I beg to differ Hulkss, it absolutely is HD. It was their attorneys who made the deal with the EPA. They had other options, there are always other options. The EPA does not have the authority to change law, nor the authority to grant amnesty from the law. Therefore they cannot “force” Harley to ignore the Magnuson-Moss Warranty Act. Harley is choosing to do so and made that deal in order to avoid the legal fees of fighting the good fight against the EPA. They and the EPA knew full well that saying the warranty would be void is enough to cause most people to fear it, and thereby they acheive their goal of controlling behavior of those people. The EPA gets what they want, and a pleasant side effect for Harley is that most people are now scared into buying only Harley performance upgrades. This is a huge perk for Harley because in the past almost everybody went with aftermarket parts because they are better, and Harley gets to blame the EPA. If warranty is actually denied, it will always be for some reason that passes legal muster, or they risk getting sued under the act. It is bean counting at its finest, risk versus reward. The Magnuson-Moss Warranty Act explicitly states that warrantors cannot require that only branded parts be used with the product in order to retain the warranty. In order for a class action lawsuit to develop there will need to be people who have written documentation that the warranty was denied simply due to use of aftermarket parts, and that will never happen.
Having said all that; a person cannot modify the workings of any motor, no matter if it’s bike, car or truck and then if a motor malfunction develops, realistically expect any type of dealership to just fix it without them first challenging that your mods might have caused the problem. Those of us who have owned muscle cars, Jeeps or modified trucks know this to be true. When you start messing with things on your own, you should expect any type of dealer to try to weasle out of legitimate warranty work. Hell, they try to do that even when you haven’t messed with a vehicle.