All of these videos share a common theme: Harley's prices are too high...way too high, and shafting the ever diminishing ranks of the customers they do have at the dealerships ensures they won't come back.
They do exactly that in fact, but that's just the overtly evident side to me. There is an underlying statement made that isn't so evident.
From my view point and reading a little between the lines, the dealerships are really much of the problem. For all the successes they've given Harley, they are actually much of the reason behind the failure of the more progressive models Harley introduced.
If you're shaking your head in disbelief or disagreement, let me elaborate. I'm going to start with Buell because that was really the first major foray by HD management into something radically different.
If you owned a Buell, and went to a Harley dealership looking for some warranty help or even just to get some basic work done, the dealerships would stonewall you.
They didn't want anything to do with Buell. Ask any Buell owner and by and large they'll tell you they were treated like redheaded step children.
The answer to the why, is outlined pretty well in one of the videos. The dealers weren't interested in anything they couldn't make a 100% margin on.
Over charging a witless but financially well off Tour Glide owner is one thing. Trying the same on a Buell owner who is likely more mechanically savvy and less willing to accept the "Harley Tax" is quite another.
I've literally listened to those witless but well off owners BRAG about how much money it cost them to get this or that done at their favored dealership.
The fact that anyone else could have done the exact same thing in a half hour for free in their garage doesn't even compute with those guys. And those guys are who the dealership is going to cater to. Less work and mo' profit.
That attitude contributed to the new sales performance of Buell motorcycles. It did not end the company, that was the ineptness of the Harley management coupled with the dealer issues.
My second example is two more recent debacles. One being the V-Rod line and the other being the Sportster XL1200R, which was mentioned in one of the Different Spokes videos.
The same mentality applied to VRod line that dealerships took with Buells. For much the same train of logic. There were no high dollar after market do-dads to sell owners of those bikes.
They already made good power, so no need of pipes and filters and jetting work or bigger bore kits. Thus, once the sales were made, next to no support followed. There was not much of an aftermarket for them either. Again, no expensive do-dads to sell for 100% margin.
The XL1200R I suspect was among the same lines though I've no real knowledge of how those were received. They made good enough power that there wasn't a huge market for any aftermarket or even HD branded performance parts.
That and the typical customer buying an XL1200R was likely more interested in going fast around corners, rather than hanging all manner of tassles and farkles from their bikes.
I suspect that both the VRod and the XL1200R while loved by the public on a certain level, were received by the dealers less enthusiastically for those reasons.
I further suspect that the factory intentionally did not release a bunch of expensive go faster parts for them because they didn't see the need to. Hence the dealer network had no interest in supporting those bikes.
Why would they, when they could rake an owner over the coals for an extra $15K worth of work and go faster parts on an already $15K Dyna or $20K Fat Boy? The aftermarket parts network was already huge for those engines. The VRod and XL1200R...not so much.
That I think is the subtext to the videos. The part where there is no blame laid at the feet of the dealer network for the failure of the models that could have carried HD into the next several decades given the time and development cycle of aftermarket and factory performance parts.
The deeper subtext though is the possibility that the dealer network could sabotage sales of any model line they didn't like isn't something anyone in the HD universe wants to acknowledge.
Combine that, with the fact that younger riders are a diverse group, and the potential riders are more diverse yet. Simplicity seems to be what the current trend in tastes is.
I think that's why you now see so many younger guys sorting out older and simpler motorcycles and putting them back on the road rather than lining up at a local dealer for the latest and greatest sport bike to hit the pages of Cycle World.
Also, as was pointed out in one video, what the older crowd finds cool and hip, the younger crowd actively steers the opposite way. While I'm closer to the older crowd than the younger crowd, I can see where they're coming from.
I mean, most of us rebelled against what our parents thought was cool. In fact, if our parents thought it was disgusting or immoral most of us made sure to indulge in that activity as much as possible.
I get it. It's the way life is. I also get that an American icon is in trouble. Maybe not as badly as is being portrayed but in trouble none the less.
Harley weathered economic down turns before. I'm fairly confident they can do so again. What they have to do to make that happen might not be pretty. It might not be what people want either.
What ever they do, I want them to be around when I can no longer ride a sport bike and need to recline into Harley-dom to continue riding. I'm hoping that isn't until I'm well past 70. Or even 80.
Maybe that's part of the problem. I'm 53 and see a Harley as an old man's bike. No one wants to be old before they're ready. Hence I'm not riding a Harley until I can't ride a Ducati anymore.
If I think like that, maybe younger riders think the same way. If so, HD might be in more trouble than I think.
