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| Motorcycle Message Board - Motorcycle USA > MotorcycleUSA.com! > General Motorcycle Chat > Buell shut down by HD? | Forum Quick Jump
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ianisme
Typical Bloody Brit!
      
Date Joined Mar 2003
Total Posts : 8110
| Posted 10/16/2009 6:30 AM (GMT -8) |   | Suzuki have an even better rep for selling engines. Apart from the exotics like Bimota, there are the mass market bikes from Hyosung and some others. Yamaha too sell engines in the Far East.
Peekamoo!
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martinjmpr
08 Triumph Scrambler
Date Joined Jun 2003
Total Posts : 4196
| Posted 10/16/2009 6:56 AM (GMT -8) | | |
What's interesting about this thread (and about this topic in general) is that, as near as I can tell, only one person who has commented on this subject actually owns a Buell, and that's GeoffG.
Seems like there are a lot of people who like the idea of Buell, but they don't like it enough to actually put any of their hard earned money down on one.
And that, of course, is the problem: Lots of people liked the idea of Buell. They liked the fact that there was an "American sportbike" out there. But their motorcycles never had the mass appeal that is neccessary in this day and age to be a viable motorcycle company. And as a result, people didn't buy.
A great idea is not enough. You also have to make a product that people want and can buy.
Other companies could learn from Buell's mistake [cough]Indian[/cough]. 
Martin
Englewood, CO (Denver suburb)
UJM (Universal Japanese Motorcycle) Fanatic
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Desmolicious
Registered Member
Date Joined Aug 2004
Total Posts : 4618
| Posted 10/16/2009 7:05 AM (GMT -8) | | martinjmpr said...What's interesting about this thread (and about this topic in general) is that, as near as I can tell, only one person who has commented on this subject actually owns a Buell, and that's GeoffG. Seems like there are a lot of people who like the idea of Buell, but they don't like it enough to actually put any of their hard earned money down on one. And that, of course, is the problem: Lots of people liked the idea of Buell. They liked the fact that there was an "American sportbike" out there. But their motorcycles never had the mass appeal that is neccessary in this day and age to be a viable motorcycle company. And as a result, people didn't buy. A great idea is not enough. You also have to make a product that people want and can buy. Other companies could learn from Buell's mistake [cough]Indian[/cough]. 
That is exactly it. Everyone is complaining that Harley is nuts shutting Buell, but they do not buy Buell bikes themselves...
It's a business. If the bikes don't sell, lights out. Simple as that.
Børk! Børk! Børk! | | Back to Top | | |
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iman501
Registered Member
Date Joined Sep 2008
Total Posts : 227
| Posted 10/16/2009 10:49 AM (GMT -8) | | I hope your right in a way desmo!, while me agreeing there will be unsold buells at the dealers, helps the argument "why buell should have been cut", it would be nice to be able to own a newer one with the warrentee. At the two harley shops in my area they dont have much of a selection of buells, last time i was in one of them, they had an 09 xb9s lightning, 2 ulysses, and 2 1125r's, no firebolts to speak of (which is the xb that i am more fond of even though i know the lightning would be more practical for me) and the other dealer was in the same boat. so if they can hold on to that 09 xb9s for a while, then maybe one day it'll be in my garage, as long as i can scrounge up another $2k
bikes dont leak oil, they mark their territory | | Back to Top | | |
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Kz1000st
Registered Member
Date Joined Aug 2008
Total Posts : 95
| Posted 10/17/2009 4:26 AM (GMT -8) | | | You guys are missing the bigger picture. ( I only picked up on this page so forgive me) Companies learn from other divisions about technology. Look at the big Suzuki Boulevard and it's GSXR style head. If Suzuki didn't have a sport bike division would they make a bike like that? The same for any of the other Jap companies. They apply what they use from the heavy hitters into the lazy bikes. Victory used some of their knowledge from ATVs and watercraft to build the first bike. Sorry, but I think a Victory is 10 times the engine of a Harley. Now Harley is ditching Buell and all their thought processes will be from making agricultural motors. What a mess when the day comes when they have to build a Vulcan Classic to meet EPA regs and perform as well as the competition in every day life and still be a Harley. The people at Buell could have helped, instead of relying on Porsche or some Chinese outfit. | | Back to Top | | |
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GeoffG
Harley Ninja!
Date Joined Jun 2003
Total Posts : 9196
| Posted 10/17/2009 10:18 AM (GMT -8) | | martinjmpr said...
What's interesting about this thread (and about this topic in general) is that, as near as I can tell, only one person who has commented on this subject actually owns a Buell, and that's GeoffG.
Seems like there are a lot of people who like the idea of Buell, but they don't like it enough to actually put any of their hard earned money down on one.
And that, of course, is the problem: Lots of people liked the idea of Buell. They liked the fact that there was an "American sportbike" out there. But their motorcycles never had the mass appeal that is neccessary in this day and age to be a viable motorcycle company. And as a result, people didn't buy.
A great idea is not enough. You also have to make a product that people want and can buy.
Martin, you're exactly right. This is why it is so difficult to bring innovation to the market--most people are just too conservative (and worse, afraid of being thought gullible) to actually try anything new.
I liked the ideas Buell was promoting, so I actually went and rode one of his bikes. I heard a LOT of negative comments (mostly from people who had never ridden one), but the proof was in the pudding--I loved the bike, so I bought one. Unfortunately, too many guys are like Evans89, they pick up on one thing they see as negative, and ignore everything else.
Evans, I'll ask you--what's wrong with the aircooled "Thunderstorm" engine in my Firebolt? Why couldn't it ever be a sportbike engine? It has a great feel, a ton of bottom end for pulling out of corners, a wide powerband, and a very manageable throttle. I've ridden lots of other sportbikes, and I prefer my 'Bolt, thanks! Nothing like powering through a tight set of twisties with hardly any gear changes, just roll the throttle up and down. Of course, to do that, you have to be willing to carry a lot of speed through the corners--which the Buell does very well (it's handling has been both praised and vilified, but I love it--no other bike I've ever ridden feels quite so planted at full lean). There is so much more to a motorcycle than the engine, but for some reason many riders seem to focus only on that one thing. | | Back to Top | | |
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louemc
Registered Member
Date Joined Mar 2003
Total Posts : 15451
| Posted 10/17/2009 11:56 AM (GMT -8) | | Umm, Eric was a thinker, for sure. And He did accomplish an amazing feat, from the time he started building Buells (selling maybe 12 of them a year) to the gaining enough customer support to interest Harley Davidson to buy out Eric.
At first Harley just gave Eric a good deal on Sportster Engines, and stayed out of the picture. If Eric failed, Harley didn't want to be associated with Buell.
But... Eric had a lot of faults in manufacturing.
At one Buell event south of Alices Restaurant, I asked Eric to come look at my S-3. We walked a short distance to it, and were by ourselves. I pointed out (by pointing to the parts) You could not remove the clutch/primary chain, side cover, without taking off the big Aluminum plate that held the left foot peg and pivot point for the Engine/transmission/swing arm (one piece assembly on the rubber mount Buell) or in other words the whole freakin bike fell apart, if you needed to pull the clutch cover off to adjust your primary chain or do clutch work. Only because the big aluminum plate was 3/8ths of an inch too wide, in a tiny spot where the clutch cover needed to pass by.
I asked him how he explained that situation that didn't have to be there at all, and would of, no matter what, have been discovered as a mistake, inhouse if anyone in the Buell factory rode one, and worked on it.
He said "they rushed into production". (like that's an excuse that flys).
The powder coating on my frame was failing pretty bad, Rust popping up due to the salty coastal fog.
I asked him if there was any possibility that a customer could have the option if they were willing to pay for it, to have a Nickel plated frame as a factory option?
He said no, Nickel plating will make a frame crack. I didn't say anything, what's the use? I guess Eric never heard of Cheeny or those other specialty Brit frame builders that made all those Dirt bikes, scramblers,MX'rs, with Triumph, BSA, engines and their "kit" chassis. I guess Eric was confused with Chrome cracking frames.
I collected a stack of recall notices, on my Buell, but... the bike was a basket case, and I didn't want to bother hauling it to a Harley dealership that carried Buell, by that time. One of those trips is a major haul distance, from where I live.
One of the last Buell ads I saw was Eric crouched down along side of one of his bikes in the factory. (staged photo) He is snipping out a pattern for something, the caption says "The Rider comes first, not the bike" . What a load of crap, Eric doesn't know the customer, those bikes are not custom made to suit individual customers. It is his resposibility to make a bike that comes first in the market competition, to make a bike that can be made in the competitive volumes, to stay first through efficiency of manufacturing, to stay in successfull business. He didn't.
Focus the forces, Be The ForcePost Edited (louemc) : 10/17/2009 7:59:34 PM GMT | | Back to Top | | |
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louemc
Registered Member
Date Joined Mar 2003
Total Posts : 15451
| Posted 10/17/2009 1:12 PM (GMT -8) | |
skyhawk04kilo said...
CaddmannQ said...The idiots running this country (and its manufacturing businesses) have no idea what's really important. That's why they're all going broke. Back when engineers ran these companies they thrived and it was the Golden Age of Motoring. Now Accountants and Lawyers run them and they suck at it. CLEARLY they suck at it. Why? Engineers are driven to build and create! Accountants and lawyers are driven to figure loopholes, cover their asses, and calculate the odds. If Henry Ford or Soichiro Honda had worried about calculating the odds, we'd still be riding horses. I may not be a Buell owner, but I am a huge fan of what they represent: The fact that Americans can still be winners! We're being sold out by a bunch of monied ^%$#*&^@@'s who dont give a crap about the USA. I gotta stop now before I blow a gasket! I'm so mad!  I'll be graduating in December with a degree in Accountancy and I have yet to take a class called "figuring loopholes" or "covering your ass". I have, however, had a class about "calculating the odds", it was called statistics. But you're right, statistics is all just fancy mumbo-jumbo made up by bigwigs to rob America. We don't need to know how to calculate odds when making a business decision, we should just do whatever seems right in our gut. That whole concept of risk is totally inconsequential. If only people had paid less attention to risk, we wouldn't be dealing with the sub-prime-mortgage-induced economic crisis right now... It's weird that you wrote this post today, I just walked in the door from my management class. We learned about Pan-Am, and the reason it went out of business. It had a bunch of business segments, the airline, a hotel chain, and a building in NY that apparently made money somehow. The airline was crapping out, so Pan-Am sold off the building in NY and the hotel to try to revitalize the dying airline, instead of selling the airline to invest more in the successful hotel chain. Look what happened! Pan-Am is no more, but Inter-Continental Hotels lives on. This is just one example (there are thousands of others) of a huge company going bankrupt because it didn't know when to cut its losses on a business segment. When a company recognizes a segment of its business is dying, it's a really horrible idea to keep funneling money into it. Harley absolutely made the right decision here. If they didn't, the losses could keep growing and eventually take down all of Harley. Imagine how pissed you'd be then! If you really believed what you said about Buell being a winner, you would have gone out and bought a Buell. But you didn't, because you're not about to spend $10 grand on a bike just to prove a point about how much you support a company that represents America. No one else bought Buells either, so now it goes away. That's how companies and economies work on the most basic level. If you think Buell should stick around and continue to operate at a loss, why don't you buy it? Buell represents the exact opposite of America being a winner. It represents Americans' failure to compete with Japanese and European competition. The demise of Buell will hopefully lead to another American sport bike manufacturer that will make a better bike, one that will actually compete with the other manufacturers' bikes both on the track and at the dealerships.
Ah, the world of the hasn't gotten out of school and actually worked yet.
It's so nice in school, textbooks and lectures, and a illusion of reality that is void of corporate decisions made by real people with personality disorders. Just shuffle words around.
Rotsa Ruck in the work force. And competing with the rest of the world. And keeping a cheery outlook.
Focus the forces, Be The Force | | Back to Top | | |
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GeoffG
Harley Ninja!
Date Joined Jun 2003
Total Posts : 9196
| Posted 10/17/2009 8:16 PM (GMT -8) | | jclax01 said...
yo Lou, I think you were asking the wrong guy questions about your bike. Yes it was his company, yes his vision. But this guy was a VP at Harley and start up owner for his company. He probably did not have an idea what you were talking about. He is a money guy with SOME knowledge of his own product. I am sure he knows the price point of the bikes he made, but I bet he would hard pressed to even know where the battery was on the bike.
Actually, jclax, Erik Buell is an engineer and the guy who came up with most of the interesting concepts on Buell motorcycles. He holds a ton of patents (things like the crumple zone that allows the fuel-in-frame concept to work safely, ZTL braking system, even the underslung muffler concept--although I believe that last one has run out). He designed the Uniplanar mounting system which allows the Harley-based engine to rock fore and aft, but holds it rigidly side to side. He was not a VP at Harley, he was an engineer who worked on frame and chassis systems--I believe the XLCR was his design--who raced as a privateer on weekends, and thought he could make a better racebike. He quit Harley to start his own company, building 750GP racebikes in his garage (powered by a Barton square-4 2-stroke engine, BTW). His bikes were promising, but the AMA changed format and dropped the 750GP class in favour of 600 and 1000 cc production classes, and suddenly Buell racebikes had no class to race in. He was able to buy some unused XR1000 engines from H-D, and he built his first streetbikes using those engines--and that was the beginning of Buell as we know it today.
So no, Lou was asking the right guy the questions. | | Back to Top | | |
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Smitty
Registered Member
Date Joined Mar 2003
Total Posts : 18448
| Posted 10/18/2009 4:59 PM (GMT -8) | | |
Okay so I am late in reading this bit about Buell. The interesting thing is that HD is much like British irons in their prime . Meaning the gearbox is not of the same unit of the power-plant. So a PRIMARY CHAINCASEA to have a oil bath for the clutch & primary chain.
If we wanted to work on the clutch then we had to remove the Primary Chain case, BUT it was no ordeal other then the screws we had to remove or how to seal the primary chaincase once was all done.
Take for instance the Manx Norton 500cc DOHC single, the Matchless 500cc DOHC single, to most other 100% road racing bikes. Since we had a dry clutch on them, then it was an exposed Primary Chain with just a bit of a guard on the brake lever so you would not accidently put your boot into the Primary Chain while the SHIFTING was done on the RIGHT side. So quite different some of you will have to agree.
Our comp dirt bikes like the Matchless 500cc OHV Scrambler, AJS 350cc Observed Trials, Norton 500T standing for Observed Trials, to just so many other bikes, made or modified for competition had an inclosed Primary Chain case, being the oil bath for the clutch to the chain, with all the swamping of cogs done on the RIGHT side.
Of interested when Honda & Yamaha envited some of the top road racers over, to try out some of their 250 to 350cc road racers. Chaps from South Africa, Rhodesia, Australia, to England all said the bikes were very impressive to ride, BUT could the makers put the gear change lever on the RIGHT side while the brake pedal would be on the left side. So overnight to the next day that is what the makers did, AND their road racers, way back then were simply nothing compared to those as above to any from Europe. So THEY asked for the SAME. All envited road racers were quite pleased & were lapping the small circuit at much higer speeds SO WERE THE Jpn Road Racers. Unfortunately the stupid law came in about the foot gear change lever was on the left & brake on the right. For this move helped so much in co-ordination & balance. Note how a runner or jogger or even fast walker moves his legs the very opposit directions of pace of thier arms & yes in marching the very opposit for all parade people.
You do not believe me then get out of your chair & try to run a the length of the room of the yard with arms in the same pace as your legs & feet. If you do, then be prepared to come close to landing on your kisser. Think about the above & ask yourself why jogger, runners to so many more DO NOT USE the m/c very opposite movements of legs & arms?
So a bit of history for you about some things that would include Buell's primary chain case compared to that of British irons & YES a number of the Brits were with nickle-plated tubing that had started out as 531 Reynolds tubing back in the 50s so possibly Eric Buell possible did NOT know about what the Brits were doing especially on some of their specialized frames of the time. I guess you only have so much time to become an engineer of m/cs & to come out with something. So some things were sort of missed.
Remember all the others on the road are crazy & out to kill you.Post Edited (Smitty) : 10/19/2009 1:15:58 AM GMT | | Back to Top | | |
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GeoffG
Harley Ninja!
Date Joined Jun 2003
Total Posts : 9196
| Posted 10/18/2009 5:32 PM (GMT -8) | | Smitty said...
Okay so I am late in reading this bit about Buell. The interesting thing is that HD is much like British irons in their prime . Meaning the gearbox is not of the same unit of the power-plant. So a PRIMARY CHAINCASEA to have a oil bath for the clutch & primary chain.
Smitty, the Buell engine (like the Sportster it is derived from) has the transmission housed in the engine cases; it is not a separate unit. However, the transmission does use its own oil, separate from the engine oil, so it does use a primary chain, which resides under the left side case and runs in transmission oil. The chain drives the clutch basket, and torque is transferred through the clutch to the transmission input shaft--pretty straightforward, and the clutch is certainly no more difficult to access than any other wet clutch--just remove the one side cover and it's right there.
Actually, I like the setup--it means that I can use "EC" engine oil if I want, the additives won't affect the clutch, and also it means any wear particles from the clutch or gears won't contaminate the engine oil. | | Back to Top | | |
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