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"Man, not the reliability myth again. Harley's are more reliable than a lot of metric bikes these days, due to self-adjusting valves that many metrics lack. Harley hasn't had reliability issues for 20 years now, but I see the myth still persists."

I guess that why my co-worker's 2000 Road King sprang a major oil leak around the rocker box covers after a year or so? But I guess that's not a reliability issue, just a messy inconvenience.

Self-adjusting valves are not a reliability issue, either, but a maintenance issue. My bike needs it done every 15,000 miles, which is more than most people put on their bikes in 3 or 5 years. In the meantime it puts out 100 reliable, quiet, smooth, leak-free HP. And you don't have to tighten every bolt on the bike weekly to keep things from falling off.

Self-adjusting valves are not a reliability issue, either, but a maintenance issue. My bike needs it done every 15,000 miles, which is more than most people put on their bikes in 3 or 5 years.

We obviously ride differently. I'm usually looking at rebuilding the engine at 5 years, because I'm approaching 150,000 miles.

I've owned several Hondas, a Fatboy, and I'm on my 3rd Sportster. At some point I realized that I really loved Sportsters, and to hell with big twins. My present one is a 2003 883 Hugger that I've converted to a 1200. I bought it in July of last year and I already have 18,000 miles on it. The last Sportster I had was with me for 320,000 miles before I finally had to concede that it was used up. Yes, the engine was rebuilt twice during that time, but somehow, I don't think that reflects poorly on the reliability.

When I say that HD is reliable. I mean it. I ride my motorcycle almost exclusively. It's my daily ride, my vehicle. My car is the thing that I drive only when I can't take the motorcyle. I've actually had car problems because I've let the gas gel due to inactivity.

In the 18,000 miles I've owned this new one, I've only had two warranty issues. A broken positive battery cable and the speedometer was replaced because the black trim began to flake.