Two words.

Harley Davidson.

 

The rear suspension is a lot more complex in the Softail models which would bring the price of manufacture up some. Usually they have more chromed and less powder-coated parts than the Dyna line. All that shiny stuff comes at a premium.

 

4 grand worth of shiny huh? Hmm... lol

I do love my uncle's bike though. It's an '02 (I think), loaded electra glide ultra classic. Deep hunter green (or whatever harley decided to call it). The story is kind of interesting though. He had saved up 35 grand or so with the intention of buying a brand new goldwing. Goes to the Honda dealership and no one would talk to him. He literally had an envelope with 35k in his pocket and none of the salesmen would give him the time of day. So he drives to the Harley shop instead, had a nice salesman, bought a beautiful bike and put some louder pipes (and a few other things) on it.

Sometime I'll have to get some pictures of it and I'll put them up here.

 

4 grand worth of shiny huh? Hmm... lol

I got the model that was pretty blacked out (Roadster) and saved a lot of cash over the totally chromed out Sporties. A lot of people will spend the extra, but I bought for function over looks. It all comes down to personal preference.

 

I suppose that's really the case, what you really prefer. I still think my next bike will be a vtx 1800 (or whatever they replace it with) but I plan on testing out harleys and metrics alike to see which one I really want. I can tell you that I probably wouldn't pay that much extra for a softail though. Doesn't seem like there's a reason to (for me).

 

Just for grins, why don't you go into your local HD dealership and ask THEM what the difference is? Depending on how experienced the salesman is, he may or may not be able to tell you. (And you're right, 4k worth of shiny stuff isn't a good answer.) Now, if you also wander back to the service lane and ask them why it generaly costs more to do major work on a Softail, any tech that works on both can tell you.

There's a LOT of chit crammed into that sexy lil frame.

 

Actually that's a really good idea. I think I might e-mail the local harley 'ship and ask them what the difference is. If it's a comical answer I'll certainly post it.

 

Or you could actually GO in there and talk to them face-to-face. And if it's an intelligent answer, you'll post that too, right? I'm just saying..