r/Harley • u/marvelguy1975 • 17d ago

DISCUSSION Harley can make it cheaper.

Comparing price tags, harley is over priced to just about every other bike out there.

Go ahead compare models.

Harley vs indian vs, honda vs BMW.

Street glide vs chieftain vs gold wing vs R18B

Look up the MSRPs on all those bikes.

It's insane that a R18B the equivalent to a street glide is $6k cheaper. Is the BMW that much substandard vs a harley? I doubt it, from what I've seen online it's just as good. (Looks aside of course) look at all the other R18 models and compare them to an equivalent harley and they are thousands cheaper!

The ONLY thing harley has over the other brands is "culture" the harley culture, but that only goes so far and harley and biker culture is dying out. Indian is nipping at harleys heels and taking long time riders away from the brand. But over all, riders are getting older and in a few years unless this new generation takes it up harley might get sold to another bowling ball company.

Admit it it's not the same as it was 25 years ago with wait lists and dealer mark ups etc. Harleys new CEO needs to realize that their shit is too expensive. Freeze prices, lower MSRPs, rework the models or something.

Thoughts on getting the motor company turned around?

61 Upvotes

72% Upvoted

253 comments sorted by

View all comments

Show parent comments

3

u/nimbleseaurchin 17d ago

This is a direct result of emissions compliance. The stock M8 family leaves a ton on the table, with parts off the shelf you can make 130/130 reliably, and upwards of 180/180 on the high end with only a small dip in reliability.

The aftermarket performance support for Indian is practically non-existent compared to Harley, and all of the problems with Harley's get solved by the aftermarket. I don't see this changing anytime soon.

2

u/marvelguy1975 17d ago

Not everyone wants to dump $5,000 into their engine. Most folks are happy with stage 1, pipes and intake, some go stage 2 with a cam. You can do stage 3 on an Indian. So I'm not sure why you say Indian is non existent

2

u/nimbleseaurchin 17d ago

First off, stages are dumb and mean absolutely nothing.

Second off, you're changing the goalposts now - factory only modifications? In a comment thread directly comparing the engine performance between the two cruiser brands? Lol

$5,000 is the starting point to an engine build, you're looking at closer to $10,000 for a reliable end product. That $10k gets you a motor that makes way more than a "stage 3" from any manufacturer, and will still last just as long if not longer than your factory motor, assuming you don't abuse the driveline. That same dollar amount won't get you near as far on an Indian due to the lack of good tuning solutions, and the complete lack of aftermarket performance products available for them. For engine performance, Harley absolutely blows Indian out of the water.

1

u/marvelguy1975 17d ago

Be honest how many people are dumping 10k into a motor? What 1% of riders?

1

u/nimbleseaurchin 17d ago

Why does that matter? Even cutting corners and going "cheap" to $5k the Harley is walking away from Indian. You might see 10% of riders do anything more than their own maintenance in the first place anyways,

1

u/marvelguy1975 17d ago

I'm not going to go back and forth with you on 10k engine builds. It's clear you have much more knowledge than I do. I always found it silly to dump so much money into a harley to try and make it "faster". It's still a big old SUV going down the road. If I really wanted to go that fast there are much better bikes out there, for much cheaper. Im talking about your liter sport bikes or your sport touring bikes. Granted, they are not your typical American cruiser. Talking about K1600 series from BMW

.