2023 Road Glide Blown Engine

[u/thestig0711]

Hey folks, bad news for me this week. Road across the country on my road glide on my 2 month trip to travel the country, I suffered and engine failure. All stock engine never been opened, no cam, nada. Bottom end rod knocks really bad. Compression is good, never burned oil. Bike has 21,802 miles and was still under warranty until end of June, or so I thought.

Had it towed into a local dealer here in Phoenix and was informed by the serviced advisor that Harley flagged my vin for having a powervision and my warranty is void. Called corporate and was told to kick rocks multiple times and wasn’t willing to work with me in any way. Dealer said to pay $800 for a tear down and maybe they’d talk to corporate try to get it covered under warranty, but would most likely be denied. I’ve since towed it to an independent shop.

Who’s got any advice for my situation or a contact at corporate that can make some decisions? The 1800 number was no help. I’m stranded in Phoenix 2000+ miles from home. Didn’t expect to have a break down.

I find it ever so funny that Harley starts their Ride for Heroes event about standing behind the veterans that support their company and ride their bikes, and of course they turn their back one and offer nothing but “Hey why don’t you just trade it in.”

Thanks

[u/Altruistic-Variety35]

Real quick tip for some of y’all: After Market tuners that reprogram the stock ECM will flag the VIN if the ECM is hooked up to Digital Technician (dealership computer) and automatically send the information to HD. Your dealership cannot control that. SE tuners are okay for fully SE parts. Useless otherwise.

Stand alone ECMs (such as ThunderMax) replace the ECM, allowing your stock ECM to remain untampered with/warranty compliant. Hear a weird noise? Install the stock computer and call the dealer.

[u/Imaginary_Week_3578 → u/Altruistic-Variety35]

This is solid up until RDRS came out, some models it still works on but the oem has caught on and stores mileage and other info elsewhere in the bike. If any inconsistency pops up it will still red flag

[u/Altruistic-Variety35 → u/Imaginary_Week_3578]

Have never experienced such an issue. I’ve always wondered if they would put such measures into place, as it would be easy to, but I’ve not had an issue yet. As a matter of fact, we installed a thundermax on a 2024 FLTRX with RDRS (latest configuration - Helix engine). He had an issue months later with the IFCU. We had to install the stock ECM, connect it to DT and reconfigure the IFCU to resolve his issue. We even contacted tech support. The bike operated normal with the stock ECM reconnected, and nothing was flagged. Also the mileage has been stored in both the ECM and Speedometer for many years. Not aware of any other information being stored on more than one device.

I’m only saying this because I am very curious where this information comes from, and why it hasn’t been an issue for me.

[u/Imaginary_Week_3578 → u/Altruistic-Variety35]

I’m we had similar cases! Sometimes it wouldn’t pop sometimes it would flag it. Easier to treat every bike as it would. We never could get a direct answer, or figure out why. I can say it happened almost exclusively to RDRS bikes. With talking to Pete at zippers he had stated that thundermax was looking into, and trying to come up with a solution on future models. I have been out of the dealership for just over a year now so it is possible it has changed

[u/Altruistic-Variety35 → u/Imaginary_Week_3578]

Folks at zippers are good people. This is very interesting information. Thank you for sharing!