2007harleydavidsonroadkingclassic01

Harley-Davidson® 2007

Road King®, Electra Glide®, Road Glide®, Street Glide®, Ultra Classic®

Dyna Super Glide®, Dyna Wide Glide®, Dyna Low Rider, Dyna Street Bob®

Softail Standard®, Softail Deuce®, Softail Fatboy®, Softail Deluxe®, Softail Heritage®

Make sure and ask some informed questions before you buy a 2007 Harley-Davidson with the new 96" engine and 6 speed transmission. There are a few problems and you need to be informed when you walk into your local dealership. I am not being a Harley basher as we are big fans of their products overall. I have substantiating testimonies from many owners who are having problems such as we did. I also have testimonies from folks that have little to no issues. Some folks are miserable while others are happy as pigs in slop. I am posting all of the fixes for common problems that I have found. There are now 21 pages (as of 1/22/2007) of information on this site and links to much more on other websites. If you have the patience to wander through it all you may find something of interest. If there is anything that is obviously wrong then please let me know. You read the story and be the judge. I just want you to know the correct questions to ask your salesperson or how to fix your bike if you are having problems.

NEW, NEW, NEW.... H-D HAS ISSUED A RECALL AND IS REMAPPING THE BIKES

THIS IS NEW FIRE IS INSPIRATIONAL.....

Our Story: My wife bought a 2007 Harley-Davidson Road King Classic on Monday August 21, 2006. We shopped four different dealers and were told by all of the salespeople how great the new 96" engine and 6 speed transmission is. By the time we got it home from the dealers the day it was purchased the better half was already complaining bitterly about it.

Before we go any farther I don't want ya'll to think I have a wife that don't understand motorcycles. Her father started her out riding in the 1960's. She has been riding dirt bikes since she was a kid and has always had a motorcycle. Soon after turning sixteen she started riding road bikes. She actually learned to ride street bikes on a Pan Head with a jockey shift and suicide clutch. Before we bought this Road King she was riding her 1973 FLH shovel head at least three days per week. Before that she owned a 1977 Sportster and nothing but Harleys previous to this. She has more than 30 years of experience riding every type of putt made from a knuckle on up.

When we got home she was complaining about excessive heat being generated by the engine. She said it was nearly too hot to stay on the bike when it was stopped in traffic. I told her not to worry and take it out the next day for a long ride and see how it acted. The next day she put a couple of hundred miles on it. By the time she got home from this day of riding she was complaining not only about excessive heat but surging as well. The bike would not run steady as it was going down the road. It surged constantly. I told her to keep riding it and see if any of this got better.

The next day she called her salesperson in tears. She said there seemed to be a serious problem with her bike. He asked her if it was surging without any prompting. Apparently between selling us the bike and us getting it home he heard rumors about the surging problems. He said they had seen several 2007's with that problem and to bring it in at 500 miles and they would discuss it. This is where we made our first mistake. We were still within our first 48 hours of ownership. We should have carried it back to the dealer and said fix it or refund our money. Apparently you have 48 hours to do this in Georgia.

She had her first 500 break-in miles on the bike by Thursday, August 24 and we took it in for the 500 mile service on Friday morning. The 500 mile service is not in the manual but we opted to go ahead and drop the break in oil early as recommended by our dealer. We explained all of our concerns and the dealer said that they were having problems with some of the new bikes due to E.P.A. regulations. They said that Harley can't make the bikes pass E.P.A. emissions standards without leaning them out excessively. This is a bunch of hooey. I don't care if it is E.P.A., F.B.I., AFL-CIO, H.U.D., or the local women's flower club; Harley-Davidson should not start selling a new engine setup until they can make it run correctly.

I have talked to the service representatives at several different Harley dealers at present who have encountered this problem. They have told me that due to the current engine map leaning the bikes out to meet current E.P.A. standards all of them are a little hotter and some seem to run very hot. Harley does not have another official E.P.A. approved map for the engine yet. Each individual dealer seems to have a different fix and some say there is no fix. Others just deny that there is any problem at all. The better dealers are remapping the engine along with other tweaks here and there. Some of them are remapping at their expense, others are charging the client. Ask your salesperson who is going to pay for the remap if your bike happens to be one that needs it.

So on Friday , August 25 our dealer tells us the only way to make the bike run properly is to spend more money. They said the best fix is to change the mufflers, air cleaner, buy a race tuner and remap the engine. This is what they did to the 2007's that they had personally purchased. If they had to do this to theirs then they knew there were some problems before selling one to us. Since the fix is an non E.P.A. approved off-road only parts swap they said we had to do it at our own expense. There is no factory warranty fix for the problem yet.

This meant there had to be another 1,400.00 dollars spent to make the bike run well enough to ride. This is absurd; sell someone a 20,000 dollar motorcycle and then charge them 1,400 to make it run correctly? This should have been done on Harley's dime under warranty. We sucked it up, paid up and within five minutes of leaving the dealership the wife said the bike was acting like a completely different bike. The engine is running much cooler now, the surging issue is mostly gone and it has more get up and go that a monkey on meth. This problem solved. The better halfs mood was getting better.

The next day she left for her annual run which meets up in Gatlinburg Tennessee and then goes on to Charleston S.C. with her old scooter friends. Before she got to Gatlinburg the cruise control, horn, blinkers and brake lights quit working. We called the local dealer in Tennessee and they said they were closing in one hour and didn't have time to look at it. They said they had a technician working on Sunday but he was not qualified to hunt down an electrical short. The service manager recommended we take it back home to our purchasing dealer. So the wife's week long road trip was ended on the first day. Five days and two major glitches.

The culprit for the electrical short was the accessory wire inside the headlight. Harley had left a jagged piece of metal inside the headlight housing and it was cutting like a knife. The wire was cut in three different places. A little work to smooth down the rough edge and the installation of a new wire solved the problem. The Harley technician told me that he has seen several problems with electrical shorts in the 2007 Harley-Davidsons. He has seen multiple pinched blinker wires in the forward controls. He has also seen pinched cruise control wires in the neck region and pinched wires in the fairings of the new dressers. He said these were easy fixes though.

I will say that our purchasing dealer has been quick to address all of our issues and are really at the mercy of Harley-Davidson on the mapping issue. It was our option on whether or not to spend the 1,400 bucks to change the breather, exhaust and remap the engine. We felt it necessary to drop the cash to fix it because what is the point of a motorcycle that is no fun to ride? Besides, a happy wife is more important than money or principles. Now we are sitting around and waiting to see what trouble crops up next. We bought the better half a new bike for reasons of reliability. I was starting to worry about the 1973 Electra Glide stranding her but at this point I think it may be more reliable than the 2007 Road King. If you are having issues with your 2007 Harley-Davison please email me at biners@crowderinc.com.

Page 1 (Houston, We have a problem!) Page 2 (Our story continues)

Page 3 (I hear from others with the same problem)

Page 4 (Our exact fix) Page 5 (Other potential fixes)

Page 6 (What's up with the noisy gear box??)

Page 7 (Potential buyers are starting to freeze up)

Page 8 (Some folks are quite happy with their '07 H-D's)

Page 9 (Other problems I am hearing about) Page 10 (other resources)

PAGE 11 (THE MOST INFORMATIVE EMAIL I HAVE RECEIVED)

page 12 (an attempt to gather my thoughts)

PAGE 13 (THE MOCO ISSUES A RECALL)

PAGE 14 (FIRE IS INSPIRATIONAL....)