[keepsabeat]

Hello,

I am a long time Harley owner that purchased my first Indian this past fall. As I make some slight modifications to my Indian Chief Vintage(which I love) I am realizing that Harley has better quality control in my opinion than Indian. For example, this evening I installed Vance and Hines mufflers and as I prepared to remove the stock mufflers I discovered that the top bolt on the right muffler did not have enough room to fit a socket over the bolt to remove it. The stock bolt was installed but only half way from the factory and the only way for me to remove the top bolt was to hammer a socket wrench onto the bolt effectively making additional clearance on the bracket to allow a socket to fit over the bolt. I will tell you, that would never happen on a Harley. I am curious of other former Harley owners are noticing these kinds of quality control issues, also as I was securing the saddle bags to the bike tonight one of the plastic levers just flew off as I was clamping down on it. This is a 2017 vintage with 1100 miles on it.. As excited as I am to be an Indian owner these types of quality issues do concern me.

 

[Caprock]

I’m a former Harley owner, previously owning a softail Deuce and a Street Glide, as well as being a former Honda, Suzuki, Yamaha, and Triumph owner. I currently own a 2017 Springfield. My experience and opinion apparently aren’t the same as yours. I am a wrench turner and work on my own bikes and just can’t agree with your comments. My Indian has been very dependable and well put together and everything functions like it should and you would expect. I am an equipment engineer by trade and feel that these machines were well designed, in my opinion far better than the Harleys I had. Simple maintenance like oil changes are a perfect example of how their design far surpasses the Harley. I can’t begin to tell you my frustrations of trying to do an oil change on the Harleys and seemingly always making an oil mess trying to get the oil filter off with cables running under it. What a piss pore design from a major manufacturer. Hopefully as you do more work on your bike you won’t have issues and will see how well they are designed. Just out of curiosity, when you had clearance issues with your ratchet wrench, why didn’t you just grab a combination wrench instead of beating on a socket?


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[TigerGA]

My CVO Road King was assembled at the factory with no anti-seize lube on the rear axle, causing both wheel bearings to be replaced. My BMW Z4 Roadster was delivered to my dealer with a serious blemish on the dash, requiring the entire dash to be replaced. Things happen, stuff sneaks by quality control. It happens on all things manufactured

 

[keepsabeat]

I’m a former Harley owner, previously owning a softail Deuce and a Street Glide, as well as being a former Honda, Suzuki, Yamaha, and Triumph owner. I currently own a 2017 Springfield. My experience and opinion apparently aren’t the same as yours. I am a wrench turner and work on my own bikes and just can’t agree with your comments. My Indian has been very dependable and well put together and everything functions like it should and you would expect. I am an equipment engineer by trade and feel that these machines were well designed, in my opinion far better than the Harleys I had. Simple maintenance like oil changes are a perfect example of how their design far surpasses the Harley. I can’t begin to tell you my frustrations of trying to do an oil change on the Harleys and seemingly always making an oil mess trying to get the oil filter off with cables running under it. What a piss pore design from a major manufacturer. Hopefully as you do more work on your bike you won’t have issues and will see how well they are designed. Just out of curiosity, when you had clearance issues with your ratchet wrench, why didn’t you just grab a combination wrench instead of beating on a socket?


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Hi Caprock,

Nothing would fit in the space around the nut on the right muffler, but the left side was completely fine. The thing that bothers me is that the tech installing the muffler had to see the issue when it was being assembled and completely ignored the bad muffler brace/hanger instead of having it replaced. Literally the bolt was just in there by a few threads and held in by force, I don’t know how he/she even got the bolt in that far!

 

[keepsabeat]

Hi Hink, good observation, I tend to read a lot of posts and I have not had much to add to the forum. Don’t get me wrong I really love the Chief and even thinking about buying a Chieftan, I was just noting my honest observation coming from Harley for many years and many bikes. I look forward to many years as a Indian owner.