2004 1200 sporty major crank failiure.

[sportshogger]

I bought a brand new 1200 rubber mounted sporty in 2004, At the start of this year it started to make a horrible noise. after inspecting as much as I could, and not finding anything a miss, I eventually removed the heads and barrels both of which were very badly scored. I also found there to be some up and down play in the front conrod. I asked my local dealer (where I bought the bike) what I should do as it had only covered 13000 miles. He told me that as the warranty was well out of date they could do nothing to help me. he did however recommend an enginneer to repair it. (This guy is very well rated among the Harley community in the U.K.) After he stripped it down, he contacted me to tell me that the crank pin had broken up, and that I should contact H.D. customer services and inform them as it was the third one of these that he had seen with similar milage and the same fault. I was met with some disbelief when I informed H.D. customer services of this. They asked if the Engineer would put this to them in a letter,Which he did. After seven months and alot of talking on the phone they have now told me that they do not intend to give me any help atall. I have owned several older sporters and have never had any problems with them. However, I now have no faith atall in the newer Harley models.Has anyone else had any major problems with the newer sportys.

 

[BLACKnCHROME]

Sorry to hear about your bike, thats a perfect example of todays in it for the $$$ business world. Good luck man

 

[sportshogger]

Sorry to hear about your bike, thats a perfect example of todays in it for the $$$ business world. Good luck man

Thanks dude, I agree with what you say, the prices are coming down but so is the build quality, what I am amazad at is the lack of concern from H.D.U.K. Customer services.

 

[NEWHD74FAN]

Can't comment other than to say I have a 2004 XL1200R and it has been working fine, and theoretically even though you have an "International" model, the base running gear should be the same as yours, and there are certainly many still on the road today in all 883 & 1200 flavors. I would be interested to see if your servicer can run down and compare VINS to see if there is a particular range of months these problems occurred. Could have been something simple like mid year change to different vendor to and actually running change on the 2004 model year that we are not aware of. I have not seen service bulletins so this might be a rare but concentrated failure...really sorry to hear you having problems with customer service, as it is in the best interest of MOCO to support us in the long term.

 

[sportshogger]

Can't comment other than to say I have a 2004 XL1200R and it has been working fine, and theoretically even though you have an "International" model, the base running gear should be the same as yours, and there are certainly many still on the road today in all 883 & 1200 flavors. I would be interested to see if your servicer can run down and compare VINS to see if there is a particular range of months these problems occurred. Could have been something simple like mid year change to different vendor to and actually running change on the 2004 model year that we are not aware of. I have not seen service bulletins so this might be a rare but concentrated failure...really sorry to hear you having problems with customer service, as it is in the best interest of MOCO to support us in the long term.

To be fair Ive not heard of others failing, But the guy doing the crank says its the third one he's done, And it was him that adviced me to contact H.D. as he was sure they would be concerned.There is no doubt that its some kind of manufacturing fault though. A crank pin should not begin to dissintergrate on any engine. I really wanted an XR1200 model, but this experiance has put me right off. My old 95 883 has never missed a beat. 30000 miles on her to date. I think had this had happened in the USA the treatment from customer services would have been alot better.

 

[grk999]

I bought my 2004 brand new and it has 99,000km, as of today, and a couple persons, mechanics, are telling me that my crank is done for. That I need a motor job. I was thinking the same as a few people on here that maybe there is a reason for this failure. I love my roadster. So I am going to get another mechanic to investigate & see what happens.