How many 2017 and 2018 SG owners have experienced oil leaks from their rear rocker box? I just picked up my brand new 2018 yesterday and about 227 miles into the ride home, I noticed oil in the rear rocker box, side cover, seat and my chaps. I talked to my buddy, who is a certified HD mechanic and he told me that his friend, who is a service manager at a dealership told him that this is a common problem with the 2017 and 2018 SG bikes. Mine will be going into the shop this week to get repaired under warranty.
2017-2018 SG rear rocker box oil leak
- Thread starter NGOT8R
- Start date
I had a similar situation with my 2018 SGS. They told me it was overfilled initially and it just had its 15,000 service with no issues at all. The oil leak appeared before its first 1000 mile service. Everything has been absolutely perfect since.
So, the dealership just changed your oil at the 1000 mile service and put in the correct amount of oil to fix your leak? I hope mine is that simple. This is certainly not the way I wanted to start out with this new bike. It's things like this (obvious quality control issues at the plant level), that make it hard for me to trust anyone to do any kind of work for me. I am going to put my faith in the dealership though and believe that they will get it taken care of.
Well, I spoke to the dealership yesterday and learned that they have ordered two new rocker boxes and rocker box covers, as well as revised gaskets for my bike, to repair the oil leak. This sounds to me like there may have been a machining issue with some of the rocker boxes and rocker box covers during the manafacturing process. I sure hope they get things wrapped up soon and get the bike back to me without any further issues.
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I've heard from my buddy, who is a certified HD mechanic and good friends with the service manager at a local dealership, that they have seen this problem with both 2017 and 2018 M8 motors.
My rear leaked. Very little, but enough it attracted dust and a small run. Nothing like the pictures I have seen here. The repaired it and told me it was a known issue and it was a defect in the gasket and the replacement from Harley has been upgraded.
I talked to a guy in service at my local HD dealership about the rocker box leak issue this evening. He told me that this is a known problem and that they have done at least a dozen repairs on brand new bikes right off of the truck, before they hit the showroom floor. He said the dealership can run your VIN# and it will show which bikes call for the repair. They think it was a bad run on the rocker boxes, and rocker covers at the manufacturing plant. He also confirmed that there is a revised rocker cover gasket out as part of the fix. Hope this helps someone. This Friday will make two weeks since my bike has been in the shop for the rocker box oil leak. I am a bit irritated behind this because it seems that the parts should have been shipped to the dealership overnight on a new bike that has already been paid for in full. SMH
