Hi mates,

i am planning to order a new Fatboy 08 and use it daily to go to work.

question :

How many km can you do before having some mechanical issues ? what would be the Haley equivalent of 150,000km with a car ?

how reliable the bike will be for a daily usage ?

thanks

fred

I spoke to a guy on the side of the road a couple of weeks ago who owned a 2003 dyna and it looked like he hadn't washed it from new,it had a 119,000km on it and he said the only problem he has had during that time was a stator. He hadn't even checked the Cam chain tensioners that everyone is parranoid will shit themselves anywhere from 20,000kms on. Hope this helps? Of course I didn't know him from a bar of soap, but he didn't seem to care if I believed him or not, and after looking at his bike and chatting to him I have no reason to doubt .

Good thing about living on an island (Tassie) is that bikes don't get stolen that much. There are people in the club with 100plus klicks with no problems.

Three things to remember with any Harley. Warm it up properly,change your oil at regular intervals (7000-8000K using synthetic in a TC96) and dont go revin' the guts out of it all the time and it will last forever. They still are a very under stressed engine. As for it gettin' stolen, I rang around gettin' insurance quotes for my FXD when I bought it and was surprised how cheap it was. General story was there are very few claims on Harleys for accident or theft.

If you service your bike right the only issue you should have is poor fuel choice & engine re-build.
You'll have to replace the drive belt around 65,000Kms if it needs it.

With the 08 Softails u should get 200,000KMS MIN> before engine overhaul if you change your oil at recommended intervals & use a high zinc oil (motorcycle oil mainly).

There is little problem with fuel injected models going to work everyday as they are more precise & automatic in fuel delivery.

Make sure you run your new bike in right if u want it to last but try not lug it. Follow the manual guidelines til its run in, then thrash it a couple dozen times.