Forum

[jenks]

My Electra is now 10 years old,can't afford new,what should I be looking at next ?
Cheers
Jenks

[nigelphoto]

. . . depends how much you want to spend! If you have £2,500 I'd suggest a Classic 500, you'll get a 2010/11 for that with very little miles on the clock.

[Simon D]

Why do you want to change?

[Thunderdird 2]

A Bonneville!

[2cvandy]

Sorry,,,,,,,,, I didn't understand the question,,,,,,,,, my Harley is 12 years old, my Transalp 29, neither have stopped working or turned into pumpkins,,,,,,,,,, or do you live in one of those crazy cities that ban such ancient vehicles?

[papasmurf]

2cvandy you have been very lucky with the Harley.
(Caution bad language in video)

[2cvandy]

Luck has nothing to do with it. I bought my 1st Harley in 1989 and there's been one in my garage ever since, the current one is my 5th, bought 2nd hand 4 years ago with 8k on the clock, it's now done 25k. In all I must have covered over 100k on Harleys, mostly two up touring, many of those miles towing a large camping trailer. Once, on a trip to Italy, the wire to the horn snapped on my Electraglide, obviously you can't ride in Italy without a horn so I fixed it with a paper clip till we got home. But that's it for breakdowns, nothing else has gone wrong with any of them. Of course I've read stuff on Harley forums about people who have had problems, but I suspect it's mostly the types who insist on fixing it till it's broke, usually the problem originates with the loose nut holding the handlebars. I certainly wouldn't have stuck with Harleys all these years if I couldn't rely on em,,,,,,,,,,,,

[papasmurf]

2cvandy, do you service your Harley service you Harley yourself? I ask because in my experience of a friend's Harley despite dealer stamps on the service book going back 10 years, it looked to me as if all they had ever done is wash it and charge £500 a time for services that never happened. It was an appalling unreliable bucket of bolts as a result.
(From talking to people at motorcycle rallies over the years it is not an isolated case either.)

[2cvandy]

Home servicing every time. Can't really comment on dealer servicing, Harley or any other marque, as I don't use em.

[PeteF]

Not just Harlys Papa, I'm convinced lots of dealers do very little but change the oil and filters and maybe check the brakes. That's not what I call proper service. I've always done my own servicing on bikes and have lost count of the times I've fixed things before they become a problem just by proper inspection.
Just for example, I was checking over the wife's Honda yesterday and found the brake calipers was starting to get really sticky. It was working fine and I wouldn't have known only I bothered to removed the caliper to check the piston movement properly. Without this the brake would have been binding pretty soon. Can't see a dealer doing that.