The Harley customer service saga begins (again) 😞

Well here we go again. I keep having problems with my V-Rod all the way back to 2007 when I first purchased it new off the showroom floor. The exhaust heat shields would break the welds and fall off on a regular basis. Luckily under warranty, because it would necessitate replacing the $900 exhaust system each time. Out of warranty when they broke again I welded it back together myself with modified clips I fab-ed up that no longer break off. Also The original exhaust system would rub on the lower frame rail and rub a hole right through the frame member. The exhaust had a factory change in 2009 to alleviate this problem. I finally got the factory to update my exhaust to the 2009 exhaust, after going round and round with HD, (in and out of the shop 4 times) this solved the problem, even though they denied there was a problem. These early bikes also had a solid aluminum triple tree stem that would stretch and loose the bearing pre-load, causing a high-speed wobble, updated a few years later with the steering stem that no longer looked like it was from a bicycle. The frosting on the cake was when I found out the hard way that the suspension traveled on the rear shocks was just a wild guess when they built the bike. I hit a small pothole 2-up, and the rear wheel went up into the fender, ripped the plastic finder covers off, and ripped the taillight, electrical harness, and the blinker license plate assembly off the back of the bike. I won't even go into the paint peeling off of everything up front, or the motor mounts failing.

Now here is where the saga really begins......

My fuel gauge never really did work from when it was new. It would randomly read too high, too low, or just empty out of the blue, whether it was or not, and it wasn't just me. Scores of people had the same problems from 2007 through 2012. My buddies I rode with back then all had the same fuel gauge issues, so it wasn't just me like Harley Davidson Tech line would suggest. On a trip coming over the Golden Gate Bridge in the fog my 2007, and a buddies 2008, both failed at the same time. Turns out there's a higher failure rate with fuels that contain alcohol if there's a large temperature change. That's part of the reason it seems so intermittent, especially in states without the fuel-alcohol requirement. The dealer I purchased it from changed the fuel sender to no avail. Sometime later another dealer confirmed the problem on a dyno, then replaced the fuel sender with an updated part number sending unit, and even swapped the instrument cluster, both to no avail. They went as far as stating on my receipt, quote: "no fix at this time but HD we'll fix it if a bulletin comes out. Swapping parts will result in the same thing." Well a fix did come out..... As you can see in the pictures below, the sending unit itself was changed to an updated version in 2013.

Take a look at the bottom of these same part number sender tubes from not one but 2 different bikes. There is a float inside the new sender to help the sonic sensor find the correct level of fuel. Now I would just replace the sender myself, but with the sonic sensor reading the top of the float, the ECU has to be reprogrammed in order to read the correct fuel level.

Now here's the rub. Even though HD is aware the sender in my DX is bad and my repair paperwork states "HD will fix if a bulletin comes out" it is a secret update as a fix for 2007 thru 2013 V-Rod, and even the part number for the new update to the sender is obscured by not changing the part number or updating the suffix letter from the original part number. It still has a 2009 part number (75210-09) with no "A" after it, even though the part was changed significantly in 2013. The only reference to the change is a service information release on how to reprogram the ECU to the new fuel sensor readings so the gauge won't read higher than what is actually in the tank and run out of fuel. In the past HD suggested that running out of fuel was not a safety issue so no recall or service bulletin was ever issued for the V-Rod. Well believe me, when merging onto a highway and running out of fuel at the same time, it is a safety issue, and the NHTSA apparently agrees as noted in this recall #14V185000 "the gauge inaccuracy may cause the motorcycle to run out of fuel unexpectedly, possibly even before the low fuel warning lamp illuminates. The lack of fuel would cause the motorcycle to stall, increasing the risk of a crash". The recall was for Harley Davidson 2013-2014 FXSB and FXSBSE motorcycles, setting a precedence to the incorrect assertion by HD that running out of fuel is not a safety issue.

Now I don't blame them for trying to hide this fix. A recall would involve every V-Rod from 2007 to 2013. That's a lot of cash to put out from an ailing company. Just ask GM, and Toyota how it went for them. but a TSB to help out those of us who have documented this problem starting back in 2007, would have been nice, especially after they told me they would contact me if you fixed came out. Greg Davis was the factory technical adviser that told us at a rally it was the glue they used to assemble the senders that was bad and that Harley gave us an opened ticket on future replacements.This is when we learned the '09 sender was a different part #, but at the time there was no mention of a ECU flash, as this came later when the TSB came out for the '07 and '08 replacement. Of course they just had to toss in foot note statement saying there was no need to replace an '07 or '08 sender unless you could confirm it was not functioning, even though they knew it was a defective part, but very hard, and or very expensive to confirm when it is an intermittent failure that you have to be riding the bike, and not just looking at it in a shop.

So now what. HD says I have to go back to the dealer to have them call HD tech services and see if they can get a good faith repair on a bike out of warranty. HD won’t tell me one way or the other, just stating my bike is a bit old now. This puts me in a bad position as it will cost me $120 for the dealer to call HD Tech, and another $120 or more if HD wants the Dealer to recreate the issue again as they already did back in 2009, but since there was no fix available. At that point HD could just say no, and I am out $220 or more for nothing, and back to the drawing board with a bad fuel gauge that HD knew was bad back in early 2009 when it was on warranty with no fix available.

To be continued: (part A)

So I was riding down the highway splitting traffic and ran out of fuel!

Unsafe enough for you HD? I make it a habit to top off before parking the bike, but this time I guess I skipped it, and forgot. Fired the bike up, and the fuel gauge said almost full so off I went. I should've known better when the fuel gauge climbed from almost full to full full?!? When I refueled the bike, it took a little more than 5 gallons to fill the 5 gallon tank. Going to try to call Harley tech services one last time. They always have one excuse or another, so what do you guys think plan B should be?

(A) Lawsuit small claims court?

(B) Try to get NHTSA to help out? There are dozens of complaints file at the NHTSA website listing erratic fuel gauges from 2007 on up.

(B,1) NHTSA has also directed me to the FTC to file a complaint against the manufacture for hiding the repair status and and just giving me (and lots of others) the runaround.

(C) Just repaired myself and see if I can get the ECU update somehow?

(D) Just sell the damn thing and get a real bike?

To be continued: (part B)

Called Harley one last time. They are using plausible denial to say that there is no record of a change to the fuel sending unit. I offered to send them pictures of the same part number tubes showing two different parts. Of course they weren't interested, and just insisted that there was no change because there was no record of a change in there system. I also discovered that they didn't document telling the dealer to tell me that they would fix it when a real repair came out. So I apparently just got the run-around until my warranty expired and then the famous Harley F-off, your out of warranty. Good thing I was insistent about the frame rail problem back then. They kept trying to get me to put that one off as well.

Not exactly the kind of company I would ever want to buy another bike from.

__To be continued: (Part C)
__

So what did I end up doing after all? I purchased a brand-new sending unit and confirmed it had the float in the tube. I installed it myself after calling several dealer service managers. To my surprise, I found a dealership service manager that was capable of an intelligent conversation about my sending unit woes, and was able to help me out. It seems the service manager at San Jose Harley Davidson, actually cares about not only his customers but his service personnel as well. The environment in his shop is head and shoulders above any I have ever seen. If you have an HD or Buell, this is the only dealership in the Bay Area I would ever go to. And I have been to a few.