Harley Davidson Decline Was Inevitable | DEI Not To Blame

Harley Davidson have been declining for a number of years but latest financial reports would suggest it is worse than ever. Reducing sales and profits across the board and it does not look good for the company. So what can they do about it?

#HDDecline #HarleyGoingBroke #HarleySalesDown

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[azadr]

Dumb CEO. Motorbikes aren't puma shoes.

[malikknows]

Very good insights, thanks. My $.02 is that Harley made a big mistake discontinuing the Sportster. The new one is unappealing. The should have made incremental improvements to the old model and kept offering it as a entry/upgrade point for younger folks after value for money motorycles.

[TheBritChief]

There's a reason why the used 883 and the Harley 48 fly out the door in my local dealership, they're perfect for the price and a hit with both new and experienced riders. They're highly customisable and simply fun machines. Harley absolutely needs the value bikes in their lineup.

[bmp]

They should have kept the old sportsters at the old price point and just given them a water jacket (for euro 5 reasons). I think the rev-max suffers from ‘its not a real Harley’, as it doesn’t look like one and has not naturally evolved from one. They tried this new motor nonsense before with the V-rod and that failed too.

[jamessouthworth]

New for 2025, the Wall Street Glide.
It was stupid and arrogant to kill off the 883.

[yoshit]

I traded my 16 Springfield for a 23 Springfield. My 16 had 65k miles on it. Indian gave me $9200 on trade with incentive. And I got the bike lowered from $22, 500 to $18, 500. Out the door 10k.

[huibertdegraaf]

HD is on the way out. I got a new 24 roadglide, 6 months old put 28000 km on it, tft screen had to get replaced, front brake rotors and rear one warped. New front ones are starting to get warped after 13.000km again. My rear wheel bearings failed. This is my fifth and last harley. Trading it off this winter. Harley won't replace my rear wheel bearing under warranty. I talked to harley canada and they denied warranty too. So I told them the just lost a customer over a 75 dollar bearing kit and a hr labor. They are a huge joke. So I'll get a bmw or goldwing over the winter here.

[tonytripp]

I have 2 H-Ds that I bought used. I can't see paying full price for the new bikes as they are out of my range.

[sneekylinux]

Used to work for a Harley dealer many years ago and although was not a big fan of the brand the "883" was the one I really liked, basic, bare bones and a lot of fun. They really need to get this bike back into the range even if euro 5+ compliant as am sure peeps would put up with the reduced power for the fun and experience of the bike...nuff said.

[philipwoodacre]

THEY NEED TO GET RID OF ALL THE TECHNOLOGY AND KEEP THE BIKES BASIC.

[JA-zhxi]

HD can be fixed:
1) stay out of wokeness
2) lower prices by 10%. They smoke anyone else in their class at that price point.
3) scrap Nightster, sportster s, live wire, and softail standard,
4) add in the the real sportster, Bronx and a springer deluxe.

[Jodyrides]

just think of what Harley did to the motorcycling public in the United States back in 1984
for those who don’t know
at the time, The Japanese were introducing new models faster than the motorcycle magazines could do reviews on them, modern suspension, modern ignition systems that didn’t have just a fixed timing, they came out with transistor and capacitor, discharge ignition, then they started coming out with water cooling for big street bikes, tubeless shaft drive, four valves per cylinder, water cooling, which is 4000 times more efficient than air cooling which means you can have higher compression engines when you can control the heat. That was around the time the Japanese motorcycles were so reliable they were able to eliminate Kickstarter’s, three cylinder, in-line 4s. V4s, Turbo charging.. six cylinders. The advancements in motorcycle engineering and design what is the most productive time in motorcycling history.
The public was not interested in AMF Harley Davidson’s. It was the same old, same old…
so Harley hired a Wall Street insider CEO named von bealls..
very smart businessman. He went right to the top and had Ronald Reagan put a 45% tariff on all imported motorcycles, Italian, German, English, and especially Japanese motorcycles. . The claim was that the Japanese were trying to drive Harley out of business by dumping motorcycles here below cost. So Harley needed help to save the 600 American jobs at the Harley Davidson factory.. they were waving the American flag, and calling on President Ronald Reagan to be patriotic and apply a 45% tariff to imported motorcycles..
that’s what he did
Imagine a Honda automobile today that sells for $29, 995, jumping to $47, 500 just because the president says so. Let’s not forget the additional tax on the higher selling price and the increased payments and the increase in your auto insurance, to cover a larger loss for the insurance company because of the sticker price.
well, that’s what happened to all imported motorcycles. A typical 750 price was $2995. You could get them for Les but that was the sticker price from the big four from Japan. Well that price went to $4750 in the blink of an eye when the tariff was applied.
The result was it saved the 600 Harley Davidson workers jobs, which were probably not going to be lost anyway
Within the first two years of that tariff, 1100 Japanese motorcycle dealerships, went out of business forever. There were no more inexpensive motorcycles. Those 1100 motorcycle shops that went out of business so quickly, had seven. Employees on average. That’s more than 7000 American jobs that were lost since were talking about saving American jobs. That was just in the first two years.
show rooms were deserted in Japanese motorcycle and the European motorcycle dealerships. They were deserted. I know because I sold motorcycles part time in those days.
there was one year in particular that sales were so good for Yamaha. They had a motorcycle that was very popular in the United States, the XS 650 twin. In one calendar year they sold 120, 000 of those 650s. They were in expensive and they were 100, 000 mile machines. ..
search the tariff of 1984/85, Yamaha has not sold 120, 000 motorcycles of all sizes combined in a single year ..
so what does that have to do with Harley Davidson sales today?
in the 40 years since the tariff, The price of motorcycles went up for the tariff years, but they never came back down after the tariff.. Young men we’re not buying motorcycles, and when they got older and got married, they weren’t buying mini bikes and little dirt bikes for their kids. So their kids grew up, not becoming motorcyclists that would eventually graduate up to larger motorcycles and Harleys.
so we’ve had 40 years, that’s for generations of motorcyclists that never got started in motorcycling due to the price of motorcycles that started with the tariff of 1984..
so Harley can cry me a River, because they have no one to blame for the lack of interested buyers than themselves. They started this elimination of future generations of motorcyclist 40 years ago.
there were 22 Japanese dealerships within an hour of my home before the tariff. Today, here in 2024, there are only three Japanese dealerships that have survived this long, and that’s because they are family owned and they’ve had the buildings paid for since before the tariff.
I worked at several different shops, first, as a mechanic at three different shops, and I sold motorcycles during the busy season here in Pennsylvania for 17 years at several different shops before, and I tried to sell motorcycles after the tariff, but it was not worth it. Before the tariff, there was one Saturday I sold seven bikes, in six hours. There was onetwo week pay period that I had 17 motorcycles go out the door. It was a great second part-time gig for me. February through May. After June 1, anybody that was going to buy a motorcycle, already had it by then… so I would take the summer off until the following February and I would work three evenings and Saturday making more money selling motorcycles than I did at my real job..
two of the dealerships I worked for declared bankruptcy, one of the owners lost his home
another dealership that was way out on a limb, went to prison, trying to make up his losses by transporting suitcases, full of cocaine to stay in business. What’s the way DeLorean ended up going to prison.. I wasn’t working for that dealership at the time, I never even spoke to the new owner that went to prison, but I heard from the guys I used to work with there what happened ..
at the same time, since the United States was possibly the biggest market for the big four in Japan, they cut way back on development of new models, and we have never seen that exponential jump in technology, or the like of that again..
Meanwhile, Harley is making watt, the same basic design motorcycle Steve been making for decade after decade. I have had 111 motorcycles so far. I have friends that have had far more motorcycles than I have had. It gets in your blood, you become a lifelong motorcyclist. A lot of the motorcyclists that I know have multiple motorcycles. When I retired, I had eight, a Goldwing, suzuki, V Strom, 1000, a moto guzzi Norge.. and my commuter bike, a Honda pacific coast, which I commuted on for 24 years without so much as a bulb burning out..
The elimination of affordable motorcycles, in 1984 put an end to motorcyclists like me, and many many of my friends, because they were too expensive for people to get started in motorcycling. It’s not just the price of the bike, it’s the gear you have to buy how much jackets, boots gloves, it’s the insurance you have to buy, it’s the payments… it adds up fast.. There are Harleys out there on the showroom floors… some of the brand new Harley Davidsons actually cost more than some of the brand new Cadillacs you can buy today..
and they cant understand why their sales are tanking..
something else that is not going to boost their sales is the announcement of opening another Harley Davidson manufacturing plant in Thailand, , to join the plants they have in Brazil and India now..
ironically, this whole catastrophe of eliminating motorcyclists from ever getting started in the hobby of motorcycling, started under the pretense of saving 600 American jobs at the Harley factory in the United States. Now they are about to wave the flag of Thailand, Brazil, India, and the United States on the Harley Davidson dealership polls..
unbelievable that this all started because they wanted to save 600 American jobs at the Harley factory ..
but that was yesterday, and yesterdays gone….

[gil-e]

The barriers to entry to motorcycling are high. I'm in South Australia where it now costs 1800 dollars to do your licence training. On top of that add the minimum clothing of a jacket, helmet, gloves, jeans and boots. That's at least 2500 dollars before looking at a bike. Then there are family and friends, who discourage motorcycling. Young people are not as adventurous or they want to do other things. The industry as a whole needs to be lowering these barriers. If a brand is so exclusive, they will end up reducing their availability to potential customers.

[bikeroffthebeatentrack]

As an owner of both a 2015 Dyna street bob and a 2013 sportster, I’d say HD started going downhill when they went down the canbus route. A lot of home mechanics and independent garages, lost the ability to work on HDs as they didn’t have the software to do all the diagnostics. HD dealers wanted to tie owners to high price dealer servicing, and now a lot of dealerships have gone bust, leaving owners without maintenance back up. I’ve also heard horror stories of dealerships refusing to work on older models. My canbus Dyna has had endless electrical and sensor issues, while the relatively simple sportster is delightfully simple. All HD ads show Ultra Glides riding through the wilderness. When in reality they should show a guy, at the side of the road, trying to find a phone signal, so he can google the latest fault code that’s just flashed up on his overly complicated HD 😂

[frankfurther]

Hardley-Davidson is competing with itself and losing. Basic motoring was once their strength. Production was maxed out at a much lower level, high prices were commanded, customers would resell after a couple three years and make a profit. They ran great with a carburetor. There were very few recalls. Gone are the days when a buyer could keep his bike for life if he chose to. When AMF ran the business, and when the shareholders took it back, it wasn't the profit-driven, dollar-chasing fiasco that it is now. Since 2000 the products have become disposable fashion statements for the wealthy. The junkyards will be full of today's machines as the parts become discontinued. F Jochen.

[willcasp]

Nicely done and stated. I don't see Harley changing direction as long as the current board is in place. All they see is the high margins with a high price. High margins/price can be doable, provided you are good with doing less volume. My local Harley dealers are too large to be sustained by low volume sales. Using Rolls Royce or Ferrari as a comparison, the local Rolls Royce or Ferrari dealer is significantly smaller in just about any dimension than my local Harley dealer. We also have a single RR (as well as Ferrari) dealer within 300 miles. We have 8 large HD dealers in that same space.

[ClovisPoint]

I dont care if they go under, i wouldnt lose any sleep over it

[NAParr]

HD has brought this on themselves. They had some great but expensive bikes starting with the move to the evo engines. The yuppies bought them alongside those with disposable income . These were the HD boom years. They are now a company rapidly running out of time without a major rethink of their business model. The demographics and showrooms highlight an ageing customer base, over supply and a shrinking market.

[waltermoney]

Harley tried to tell me that the MSRP was around $30, 000 on a Road Glide Standard. When told them another dealership had MSRP about $27, 000. Then they tried to tell me all what was involved in the cost of the Harley, I told them I would pass.

[HDR]

Their apparel, parts, and bikes have gone to crap. The quality isn't there anymore. The MoCo is producing stuff for the young people but trying to shove it down the throats of the HD faithful. I think you hit the nail on the head and seen this for a long time as I did