u/try_altf4

Just some background, I'm used to MSRP, taxes, title and out the door, maybe some 5-10% off the top. When I was younger, I was the guy you'd bring along when buying your first car, your first bike and we'd just make sure the numbers added up and things "made sense". I'd help them shop around for loans, good deals, and I've been through this circus more times than most. Also, I did my roommates finance homework for 3 years in college, so I'm aware how these moving parts work.

At the Harley dealership, the finance guy lost the sales guy his sale. If the sales guy isn't fucking the finance guys' wife I'm at a loss for words of their understanding over how to sell a bike.

I have delt with hard sell dealerships in the past, where you get all dramatic and walk out and have to throw around ridiculous numbers to get near MSRP, nearly every time the juice wasn't worth the squeeze. Especially when it came time to do vehicle maintenance or recall work.

What I've never seen is a dealership roll 30% MSRP of fees into a new bike. Fees unrelated to maintenance plans and extended warranties. Those would be even more.

I've tried to politely construct a statement that conveys how far we are from understanding the value of the motorcycle:

The offer you've provided has rolled 30% MSRP in fees, not warranties or maintenance plans, into the price, This causes the 5,000$ down payment I've offered to be completely negated by those fees and sales tax. Previously, you informed me, after a credit check, I qualified for 2.99% apr, and the bike qualifies, but because you choose to use a 6 year loan it balloons the interest rate to 6.49%. I informed you I had independent financing, significantly lower, for 3-4 year terms that you were sure you'd beat. You did not in fact beat them.

When I asked to keep a copy of the bill of goods, you refused and pulled them away before I could take a picture with my phone. Fortunately, I'm good at memorizing numbers, so this is what they looked like:

https://preview.redd.it/0k8rup98ti9h1.png?width=685&format=png&auto=webp&s=11d6a90fa62ceb8449d3d2227fb33f9a7e7200f6

My counter offer would be:

• Remove 4000$ in fees
• Provide the 2.99% apr on a 3-4 year term
• I'm docking one loan bracket for the trouble. (This is basically 1k off MSRP)
  • 3 year term, instead of $232, it'll be docked to ~$200 a month.
  • 4 year term, instead of $177, it'll be docked to ~$155 a month.

In any other motorcycle or car dealership scenario I'd never consider submitting such a counter offer, but maybe HD dealers are just built different?

I was planning to call them up on Monday and let the sales guy know he did a great job, but the finance guy lost him the sell; not sure that's a great idea either, I mean what if he is fucking the finance guy's wife?

https://preview.redd.it/kiuzv8sm4y8h1.png?width=501&format=png&auto=webp&s=53620cbb61446f37664a88f67ca50fbf1cbe2118

I saw a couple reviews for crashbars, where the lower fairings have to be carved up or replaced with a set that expose a bunch of wires.

Then saw some belly pans that you'd have to remove just to do oil changes.

Was curious if anyone had a good experience with crashbar or bellyplate /skip plate guards for this bike?

Just want to start off saying, I appreciate anyone who takes the time to read this.

I'm not a typical Harley guy, and the Nightster is a motorcycle that interests me; It's poaching me from Triumph cafe style bikes.

However, the Harley dealership seems to be "built different".

I'm used to;

Honda/Kawasaki:

• 1.99% apr / 2.99% apr.
• No MSRP negotiations.
• No hard selling.
• State Tax, title fee, say hi to finance guy and you're out the door.
• I can do all the maintenance on the motorcycle. (As in no special tools or code readers).
• Normally I'll let a shop do tires/alignment/brakes. Safety First.

The Triumph dealership, my friends worked there and so it was a different situation.

I've been doing research because I heard HD were hard sellers and I didn't want to be surprised. Below are details I found from other posters, but I'm curious other owners' experiences.

• 8% APR all the way up to 25% for low credit score people.
• The staff are hard selling and hustling.
• Dealer adds on dock, transportation, "getting ready fee", and flat out dealer markups on most sales.
• After doing their credit check submission it gave me my loanable amount, but didn't provide any APR or terms information.
• 800$ post break in oil change?
  • I did the maintenance on 2 Kawas and a Triumph for this. It's an oil change with some extra steps. Took me an hour.
  • I saw HD owners pipping in that only a HD mechanic can do this. Am I missing something here? Special tool, code reader, highly inconvenient? (oil pan made out of aluminum and stripes out is a hoot).
• Warranty.
  • I see HD owners praising their warranties.
  • The only vehicle I bought a warranty on was an RX8 and they got destroyed on it, to the point the warranty company bought me out to end it early.
  • Is a warranty something a Nightster should even have? It's not a very expensive bike in the first place and I've not heard anything disastrous about them, so far.
• Maintenance plan.
  • This is probably a bad idea because I work on my bike.
• HD will negotiate on MSRP.
  • I'm already experiencing this and maybe it's just because they plan to recoup with warranties/maintenance plans?
• How do we get service manuals / part listings?
  • I've heard you put your VIN in after you buy it and that'll provide a manual.
  • Normally I can just buy it, but google has failed me in this.
• Do not tell them your down payment amount till you're at the F&I guy or fees will magically appear to gobble up your cash.
• Can I get them to throw in anything for free? Training classes, mods, shop hours, a tshirt?

I feel a little bit like I'm walking into the vipers pit, compared to my other Motorcycle purchases, so any tips or anecdotes are appreciated.

As the title says, I'm having a motorcycle!

I just don't know which one yet and I've never picked one when thinking about a passenger.

Any tips are appreciated if you found something relevant to

• riding with a passenger, equipment? advice?
• theft deterrence.
• favorite brand of gear that's summer friendly.

Most of my friends do track days on bikes, so my initial gear was full leathers until I got fat. (hahaha...) I'm sliming down and will need to rebuy gear for myself and passenger.

My Demographics:

Area: North America

Height: 6'

Inseam: 32"

Age: over 40

Weight: Was 250 at 189 and cutting down to 165.

Passenger Demographic:

Height: 5'

Weight: 90 pounds.

Status: Has ADD, doesn't understand body weight mechanics and is easily distracted. Will wear helmet.

Bike preferences:

Budget: Under 10k

Type: Cruiser, standard, cafe racer, scrambler

Cooling: I'd love liquid cooled, but I can live with air cooled.

Carburetor? I'd rather not.

Handling: Fun and doesn't rattle me to death.

Performance: I run out of bike before I run out of road and it's still a good experience with passenger. Low end torque is my jam, not 140mph top end.

Comfort: My Street triple would bust my balls just about every time I sat on it. Riding it for a long time was pretty miserable, until I started offloading weight into my legs. I'd like something that doesn't cup check me every ride and you'd enjoy a 3 hour long ride with it. Aftermarket seats are 100% an option.

Use: Going to morning coffee alone. Riding through rural highways (paved) with a passenger and occasionally doing a 3.5 hour long ride with friends to meet up and see a concert.

Many of the highways go up to 80mph here and there are some windy bits that'd be fun. My friends mostly ride liter sport bikes, but a few of them are into vintage bikes, so it's not like they squid into the horizon never to be seen again. We stick together pretty well.

Below is a bunch of hidden stuff, if you want more information, but let it ripe what bike would you suggest?

Riding History:

>!Rode 45 minutes each way on a Ninja250 for several years going to work. Rode it in rain, snow and sun! Put over 10k miles on the Ninja until it was stolen. !<

>!Bought a Triumph street triple and put 8k miles on that one doing the same commute. Until it was stolen. !<

>!I did a few track events with friends, a few of them raced professionally, but I'm not like "great" at motorcycle. I'm just very good at not getting killed while riding in rush hour traffic. I'm definitely the dumbass still trying to alleviate the impulse to stomp a foot down to stabilize the bike. (599cc bike with low end torque helped curb that behavior though). I am a sit on back brake, other leg down intersection sitter, my friends coached me on that. Apparently that's a big deal.!<

Opinion on my previous bikes:

>!The Ninja250 was really easy. "Where do I put my legs?" was an issue and switching gears made me feel like a compressed slinky. I also burned the fuck out of my leg on occasion because no liquid cooling and standstill traffic.!<

>!Street Triple 0-60 torque was bonkers to me and I liked pushing it through windy roads. On a track day I did notice that over 80 the street triple dropped off, whereas the Daytona didn't. I love the low end torque and honestly a drop off over highway speeds is fine if it can't be helped.!<

>!Main pit falls of the Street Triple. Kept sitting on my balls, it pushed an exhausting forward leaning position and for long rides it wore me out. I eventually learned to put more weight on my feet, instead of my legs and that helped a ton, but maybe there is something more comfortable for longer rides? The 31.7" seat height is probably a little tall.!<

What Bikes I've looked at:

>!SPORTSTER 883 IRON !<

• >!I'm not going to lie. Buying an HD will fan the flames of trash talk amongst my friends, especially if it doesn't fit the bill for what I need it to do. If this bike cannot do a 3+ hour ride comfortably, possibly with a passenger it's a big nope. If it breaks down on the way there....!<

>!Triumph Speed 400.!<

• >!Was told I'm too big for this and with a passenger it'll be a little comical. The seat height on this is pretty high though (31 inch), so I'm a little confused about that, but not the 3/4 sizing of it.!<

>!Ducati Scrambler Cafe Racer!<

• >!This seems like a lot of fun, what's wrong with it?!<

>!Kawasaki Vulcan S!<

• >!People who ride a lot of different bikes don't like this one very much it seems.!<
• >!I've heard it's pretty agile, but I am curious how it is with a passenger.!<

>!Kawasaki Z650RS!<

• >!I hear this bike is comfortable and is a great all rounder.!<

>! Royal Enfield Bear 650!<

• >!I don't like it's looks as much as the Ducati scrambler, but seems neat.!<

>!Indian Scout Sixty!<

• >!I've heard this as an alternative to the Vulcan S. !<

Also, due to microplastics, I also have plastic nut 😞.

2026 is coming at me fast my dudes, be safe and rock on!

I'm once again trying to get a Halloween thing together locally.

If you were going to play live for a Halloween show what songs would you include?

I appreciate any responses.

The original builder of the PC didn't setup TPM2.0 correctly, causing windows updates to fail. It wasn't setup to the firmware version and somehow they got it off the ground. Once I started doing windows 11 updates this became progressively worse.

When I attempted to change the m.2 drive to support TPM2.0 it bricked the m.2 drive.

Motherboard Asus Prime B550M-A AC.

Here's a sequence of issues and troubleshooting steps I've done.

Issues and triages.:

• After each windows update, machine would go into an infinite "file fix" loop and eventually it would end up at the windows screen. (30-40 minutes of looping).
  • My understanding was this is the TPM process being broken, because the m.2 drive wasn't configured with it correctly.
  • Ran scandsk check 0 issues,
  • mem86 check, 0 issues
  • did the whole online regen thing
  • setup new partitions for m.2 to make it larger for the windows update install. (deleted nothing).
  • Tried clearing the security keys.
• Gave up trying to fix m.2 drive. Removed it. installed brand new sata hd. When trying to install fresh windows 11 install it noted TPM wasn't enabled, so it can't do it. Set up firmware based tpm and it let install proceed. Previously, the discreet tpm mode did not have the tpm2.0 options (until firmware update).
  • Updated firmware on bios to newest version.
  • moved ram from slot 2 / 4 to just slot 1.
  • popped bios battery.
  • tried default bios.
  • configured tpm(?) maybe there's some magic to this I just don't get.
    • security device support enabled.
    • amd ftpm enable firmware tpm selected.
    • CSM (compatibility support module) disabled.
• When doing the install on the new HD, the windows media device is by happens chance found. Sometimes the machine restarts 4 times and find it, sometimes it restarts 50 times and finds it. It will freeze and break if I do not do everything in 10 minutes and fails at 11% windows install (Solved)
  • Set powercfg to high performance, by shift f10 and manually updating it in CMD. This allowed install to complete.
  • It's still not discovering the USB media drive reliably, even with fast boot disabled.
• Now that windows 11 is installed on a brand new harddrive, computer posts, does MFR title screen, then restarts.
  • Took out windows media USB.
  • Changed boot order.
  • Directly booted to new install.
• Now the PC can no longer "load" the media drive.
  • Hold 4 seconds, repeat 3 times will also no boot the restore/fix setup. This hasn't even really worked on this box anyways.

The box just loads post, MFR logo spins and restarts perpetually. I genuinely don't understand how a brand new windows 11 install cannot just boot up. I have 2 new usb drives I'm going to load the windows 11 media to and give that a try to see if it's the USB drive, but overall I'm pretty stumped.

I'm tempted to clear the TPM keys again, but I'm not sure the risk for that. I guess the risk is 0, because I can just reinstall windows 11 again; assuming the media USB drive decides to be detectable again.

Any tips or tricks that can be provided are appreciated. I'm absolutely loving this tpm 2.0 stuff. XD

edit1: if I unplug the harddrive the windows 11 media drive starts working again.

I'll keep it brief, then shit myself at the end with walls of text; just kidding the bullet points are shitty enough.

What has Fender done?

• Won a default judgement in EU court. Copy right basis not trademark/patent basis.
• Sent US / EU / Asia | Pacific guitar builders cease and desist letters.
• Been making my life suck ass with their overspray on frets since 2002.

What is the Cease and desist letters?

• Pay Fender a six figure fine.
• Destroy any S type guitars you have.
• Destroy any S type guitars you have, that you have sold.

What is an S type guitars maximum scope?

• You can search by S type guitar on reverb or sweetwater and it'll give the maximum scope.
• Brand spotlight, Ibanez: RG series, Iron series, S series, AZ series, Gio series, nearly all signature guitars, Lab series and probably more. These are possible "S type" guitars.
• Fender owns the following brands, so they will not be impacted: Jackson, EVH, Squier, Fender, Gretsch and Charvel(Edit).

Why are people freaking out?

• US has the strat body in public domain. Fighting it as a copyright (art) opens up a sort of protection that could be wide and wildly unfortunate for the industry.
• Most people don't consider Fender, even custom shop, to be very good. This market intimidation threatens builders that build Fender alternatives or just better Fenders.
• Americans will lose their jobs because of this, small business will go out of business because of this.
• This will chill the market, reducing market competition and overall driving quality down.

What is the worst case Scenario?

• If the "S type guitar" scope goes wide, it could impact an absurd amount of the guitar market.
• Imagine the dumbest people you know getting on a jury, deciding what guitars look like a strat or an 80 year old half blind judge determining which guitars are infringing on "Fender's Copyright".
• This hurts small guitar shops who can not afford Fenders buy in. We may see guitar consolidations in stores and smaller stores closing. This would narrow the local variety of guitars you can purchase locally.
• Using Copyright protections instead of trademark protections could lead to Gibson followups or "The telecaster body shape is based off a testicular torsion injury leo fender had and it's 100% art", absurdist revisioning.

I have a new potential customer that requires his ESPs radiused to 350mm, not 14".

His last tech, who recently passed, had an old fabrication shop make him a set and the guy would like to see I physically have 350mm radiused tools before I work on his guitars.

I've been looking, but all I see are 14". I even went to Crimson guitars (they're in the UK right?) expecting to see some metric measurements, but nope!

I know there's not much difference between 14" and 350mm, but he has that preference and it doesn't sound to outlandish.

Three years ago my mother passed away and I handled the estate.

I'm the youngest in the family, but I had this strong feeling none of my half siblings (all a decade older) were up to the task. (I'm a bastard born after my mom and my siblings' dad divorced).

While handling the estate, I found a money pipeline where my mother would take amounts from 500$ all the way up to 10,000$ and give it to my older siblings. Examples of it were things like;

• 2500$ bailing older brother out of jail for street racing.
• 2000$ for new tires for older brother's mustang GT.
• 10,000$ so mom could buy a new horse.
• 3000$ for a mortgage down payment for brother's "VA loan" I don't think those need down payments.
• 5000$ for the other brother's VA loan. Once again, I don't think those need down payments.

When I was younger, my mother and I shared a bank account, and I'd work a low wage job consistently and save up. I didn't want to saddle my family with debt for going to college, so instead I saved and worked a ton. When money would go missing my mother would explain that I was paying for bills, paying my way at the house. I thought that made sense, but when I think back I remember the same "bill" being cited for multiple cash extractions.

In diaries my mother wrote how she is torn, that on the one hand I saved up all this money to go to college, but she also "needed" the money to buy a horse. She ended up deciding to buy the horse and that she felt I'd just fail in college anyways. I graduated college working 2 full time jobs, a part time job, and was still saddled with 60,000$ in debt. (I have a sleep disorder called short sleep syndrome. It's how I could work so many jobs).

The worst part of this whole thing was earlier this year I found some diary entries mentioning a "sickly child" repeatedly and how the child was diabetic. That's really weird, nobody in our line is diabetic. The only kid in the family my mom called sickly was my oldest sibling. (He stuttered, needed glasses and had a walking issue until he was a teenager). My mom seemed bent on not having another "sickly child" and I know she contemplated aborting me, so where is this sibling? (We're an evangelical Christian conservative family in case you're wondering; Yes they vote the way you think they vote.).

Brought this up to my half siblings. That diabetic kid? That's me! I'm diabetic. I'm 40+ years old, was told all the diabetic symptoms I felt as a kid were just my imagination and my half siblings and mother were all in on it. I'm a type 2 diabetic, so I didn't outright die, but what the actual fuck is this?

I had some massive health incidents in my early 20s (cancer), horrific kidney issues in my mid 20s and liver problems in my mid 30s, until last year I was diagnosed as diabetic on a fluke test to rule it out. My doctor went over symptoms and I've had those since I was 10 years old and never brought them up because my family told me it was normal.

I confronted some of my siblings on a 1 on 1 basis and their responses were;

• I thought mom told you.
• Yes, it's mom's fault. She treated me bad too. (bullshit).

I know my half siblings are a complete disappointment, but I guess the whole "we withheld pertinent medical information and care from you intentionally" really irked me.

Anyways, thanks for reading my rant.