big 3 were cranking out at the time. In those days you had consumer mags and newspapers trumpeting the virtues of the imports and bashing the domestics, swaying public opinion. You don't see that these days with Harley; they still get kid glove treatment from mags and so-called news reports. And the biggest reason you won't see any change in the short term is the people who typically buy a Harley. We see it on this site all the time, where someone has had nothing but problems with two or more Harley's in a row and yet still goes back and buys another one. That is not normal behavior in most any other market I can think of, but Harley has done a great job of brainwashing their customers. The real question, in my opinion, is if they will be able to brainwash the younger generations to accept the lower quality and higher prices. Considering the behavior of a large percentage of the millenial's so far, I don't think so.
I'm sincerely hoping Polaris can start putting a real dent in the Harley stranglehold on the heavyweight motorcycle market. With the Indian line they have the style and "cool" factor that Harley relies on so heavily, and if the quality and reliability hold up they will finally have a real challenger for Harley.
JMHO - Jerry
True, and will attempt to refrain from commenting on brain power of said customers, since I are one.
When I first read bike mags - late '60's - 1970's - it seemed each "featured" bike was the best ever.....until the next issue came out when that bike was the 'best ever.' Was a teen then so did not realize the bias for a while, but eventually I did. The car mags of the same era had biases too, but as memory serves, not to the extent bike mags had at the time.
Nowadays bike mags are still fairly suspect. HD has it's own mag to push it's own propagnda. There are some consumer oriented web sites that delve into unvarnshed truths, and that is where you see the warts of the Harleys, Beemers, Wingers, etc. Not that the "Brand Faithful" acolytes care to notice. The ones whose mantra is "if you don't ride a _________, you ain't worth chit". But there are those of us who have noticed & are less than pleased. Same is true on other brands.
Have had a comp swap on my 10 & anticipate another. A real weak link - pun intended - in the HD drive train. Will they ever fix it? Who knows?
As to Indian & Polaris - in a way, if they eat into HD market share enough, it could be the salvation of HD, long term. The 1970's car companies awoke after losing huge market share, recovered, & today make a better product. Perhaps HD will wake up some day. So far with sales what they are for the brand & their weak competition for their market, they do not have to. $$$ blinds not only mgt., they blind shareholders as well.
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Topic: Compensator noise (Read 5429 times)