Harley-Davidson

[743 roadmasterParticipant]

https://www.usatoday.com/story/money/cars/2018/01/30/harley-davidson-kansas-city-plant-motorcycle-sales-fall/1078008001

Harley-Davidson closing Kansas City plant as motorcycle sales fall

Harley-Davidson’s sales fell sharply in 2017 and the company will move ahead with a plan to consolidate manufacturing operations, including the closure of its Kansas City, Mo. plant.

The world’s largest maker of heavyweight motorcycles has struggled to reverse a four-year sales slide, with growth overseas somewhat helping offset a decline in the U.S. bike market.

——-A few years back HD started a new line of lighter smaller bikes, looks to not have helped.

mgtow is its own worst enemy- https://www.campusreform.org/

[Anonymous 7]

Too many pussy boys out there growing up now. They are more concerned with having a righteous social media profile, console games, and whatnot.

I rode dirt bikes, built forts in the woods, made skateboard ramps, and such.

Most follow what they enjoy, and danger and excitement of the two wheeled version doesn’t fit with most boys these days.

Also, I already own a Harley, so I’m not so inclined to go buy another one.

Still a sad situation. Just think, Indian Motorcycles have recently come back. I wonder if it is going to be bad timing on their part?

[XSDBSParticipant 3598]

For 2018, Harley discontinued the Dyna models (built at #3 Kansas City), and consolidated them into the updated Softail models (built at #4 York).

The #1 Tomahawk plant (new building back in 2001) has been scaling back for several years now (e.g. no more sidecars, automated robotic painting, and outsourcing parts like starters).
I suspect The Tomahawk plant will be shut down too.

They are also pricing themselves out the the market, my 5 year old Street Glide was $20,000 new out the door.
Today, the exact same Street Glide is $27,500 out the door.

I don’t understand why Polaris stopped production of Victory Motorcycles.
They sold them as fast as they could unload them.
On any given day, I see a 50/50 mix of Victory and Harley motorcycles on the road.

[Anonymous 2]

The cost of them as stated above is insane. They don’t have enough metal on them for that. The engineering is close to the same to. The cost of vehicles in general is ridiculous I’ll avoid anything new.
They sell more merchandise than bikes anyway. Hell if they dropped the cost 15 percent across the board they’d make money with all the HD s~~~ they sell. Greed will break them.

[BeerParticipant 11832]

XSDBS wrote:

They are also pricing themselves out the the market, my 5 year old Street Glide was $20,000 new out the door.
Today, the exact same Street Glide is $27,500 out the door.

Last bike I had was a 2 year old rice rocket I paid 3500 dollars for that only had a couple thousand miles on it, and was better performing than anything Harley makes. Harley’s are fading away as the older generation stops riding, because most of the young people I know who ride buy sport bikes, and the few that have bought cruisers don’t really care if its Harley or not. My dad and my uncle who ride on the other hand…they’ve ridden Harleys for years and laughed when I bought a Jap bike, but considering they’re both in their 60s now I doubt Harley will be making much more money from guys like them.

If I wanted to go spend almost 30k on something with wheels that was fun to drive I’d drop <10k on a 1000cc used sport bike and the balance on a Corvette…ridiculously priced Harley’s aren’t even on the radar.

[BeerParticipant 11832]

Anonymous wrote:

The cost of vehicles in general is ridiculous I’ll avoid anything new.

That’s the way to go these days, check the car fax and if it comes up clean you can generally get a 3 year old vehicle for around half price of what it cost new.

I always figured I’d rather buy nothing but used cars but dollar for dollar be able to buy more cars if I want to…like the car I’m driving now is a 2013 I bought in 2015…if I wanted I could upgrade to a 2016 later this year when the 2019s come out, sell my 2013, and be driving a newer car…and simple math price of 2013 used – price of 2013 when I sell it + price of 2016 used will probably end up being about the same, or even a little less than simply buying one brand new…but hey, some people really like buying s~~~ new for some reason, so more power to them.

Of course I’m super cheap though so I’ll be driving my 2013 until it starts to give me problems lol…bought my last car used and drove it for 11 years and only got rid of it because it needed more money put into it than it was worth.

[GrumpyParticipant]

The first Harley I rode was built before I was born, it served in WWII.
The last Harley I rode was an old police bike brought up from the U.S in the mid 1970’s.
I lost interest in H-D bikes when they became trendy and over priced. If I ever decide to buy a bike again it will probably be a Ural with sidecar.

There was a time in my life when I gave a fuck. Now you have to pay ME for it

[MonkParticipant 16983]

Like many companies and institutions, HD has come to believe that it doesn’t need to justify its existence.

[AwakenedParticipant 35201]

Harley Davidsons are made primarily for “Old White Guys”.

This is an ageing market where a lot of Men are giving up riding, and they’re not being replaced with a younger generation.

It’s not much different then the Men that are buying Corvettes, and retro Camaro’s, Mustangs, and Challengers.

These are continuing to sell because at least there’s 4 wheels, and Men can drive these for Many years, but never the less these models will be phased out in time.

Today’s Young Men are into New Honda’s/Toyotas and video games.

I don’t see today’s young men driving retro sports cars or on Harley Davidsons either.

In a World of Justin Beibers Be a Johnny Cash

[Anonymous 42]

Harley needs to think outside the box. They got their s~~~ together after AMF almost killed them.

Now they need to think 3 or 4 wheels, different concepts.

[Anonymous 14]

Fine by me if Harley goes out of business altogether, beyond tired of dudes who didn’t get enough hugs from momma when they were kids blipping their straight pipe exhaust all day long for “hey, look at me, I am pretending to be a tough guy” attention. STFU already… If we all drove around without mufflers on our cars and bikes like these clowns we would be a society that all spoke one language already, sign language, because everyone would be deaf by 20.

[AttonParticipant]

They are rather expensive and video games are cheaper. That pretty much sums it up.

A MGTOW is a man who is not a woman's bitch!

[Anonymous 54]

Triumph.

[Anonymous 54]

Anonymous wrote:

Harley needs to think outside the box. They got their s~~~ together after AMF almost killed them.

Now they need to think 3 or 4 wheels, different concepts.

If they want to survive, they need to change.

[MrMeParticipant 651]

Harleys are cool but lets be realistic here, they are way too overpriced for the models they offer.

Cheepest 500 cc Harley’s price could get me a 850 cc from another brand.

[BeerParticipant 11832]

Awakened wrote:

I don’t see today’s young men driving retro sports cars or on Harley Davidsons either.

A lot of it is just tastes…like Camaros for example…they were my favorite car when I was in high school, and a motivator for me to save money so I could buy myself one.

I bought myself one a few years later, during the time they were not making them, and ended up getting an 02, which is what the one on the left looks like. When they bought them back I remember thinking wtf did they do…they replaced a beautiful design with that box like monstrosity?

I guess they’re nice if you liked the old ones to begin with, but if you want something modern looking…the retro cars aren’t all that appealing.

Bikes as well…when I was looking at bikes and wanted a smaller bike(as in no interest in 800lb+ bikes) I could get for around 5,000 dollars I found bikes that looked like this…

And what do you know…it just so happened the style bike I found to be nice looking was also better performing and cheaper…

[BeerParticipant 11832]

Atton wrote:

They are rather expensive and video games are cheaper. That pretty much sums it up.

Haha this too. I probably spent about 200 bucks on video games last year and enjoyed playing video games just about every day. Motorcycles don’t really get much use up here about 3-4 months out of the year due to the weather, and 200 bucks would probably be about 3 tanks of gas in a sports car that uses high test. If you just want bang for your buck for keeping yourself entertained things with engines tend to not be cost effective.

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