| Author | Message | ||
     Medic |
After getting a new D616 on the rear of my Uly on Saturday, my girlfriend and I rode it to a local watering hole on Saturday night. When we were ready to leave, I rolled the Uly back out of the parking space, as I often do, fired her up and let her warm up while my girlfriend and I geared up for the ride home. While I was standing on the left side of the bike, I heard a slight pop, and then noticed that the bike was leaning over much further toward me. I stood parallel with the bike, holding the handle bars as the bike started to fall onto my right leg, folding my knee up under me. I only strained my right knee, but the strain was pretty bad, and when I went to work the next night in the ER, my knee started swelling from all of the time I spend on my feet. I saw my doctor today, and he injected my swollen knee with a steroid shot and gave me some pain pills and some time off from work. The pin that holds the sidestand had failed with me standing next to the bike. The bike was ridden to Stone Mountain Harley Davidson / Buell today, where the service department rapidly ordered replacement parts and got warranty repair authorization for my scratched left hand guard and side case. I guess this is the first injury related to the sidestand failures. | ||
| Wademan |
I hope you heal well and that Buell takes care of this. | ||
| Electraglider_1997 |
Mine hasn't caused a problem yet but I ride with my son on the back a lot and I won't let him sit on it while I'm gassing it up a the station. Can't imagine that thing falling on him without it breaking something or worse. Never even give it a thought with my electraglide. Buell better man-up and take care of this horse's ass engineering mistake. Are they waiting for a certain amount of maimings? | ||
| Tel |
I must admit the whole sidestand thing is making me ultra nervous. Quite frankly it simply isn't good enough. I've got kids moving through my garage and other expensive gear and motorcycles. I've banned the kids from the left side of the bike and its only got 1100kms on it. If the bike goes down and damages stuff you can bet my insurer will be looking at recovery actions. | ||
| Buelldyno_guy |
Sorry to hear about you injury. When I reported this last month after our demo bike broke for the 2nd. time, I stated that our salesman got hurt. My first thread on this was last year, and while Buell Tech Support has taken care of the short term repairs, I have not seen any long term corrective action. ... Court you even e-mailed me about this? ... Terry | ||
| Aeholton |
I'm getting really nervous about this. I have a 10yr old daughter that love to climb on my bike when it's in the driveway. Has anyone heard anything official from Buell regarding an upgraded stand? | ||
| Debueller |
I tour alot with about 90 lbs of gear on the mules back. I notice that this puts alot of strain on the sidestand. This whole thing really makes me nervous. I guess I will not be starting the engine untill I am actually straddling the damn thing. What a pain in the ass. | ||
| Teeps |
Medic, sorry to hear about your injury; it's ironic that you of all people got hurt. It appears the sky IS falling, with regard to the side stand issue. And, as of yet, Buell is silent on the subject... Where does that leave us the owners? You can wait for your side stand to break, as it's likely to; or you can take action yourself and at least know it's as good as it can be until which time Buell has the permanent fix. | ||
| Electraglider_1997 |
I've never heard of a Harley side stand breaking or being worried about. I've had that Electraglide fully loaded with gear and myself and son and resting against the side stand. Never a problem or worry because they engineered it to hold the bike up without any issue. Now Buell, in trying to save a dime on a bolt is pissing off it's entire owner base by being silent on a major safety issue. Nobody reading this board is going to purchase a bike that can't even be relied on to not fall over because of a toothpick side stand. Erik, that is very lame of you. Do something about this because it ain't going away and probably will get worse with time. How could it possibly get better without some kind of Buell engineering response to its customers. I for one am ready to call the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration to register a complaint. Enough calls and they force a recall. That'll get Buell to break the silence. | ||
| Aeholton |
or you can take action yourself What action are you referring to? Is there a replacement part available? | ||
| Pso |
Electroglider-the NHTSA is what got Honda in gear when the welds on the frames were giving out. A fellow got in touch with a person at NHTSA and before you knew it Honda had to respond asap to the interogatories. It took a couple of weeks. Then they had a major call in for all the bikes to be inspected and repaired if necessary. There were no injuries that I am aware of when the fram would fall apart, and collapse on the rear wheel, but Honda sure got active when NHTSA got involved. I think they wanted to avoid a recall. The fellow that handled this issue and kept us all posted at GL1800riders.com is Fred Harmon. Paul | ||
| Naustin |
Its sad, but the prick accountants at HD have forgotten what it is like to have to keep their customers happy. They've been spoiled by years of rabid Harley "lifestyle" owners who didn't care about quality as long as they got the image. They only way to get them to sharpen their pencils may be the NHTSA, unfortunately. I doubt Erik has the power to do anything about this. He doesn't own the company anymore. Got about as much say as the Queen of England. He's a powerless figurehead. nick | ||
| Whodom |
Hasn't it already been posted that there is an upgraded side stand kit available, and that a recall is in the works? | ||
| Eor |
If you will indulge a former Ulysses owner with experience in manufacturing, customer relations, and the workings of government agencies for a few minutes, I'd like to pass on some advice... Those of you who have actually experienced sidestand failures should contact Buell Customer Service directly and report it. Data on warranty repairs will eventually make its way up the food chain, but it could take a while for a trend to be detected. Contacting CS may expedite this process. People complaining on a website is not a substitute for the channels a modern manufacturing company or government agency has established for registering complaints, regardless of who may or may not be lurking. It is often viewed as "background noise" and regarded accordingly. Those of you who actually own Ulysses models and are concerned about the sidestand issue should also contact Buell CS and express those concerns in a respectful and rational manner. If you are not satisfied with Buell's response,visit the NHTSA website and either file a complaint electronically or by telephone. I'm guessing that complaints from owners with direct experience of a failure are going to carry far more weight with the NHSTA. As of today, there appear to be no complaints filed against, nor active investigations pending regarding 2006 Buell models. Ideally, this would be a good time for someone well-connected to Buell or an employee to step in and reassure owners that the matter is being dealt with as quickly as possible. But their failure to do so shouldn't be interpreted as a lack of concern or indicative of inaction. Their job is to respond to quantifiable problems and issues that have been reported through channels, not damage control on a website where insults are being tossed around. Carry on.... | ||
| Court |
Whoa doggies. First Eor, I think you have it nailed right on the head. I couldn't do a better job of suggesting a strategy to insure timely resolution. The internet is a funny thing, for instance:
I put that on the "high end" for the internet | ||
| Court |
By the way, there is a clearly defined process for how these things are handled. Manufacturers are a lot less free (duh) to arbitrarily decide what is and is not a recall. The BEST thing, for all of us, was pointed out by Eor. I'd suggest you read my old piece on dealing with customer service first, but what the heck. Pick up the phone. Call customer service. Have your V.I.N. ready Clearly state FACTS ("this bike sucks is an opinion"; "my sidestand broke" is a fact) Opinions are bar room conversations FACTS are actionable. NOTE: Remember where Erik Buell came from, he was a testing engineer. ANY FACTS you can provide (age of bike, known unusual stresses, where it broke, how it broke, will help) This stuff all goes to a VERY SHARP individual who comes to Buell from India and knows his stuff. If you've had a problem, chatting on the internet scores zero, calling Buell is the goal. Court | ||
| Doncasto |
Historical Note: This is sounding like a replay of the "Showa Shock Failure" episodes in 1999. The Showa had two failure modes . . .blown seals resulting in dumped fluids (and a pogo stick like suspension) and a structural failure to the shock eye that caused the suspension to collapse. The puking shock syndrome went on for some time without any indication from HD/Buell or its dealers that they recognized there was a problem . . . . much less that they intended to correct it with anything other than an identical replacement shock under warranty. These were also prone to failure. An effort was undertaken on this site to document the number of failures and determine which circumstances might predict the puking. A monthly report was generated here. The report detailed failure numbers broken down by model types and mileage. The only remedial option available for several months was to carefully pre-flight the shock. HD/Buell kept their cards close their corporate chests and seemingly adopted the "surface noise" approach that Court mentioned. Everything changed when the first structural failure was reported . . . the difference being that, IMHO, the situation had changed from rider inconvenience/discomfort to one of immanent rider peril and possible corporate liability. Two weeks after the "outing" of the structural failure, HD/Buell announced a recall of the shock affected Buells. Until the inferior parts could be repaired/replaced no affected Buells could be sold by their dealerships. This was problematic in that at the time of the recall there was no repair/upgrade at hand . . .Buell sales shut down for what may have been as long as a couple of months . . .in the summer/fall. Then, as now, there was no word from HD/Buell. When inquiries were made via the "SPOC" line from dealers to HD/Buell the official word was that everything concerning the failing shocks and their remedy was "proprietary information" . . . I suspect that something similar is now going on with these kickstand problems. We all know there have been failures . . .although only HD/Buell knows how many. We know that the potential for injury and property damage is there . . .and in fact incidents have been documented here. I am 100% sure that HD/Buell knows they have a problem and are working to resolve it. I suspect that they will try to avoid repeating the 1999 "sell no Buells" fiasco by holding back on a "voluntary recall" until they can provide a fix for their production line . . .their unshipped stock . . .their dealership inventory . . .and then finally their customer owned bikes. I doubt that there will be any official disclosure of any fix until is within easy reach of every Buell dealership. In the mean time, we can expect to see "trial balloons" being floated in the form of the kits mentioned previously. The whole “recall” era is one that I am sure HD/Buell hates to revisit. To their credit, they did finally come up with a substantive replacement for the cheapo Showa shocks and at least one “trial balloon” fix (remember the SRP clamshell!!??) The company and its dealerships suffered greatly during this time . . .both from loss of sales and further deterioration of the Buell product image. I am sure that I am not the only one that has decided to postpone a Uly buying decision until I am able to determine their response to the current kickstand issues . . .and several other. There will be a fix . . .I doubt that there will be any official “progress statements” . . .they may even dodge the “recall” bullet . . .and no one will ever really know how much this design flaw will cost HD/Buell in sales and prestige. As always, YMMV . . . and ALWAYS consider the source Don Casto Boulder, Colorado (Message edited by doncasto on July 11, 2006) | ||
| Teeps |
Eor and Court are correct. But we (owners) are in a catch 22. Our options: A. do nothing and hope the fix comes out before our side stands fail. When the failures reach an arbitrary number or a serious injury occurs; the problem gets addressed by Buell/HD. Or B. take action ourselves, by replacing the bolts. Making sure they are secured. The problem goes unreported, and does not get a permanent fix. | ||
| Court |
>>>B. take action ourselves, by replacing the bolts. Making sure they are secured. The problem goes unreported, and does not get a permanent fix. I'd go with Option "B" at present, with the caveat that I'd ask you to PLEASE report. Buell NEEDS data on this stuff. There is, and I'm talking out my ass from memory here, some requirement that when a recall is announced that the replacement parts must ship with a period of time and I'm wanting to say that time is in days (like 10) not months. I'm betting someone is working overtime on this. In the interim, we can be thankful for the benefit of our collective wisdom....WE KNOW TO CHECK. | ||
| Teeps |
Court Posted on Tuesday, July 11, 2006 >>>B. take action ourselves, by replacing the bolts. Making sure they are secured. The problem goes unreported, and does not get a permanent fix. I'd go with Option "B" at present, with the caveat that I'd ask you to PLEASE report. Buell NEEDS data on this stuff. My plan exactly. Medic, you should report your incident to, Buell and then NHTSA. | ||
| Roadrailer |
Eor, excellent idea! Please, if you've had a problem with your sidestand, call Buell. They can't fix a problem they don't know about. | ||
| Medic |
Since I first read about the sidestand failures on other Uly's, I have been checking my sidestand attachment bolts as part of my preflight. The pin breaking came without any warning and even if I had been checking to make certain the pin was tight, the fracture of the pin occurred where the threads meet the solid shaft. There was no way to know that it would fail. I have contacted Buell Customer Care about the incident. They had already received the incident info from Stone Mountain Harley / Buell, and confirmed the information with me. The swelling in the knee has gone down some and Vicodin and rest work together to keep it from hurting. Thanks for your concern, brothers. | ||
| Naustin |
I may be "wrong" and I hope I am! But that doesn't mean the way buell is handling the situation is "right". PS - I'm glad my post was useful for you to make your point, anyway...  (Message edited by naustin on July 11, 2006) | ||
| Electraglider_1997 |
What is the Customer Service phone number? | ||
| Whodom |
It's at the top of the "For the Factory" forum: Buell Customer Service: 1-414-343-8400 | ||
| Electraglider_1997 |
Thanks for the number. I called it this morning and they claim to be working on a fix but would not give me any specific time frame or actually any information regarding the fix. Hopefully this nebulous fix will become available before my ULY falls over. | ||
| Soloyosh |
As a sideline, is anyone in the aftermarket working on a centerstand? The reason I ask is that it would make tire service easier in the sticks and it also make more sense to park on a centerstand when you have your bike loaded down with gear. Cheers Brett | ||
| Teeps |
Electraglider_1997, If you're up to the task. I suggest you do 2 things asap. 1. Check the side stand pivot bolt torque. 2. Replace the side stand bracket bolts with new ones. (note: muffler must be removed or lowered to do this.) When replacing the bracket bolts, make sure you can thread them into the engine case by hand all the way first. That ensures that accurate torque will be applied when installing them. | ||
| Josh_cox |
Eor is right. Your dealer should take the time to contact tech services about it. If you prefer not to work with a dealer, call customer service. This is what we did with Eor's Uly when he had it. They brought down engineers and Shawn Higbee as a rider to try to figure out his issues with us. Buell is very responsive to any needs of the customers. | ||
| Buelldyno_guy |
See these post Buell Motor Company Recalls 0831 and 0837 |
