Should have bought Japanese

[Skinny-J]

Saw this article: http://www.fool.com/investing/general/2 ... y-can.aspx

It's amazing the 2 top selling brands have the worst reliabilty. I guess they must be really good at something and that is marketing....

[Laoch]

I think we all knew that

Both companies are excellent at marketing.

Where is KTM?

[BillyGoat]

I wonder how all those bikes get up to Sturgis? Or OC, or Daytona, or Myrtle Beach, or Cali, or Milwaukee, etc... behind 10s of thousands of tow trucks? IMO stupid article. It's like when I was in grade school....arguments about which is better ford or chevy....of course it doesnt matter. The biggest problem with the older Harley touring bikes was that they typically were 100 lbs+ overloaded. HD increased the carrying capacity recently and that should fix that problem.m How explain BMW?

[anotherguy]

Didn't read the article however being the two best selling brands they may be overrepresented statistically.

Even though it's down for a restore that started 10+ years ago my '81 FLH has over 300K miles on it. 5K by Bob Pastrana (yep his dad),120K by my Dad and the rest by yours truly. That thing has been anywhere and everywhere,even a few places a big Harley has no business being. It left me stranded once when it ate a lifter. Not bad if ya ask me.

[vetteguy]

Had my Harley for almost 10 yrs. No problems. Just sayin...

[J&J]

I put 5,500 on my 99 Roadglide in 10 days along with 3 other Harley buddies, one day was 110 degrees outside of Vegas running 85 mph all day. Not a problem between us, one guy has put well over 100k on several them. One trip was to Key West, 10 of us rode 1040 miles in one day without a problem. I've done several 1000 mile days without a hitch.

No they don't run like a jap bike or a Beemer but I've had a lot of fun on mine. We have a blast on our road trips, we ride them & don't do trailers. There are a lot of trailer guys out there that wouldn't know a sparkplug from a valve stem. They put all kinds of mismatched parts on them to go faster & have problems. They look cool though....

They say if you don't ride them you wouldn't understand..... may be some truth to that.

[Damage Inc.]

I really don't understand why Americans think American products are inferior to all or any others. I've been a mechanic for 30 years and in that time I've seen some real crap from all manufacturers. Sure back in the 80's american cars were crap but Japanese and Euro cars would rut in a heavy rain. Euro cars are still junk in my opinion, they still rut out and leak not to mention driveability issues and overprice everything. I would put american cars against anything from Europe or Asia.




I'm an American and will buy AMERICAN when ever possible.

[Rut Row]

I'm an American and will buy AMERICAN when ever possible.

I'm the same way and only because I'm a biased prick. Okay, most Japanese cars are way too small for me to get in comfortably too, but mostly because I'm a prick.

[anotherguy]

Oh it's not even close to being a buy American thing. Being a Harley tech there ain't much Good Old USA left in the bike.

I wouldn't buy a new one on a bet. Too far from the motorcycles are simple vehicles thing I hold dear.

[Bucho]

I'm an American and will buy AMERICAN when ever possible.

This a motorcycle site. It would be nice to actually have some American choices for bikes. Though Iam glad to see HD making some smaller 500/750 sized liquid cooled bikes. Hopefully they will be decent bikes and this can lead to some branching out from cruiser stuff.
My favorite old Harley bikes are the 60's 70's little Italian bikes. They had a few scrambler/dualsport types back then.