So my buddy has a 2008 Fatboy with about 18K miles on it. Yesterday he decided to go for a ride down to the dealer to look at a Road Glide. On his way there he started to hear a noise from the rear end, keep in mind he knows nothing mechanical about bikes and always has it serviced at the dealer. So anyways, he felt that something did not feel right with the bike, and only being within minutes of the dealer he took it to the service dept, turns out that today they tell him when they put the new tire on and installed the wheel, the tech overtightened the axle causing the bearing to break. Makes me feel good about using the dealer, a proper torque wrench would have saved alot, he is lucky we were not riding fast, that could have been one bad ending. Has anyone else experienced anything like this?
Broken Wheel Bearing
- Thread starter 08HOG
- Start date
I am not going to mention the dealer name, I will not do that. But I can speak from experience that torque wrenches are not always used. I know this because I had them do some work to my bike and actually got to watch them through the glass window into the service bay and never saw them pull out a torque wrench. I always torque bolts on my bike, even if it is as minor as installing heavy duty hinges, they give torque values for every bolt on the bike. Not going to trash the dealer but this guy is lucky he was not on the highway doing 60+ mph.
It's better that you don't mention the dealers name here so that others can go to this dealer and possibly loose their life from the shoddy work that they do.:34:
Thanks Glider, I couldn't have said it any better. Since I found this forum it has always been the place to come to for information to keep our bikes running and insight into info on keeping it shiny and safe. If you won't say who the dealer is at least tell the owner.
I just annoys me to see someone protect a dealer that isn't doing work properly just for profit and some people protect their identity.
I say post ANY dealer that has questionable standards and let the customer decide if they are comfortable using them, NOT protect their identity like was done here. It shows poor judgment on both parties parts.
I say post ANY dealer that has questionable standards and let the customer decide if they are comfortable using them, NOT protect their identity like was done here. It shows poor judgment on both parties parts.
I understand this point, but before I name the dealer I want to find out if this tech still works there. They had some people leave and I believe he might be one of them. Sorry if noone agrees but before I put up bad info. I want to cover myself. Sorry if noone agrees with me on this, but I do not want to trash any dealer if they got rid of a bad tech.
Hoople
Account Removed
Was there something about the removed damaged bearing that makes you think they were not Genuine HD bearings? Someone please explain to me how over tightening an axle that has two bearings with a steel sleeve between them, will break the bearing. They are not taper roller bearings. They are packaged ball bearings. You are squeezing two inner race collars together against a sleeve. If the sleeve was too short in length,, YES the bearings would be destroyed. But they would get destroyed even if the proper torque was applied.
You would have to put hundreds/ft pounds of excessive torque to distort the fixture if the sleeve was the proper length.
The torque value is important but not for the reason of damaging the bearings. This is not like the fall away bearing adjustment where a small amount of excessive of torque would destroy the bearings because there is no spacer sleeve to protect them.