Dealing with the Dealer (COUNTDOWN: 3 days!)

I’m going to set down as much information as I comfortably can about what happened when dealing with my dealer (Long Branch Harley-Davidson in Long Branch, NJ).

I don’t want to give the price I’m paying for the bike because I don’t want to “rock the boat.”  But I will say you can get $500 off MSRP by presenting a certificate of completion from a rider safety course (this is public on their webpage if you dig).  I happened to run up a big, fat bill of accessories, modifications, and “toys” and received 15% off on all of it, plus the sheer bulk of it entitled me a little bit more off the bike’s MSRP.

I’m undecided on the extended service plan.  I hear the tire protection alone pays for the whole of it over time.  I’ll look at the numbers and figure what I think my risks are.

Labor was a fair bit.  In selecting custom handlebars on the throttle-by-wire (TBW) models, you have a bit of a headache.  In doing so on a bike equipped with ABS, you’re looking at a nightmare.  As much as I’d want to do things myself, I really want to get on the road and with my 12-hr days I figured it was worth it to have everything done (and included in the warranty).  The labor on the bars was 8 hours.  That’s over $500.  The damned thing of it was I had never actually felt the Chubby bars that Wild1 makes – if I was wrong about those beach bars, it’d cost another $800 to get new bars on there.  Definitely not a risk I wanted to take.

So, as you might remember from an earlier entry, I went with Heritage handlebars.  They do not require an extension of the ABS lines (which involves futzing with the whole brake system) and so the labor is far, far less.  TBW is the only wrinkle, but it should be just 1 or 2 hours of labor for the new bars.

The Stage II kit is the majority of the labor bill.  Parts = $900 for the 103″ Stage II (with SE255 cams) kit.  Labor is about 10 hours, so $700.  I would have never modified the engine without the changes being folded into the warranty.  Too many nightmares about lemons and defects and problems.  Once out of warranty, I might (if, y’know, I end up rich or something in the next few years …) head to someone who can doctor a bit more out of the old girl.  Still, I think the Stage II kit will make me very happy.

I don’t plan on revealing all of the mods I’ve got, at least not at the same time – this is not a laundry list to copy me (or, depending on your frame of reference, a list to impeach me for copying others….hahaha!) – but there are a few of which I’m particularly proud:

• Fishtail endcaps on a SuperTrapp slip-on pair of pipes.
• Chrome front end (fork sliders, axel covers, wheel domes, nuts and bolts, etc…
• Heritage bars.
• Chrome switch housings.
• Nostalgic floorboards, pegs, shifter, brake, handgrips, and passenger floorboard pans.
• “Live to Ride” eagle derby cover (chrome, not gold).

The last one is actually my favorite.  When I was a child, that eagle was the coolest thing in the world.  I’m not sure why, but it was probably because it was the same eagle NASA used, or was close enough to work.  Not that I’m suffering from old man syndrome, but people were a lot more patriotic in the 1980’s than in the 90’s, and are even less so today.  And I’m not saying that’s a bad thing, but it was nice to be able to believe in your country.  That’s what that eagle is.  Maybe it’ll be relevant again =P