My harley rant for the year

[Mojo]

Hey Motor Company, I see your sales are down overall for a second straight year (maybe more). Other than the fact you are totally ignoring the buying habits and budgets of the younger demographic, here’s some things you COULD do to ensure customer loyalty of the older demographic:
How about ADDING the latest technology for your customer’s safety?
Many of your competitors do.

1. LED Lighting ALL the way around as standard equipment. Have you not noticed the danger element of those 2 TINY Street Glide/ Road Glide tail lights?

2. The Boom Box is a joke OK? Poor sound quality and NO traffic feature!

3. Must have costly extras to use Car Play . . . Seriously? My Honda car doesn’t need any extra$$$ for Car Play to work.

4. TPMS management system. Sure I know it’s standard on the CVO but this is a much needed safety feature!

5. Instrument adjustable Lighting feature FOR SAFETY!!!!!

6. Homelink Accessory would help many as well. Youve got all those dummy buttons by the ignition switch, MAKE USE OF THEM!!

7. Decent Audio speakers. OEM’s are the lowest of the low in quality.

8. And lastly But not least: FREE map upgrades! Such an insult for a $24-$28k Bike.

Be a leader, be an innovator. The bean counters are killing the goose.
LISTEN TO YOUR CUSTOMERS AND FRANCHISEES.

 

[hulkss]

Interesting: No complaints about handling, ride comfort, or engine performance. That's good to see.

 

[Mojo]

Heh, heh, I just got started! Then there's all of that too. lol

 

[Fatbob Frank]

I totally agree on the LED lighting.
I work 3rd shift and there is no substitute for LEDs at night.
Plus the longevity aspect.

My only other issue is how much better my bike rides after installing Legend suspension.
You'd think a bike that cost north of $22k would have a better set of shocks...

 

[BlkDragon]

Harley is all about making money, they know what everyone is needing/wanting and they know they can make money of those so why give them up for FREE..... They will nickel and dime us on every little thing after they got us for the amount of money we all paid for our bikes.

They have watched other competitors offer a bit more for the money but they know they have the market so they will squeeze every penny out of us until people stopped buying their product. They know most of the folks are die hard fans of Harley and will not jump ship, so until they see they sale plum drastically, good luck hoping HD will listen and start changing.

 

[t8ness]

I agree on all your points. Funny how even my 09 bmw RT had TPMS and traction control, that was 10 years ago. But I’ll mention suspension too. My SG was 26k, I shouldn’t have to drop another 2.5k to get a smooth ride, and one that’s stable in long sweeping turns. This is why my 13 BMW RT is my daily rider...

I spoke with probably one of the biggest distributors and installers of Ohlins suspensions on the West Coast. He said Ohlins asked Harley to build suspensions for their bikes, and their response was if you could do it for the same price as our stock setups. Smh


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[Tbird]

Here in the UK you can buy two decent spec small cars for the price of a SGS (irrespective of exchange rate, they've always been priced at 1$=£1) throw in insurance and it's no wonder most youngsters blank HD.

 

[Hurricane]

Call the wambulance and see if they will take you to the nearest Indian, BMW, or Honda dealer. Sounds like they have everything you guys need for the money as those bikes cost just as much. I love my bad handling, poor suspended outdated, underpowered, bad radio, kick ass looking HARLEY DAVIDSON. Haters gonna hate I guess.

 

[Mojo]

Call the wambulance and see if they will take you to the nearest Indian, BMW, or Honda dealer. Sounds like they have everything you guys need for the money as those bikes cost just as much. I love my bad handling, poor suspended outdated, underpowered, bad radio, kick ass looking HARLEY DAVIDSON. Haters gonna hate I guess.

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My rant had nothing to do with hate Hurricane. In fact I just last month bought a new one however, changes and discussion is why we call this a forum so we can exchange tips, ideas and general bantor about a brand we all embrace.

 

[Hurricane]

-----------------------------------
My rant had nothing to do with hate Hurricane. In fact I just last month bought a new one however, changes and discussion is why we call this a forum so we can exchange tips, ideas and general bantor about a brand we all embrace.

Sorry I didn't recognize any tips, ideas, or general bantor about the brand...……….just complaints about overpriced bikes without enough features that comparable brands have. My bad, I apologize.

 

[CoHam]

Sorry I didn't recognize any tips, ideas, or general bantor about the brand...……….just complaints about overpriced bikes without enough features that comparable brands have. My bad, I apologize.

You didn’t recognize any tips, etc. because the title of this thread spells out that it’s a rant, and there is plenty to rant about. I’ve been riding Harleys since the 70’s, but like everybody except the fanboys I knew they sucked as built from the factory. Harley’s crappy engineering and cheap ass approach to everything has fueled the biggest aftermarket of any brand for decades. I ride them because just like a 57 Chevy, there is something about the basic tractor-like simplicity that draws me. It’s definitely not the quality, I have to tear every one of them apart and rebuild them with better components.

Rant-on Mojo, maybe one day the motor company will bother to listen before it’s too late. If it wasn’t for Forbes and all the RUBs that followed then that company would have folded long ago.

 

[Hurricane]

You didn’t recognize any tips, etc. because the title of this thread spells out that it’s a rant, and there is plenty to rant about. I’ve been riding Harleys since the 70’s, but like everybody except the fanboys I knew they sucked as built from the factory. Harley’s crappy engineering and cheap ass approach to everything has fueled the biggest aftermarket of any brand for decades. I ride them because just like a 57 Chevy, there is something about the basic tractor-like simplicity that draws me. It’s definitely not the quality, I have to tear every one of them apart and rebuild them with better components.

Rant-on Mojo, maybe one day the motor company will bother to listen before it’s too late. If it wasn’t for Forbes and all the RUBs that followed then that company would have folded long ago.

Whooo look out, you guys get defensive. It cracks me up that you like the basic tractor-like simplicity yet complain about not being up to date with the competition which is a lot of what was mentioned in the "rant". As for quality I have not been riding Harley's as long as you, only about 20 years and only 4 different HD's, but I have not had any quality issues or been left stranded to complain about. I think we all are aware that we are paying more for a name and an American icon over features and so does HD so I don't think they are listening to any rants. Bike sales are down across all brands, not because of the bikes but because this generation prefers not to ride them.

 

[Mojo]

Whew! Lets all throw some cold water on this and move on.

 

[havinabubble]

Hey Motor Company, I see your sales are down overall for a second straight year (maybe more). Other than the fact you are totally ignoring the buying habits and budgets of the younger demographic, here’s some things you COULD do to ensure customer loyalty of the older demographic:
How about ADDING the latest technology for your customer’s safety?
Many of your competitors do.

1. LED Lighting ALL the way around as standard equipment. Have you not noticed the danger element of those 2 TINY Street Glide/ Road Glide tail lights?

agreed - owning a used Special that has LED headlight and LED tail lights, why aren't ALL the bulbs LED?! specially for the price point you pay new


2. The Boom Box is a joke OK? Poor sound quality and NO traffic feature!

agreed - and at least REMOVE the traffic button if the feature is not available to all.

I have to say I find the sound quality OK (not brilliant, but ok). What I find is the User Interface very confusing and clumsy. again for something as pricey as it is


3. Must have costly extras to use Car Play . . . Seriously? My Honda car doesn’t need any extra$$$ for Car Play to work.

I would just like full compatibility with an up-to-date Android phone at this stage!

as a n00b to stereos on bikes and all this modern electrickery.... for someone like me who works in tec to have to resort to videos and manuals to get a better understanding,
it clearly isn't straight forward IMHO

...and don't even start me on the lack of WHIM issue!



4. TPMS management system. Sure I know it’s standard on the CVO but this is a much needed safety feature!

not a deal breaker IMHO - but available on much cheaper bikes that I was looking at for a friend


5. Instrument adjustable Lighting feature FOR SAFETY!!!!!

agreed - I actually didn't think my dash lights worked the first night as the sun was going down.
friend pointed out his only become visible when it was pitch black and he was right...suddenly I had orange lights and i had to turn the Boom off cause it was blinding me!
(I've since reset the ambient light settings)

6. Homelink Accessory would help many as well. You've got all those dummy buttons by the ignition switch, MAKE USE OF THEM!!

hahah oh I'd like to see that get my garage security un-done LOL.
sorry I dont trust the robots enough yet to have them operate my garage door


7. Decent Audio speakers. OEM’s are the lowest of the low in quality.

at this point I'm finding it novel to listen to tunes. As a low ranking audiophile I have to say I see why you guys step up with the bigger systems...
was playing some tracks at speed at the weekend and the range was rubbish. But in the main it's working for me, I'm enjoying the bike to much to worry about the sound of the stereo


8. And lastly But not least: FREE map upgrades! Such an insult for a $24-$28k Bike.

yes - I took a sharp intake when I found out I needed to stump up a further 100 for an upgrade for 1 years map difference. So I figured i'd wait till 2020 and go 2 years, it'll feel less expensive
I was a little plexed as to why the various updates for dealer/operating system etc where also NOT up to date. For a 24K bike you'd expect tip-top up dates IMHO



Personally I think the MotoCo has come on leaps and bounds in the 29years difference of the newest Harley I owned compared to the 2019 models ....but then so has the number of zeros on the buy-it-now price!

The advancement is the very reason why I went shopping for something MUCH newer for myself, after my lady got herself a 2019 StreeBob with M8 and all its new found trickery I was learning about made me question my old EVO based rides.

But as someone whos just forked out 60 squids on black caps for the 4-point docking system....that STILL wont cover ALL the chrome! NOTHING has changed in the over priced brand image department of H-D

...your mileage may vary