Harley-Davidson closing Kansas plant

[infinite_ideation_imp]

LongRanger, the "poor quality" comments regarding Harley stem from decades of...poor quality. In any of the industry studies relating to rates of incident and overall reliability, Harley always ranked at or very near the bottom, in large part because the bikes simply shook the ancillary components to death.

"My motor runs strong. I have X-amount of miles, and she's never given out on me," was the old refrain from the Harley Faithful.

Sure, but how many other parts on your bike failed?

Now, clearly Harley has made great strides in recent years toward modernizing their bikes and making them more reliable. They are no longer anywhere near as shaky and problem-riddled as they were in the Bad Old Days. That being said, they are also still nowhere near as reliable as a Yamaha or Honda.

Not an opinion, nor mere anecdotal evidence. This is a basic statistical fact borne out by annual industry studies of overall reliability.

Yet at an individual level, anecdotal evidence--particularly if it's one's own--is often what influences the next decision.

I had an electrical gremlin on my '04 Sportster, and possibly on my '14 Standard CB1100. I loved both bikes, but no longer have either...conclusion: I will NOT buy a bike manufactured in 2024.

Yet at an individual level, anecdotal evidence--particularly if it's one's own--is often what influences the next decision.

I had an electrical gremlin on my '04 Sportster, and possibly on my '14 Standard CB1100. I loved both bikes, but no longer have either...conclusion: I will NOT buy a bike manufactured in 2024.
It's not even anecdotal, here's an article published on Fool with findings from consumer reports (study performed in 2014) based on bikes manf. and sold between 2009-2012. I think that's still recent enough to be relevant as there haven't been significant strides in tech advances since then - just more electronics. Though this could also be due to Harley having a much larger footprint in the US as they account for the largest majority of bikes sold.

https://www.fool.com/investing/general/2...y-can.aspx

The statistics implied illustrate that Harley owners (alongside BMW) are three to six times more likely to report an issue than other brands. The good news is the issues were cheap to fix, however it does extrapolate to being more expensive to maintain, and less reliable than the competition. I would be interested to know whether or not there's been a revamp of similar studies over the past couple years.

I agree though - once you experience a problem with a specific product or brand, you may be discouraged from buying from them again. Brands like Yamaha/Honda forged years of dedication to building reliable, low maintenance bikes where-as other brands dedicated years to forging an 'experience'.