Vehicle report
Technical service bulletins are instructions a manufacturer sent its dealers about a known fault. They are not recalls and the work is usually not free, but they are the clearest signal of a problem the manufacturer already knows about.
PAB1084
GENUINE MOTOR PARTS AND ACCESSORIES BULLETIN PAB1084: SOFTAIL BACKREST PAD IMPROVEMENTS. Purpose: To inform dealers of design improvements for the Compact Passenger Backrest Pads. Some of these pads can become loose resulting in the backrest pad slipping on the sissy bar. The new backrest pads, designated with an ?A? revision, have been redesigned to fix this issue.
1HDM5V2A05
TECH ARTICLE TA0023: TA0023: Crankshaft Rod Bearing. Purpose: Technicians have been falsely identifying connecting rod bearings as failed due to a perception of resistance as the rods are rotated. The clearance of the Twin Cam and Milwaukee-Eight® crank pin bearings are maintained to a very tight range. This optimizes performance and maintains low mechanical noise in operation. The connecting rod bore can also distort slightly in operation due to stress relaxation. As a result, bearing clearance decreases due to the contact zone broadening and the load being distributed over more rollers. The combination of a bore being slightly out of round and reduced bearing clearance can result in varying degrees of resistance through the range of motion. Axial clearance is also tightly controlled for proper alignment. For these reasons, zones of resistance can be found when the connecting rods are rotated by hand through their range of motion. Resistance during rod motion, by itself, is not an indication of a performance or durability concern.
Complaint counts are reports filed with NHTSA, not failure rates. A common model collects more of them than a rare one that breaks more often.