Wow,
So Harley's are really that much of a pain to own as far as maintaining? Well now I am wondering......no matter how nice of a ride they are, I will always be somewhat pissed if it is going to be costing me that much more to have it.
Funny though just about all the friends I have are Harley riders and they never tell me about all this maintenance. My bro in law is on his second harley and he dont know **** on how to wrench anything. Funny I dont see him running for a lot of maintenance. He had his first sporty 10 years and put a ****load of miles on it without many problems far as I could remember. Got another close friend with an 03 V rod that doesn't do all that much to his either.
Gonna have to rethink this a bit now.
I guess I came across wrong Lou. To clarify; on your Honda when you change your oil, it's one plug, one oil, and it seems that a lot of people like putting cheap tractor oil in it. You don't do that with an H/D. Most people change oil and trans fluid. Two separate oils. Most use synthetic. If a bike has a drive belt, it's going to need adjusting, doesn't matter what brand. I know on a Fatboy you have to pull the muffler to be able to adjust it. I don't know if that's the same on a Honda. What Harryc said isn't true I don't believe. If you don't change its oil, I'm sure the bike will continue to run for a long time to come, but why ignore maintenance on a 10k - 15k bike? Taking bikes in to H/D for regularly scheduled maintenance can get pricey, but I'm willing to bet taking a Honda or any other bike I for maintenance would be as much. There's an industry standard for shop labor, doesn't matter what brand you roll in.
It's rare to hear about parts breaking or wearing out on H/D's, just as you don't hear about it too much on any other brand. Years back I had an 89 Springer Softail that I had cammed, and valved and all kinds of other stuff done to it. Never ran dependably afterwards. All the other bikes I've had, I pretty much left stock except for replacing the stock carbs with S&S's and a little dress up here and there. I did have to replace a rear bearing on my last Glide. That's it.
Maybe there's a thought process difference. I know for me anyway, I'll probably take better care of a higher dollar vehicle than a lower cost one. Someone goes out and earns enough to buy a 20k -30k bike they'll probably obsess over the little things with it more so than a 2k beater.
At the end of the day though, I believe that an H/D next to a Honda, the Honda can be maintained a little cheaper. Your maintenance intervals will be about the same though. Part for part, I doubt there's much difference. Never needed any "special" tools. Reliability: I doubt there's much difference. There's going to be a lemon roll of the ship from Japan every now and then just as there'll be one roll out of Milwaukee. Only difference will be that H/D owners won't celebrate hearing about the bum Honda as much as the Honda owners will revel in hearing about the bad H/D.
Go get it man!!!! Fat boys are fun rides, easy to customize, and hold their value. They are easy to work on, and parts and accessories are every where. Even if you don't like it you can get your money back by reselling it, but I doubt that would be the case. The 2003 anniversary editions are also dependable. A friend of mine put over 78000 trouble free miles on his, then he traded it in for a new one, said he was ready for something new. Which is funny to me cause he got a soft tail deluxe, which is exactly the same frame and suspension. LOL
What he said^^^
