Moral of the story: remove all incriminating evidence from your saddlebags before selling a bike.

Just as an update. I bought this bike from SRK. Two and a half years and over 14,000 miles later, the bike still runs perfectly. Although I will need to soon have the rear tire replaced.

Zeroing the odometer is a common practice when changing gauge clusters though. By law, you need to disclose that you zeroed it and you need to write/tape a piece of paper literally anywhere with the actual miles before you zeroed wether the subject os a bike or a car. So yeah, having the piece pf paper in the saddle bag was completely legal.

I ran a small custom bike building business in the UK for 15 years. I was shocked by the way some others in the industry and support businesses treated me as a small business man. Plenty of very similar experiences and resulted in me aquiring the machines and skills to do most of those jobs myself in house. I never went back to places that ripped me off and can only imagine how their retail customers were abused.

Sorry about your misadventure. My take: Right bike, wrong dealer.

A dealership over charging for a part... Imagine that.

Well this was a weird situation and doesn't really call for a complete boycott of Indian Motorcycles.

An odometer that starts at 0, and an overpriced tire.. I would personally consider these things trivial, but different worlds I guess. I'm just a consumer, not a trader.

It's not Indian, but that particular Indian dealership that should be dissed.

3:45 fixed after a couple of weeks? LOL! The dude probably had the time of his life putting 4000 miles on the bike by driving it down route 66. Hell, he even got paid to do so. Well played dude!

I upgraded the stock speedo on my 2007 Vic Vegas with a Dakota unit. After purchasing the Dakota speedo, I sent it to the (Dakota) with a certification stating the exact miles on the bike. Dakota put that certified number on the speedometer and sent it back to me. The cost was maybe $35 plus shipping...easy peasey and completely legal.

Perfectly reasonable for people who repair anything to charge for seeing what's the issue. That's time and money out of their day and that they could be working on other people's stuff.

"Illegal to swap out an odometer". So if your bike had a damaged instrument panel with no other problems, you would just total it out with the insurance company. Sure buddy

I just saw the thumbnail and read “why we don’t buy Indians anymore” Needless to say, I was very confused

your ego / bias against Indian has become a self fulfilling prophecy

I bought a new Harley Davidson and the rear spokes were never tightened at the factory. The warranty did not cover it because Harley Davidson said the wheels are wearable parts. The dealership then charged me $350.00 to fix it. The rocker boxes also leaked from day one and still leak to this day. When I went to the dealership the mechanic went out where the bike was parked with a ratchet and told me that should fix it. When the ECM went bad I was charged $1,300.00 and the bike still would not start and was the same as when I brought it in. I could go on but I'm starting to get pissed off all over again.

Wonder if the speedo repair guy fixed it by just letting the back wheel spin for a while

Feel like I just listened to some dude ramble at the bar.

I’ve heard of others having this problem. They never had this issue. I have never heard of that happening. No way this would have happened if you went to another Indian dealership

You are the type of guy that I would buy a bike from, your that honest and caring, thank you

I'm the guy who bought the Indian. Sean was completely up front about the speedometer issue and resolution during the transaction. The bike has been almost perfect since I took delivery. The only issue was with the chrome on the kickstand which Indian replaced under warranty. I would definitely buy another bike from SRK.

When you're in the business of buying "as is" deals from auctions for the purpose of reselling isn't that a risk you take?

Kind of sounds like my 2018 Harley Davidson. I couldn't get HD to stand behind my HD bike then that I bought new then and it only had thousand mile when I rode it from Ft. Bragg NC to Sturgis SD. On the way it kept cutting off and after it cooled down for about an hour it would start and continued to ride toward Sturgis. It finally stopped north of Omaha, Nebraska leaving me stranded on a side street there. I called for HD service to get the bike towed in to a Harley dealership in Omaha. After sitting there for hours the dealership said they would have to call Harley-Davidson corporate headquarters and see if this was something they could fix there under the warranty, after hours waiting no answer was returned by phone! I called a cab and went to the nearest hotel for the night. Next morning returning to the dealership the manager told me they can't fix the bike there, I would have to find another dealership to work on the bike and HD corporate suggest me calling around to other HD dealerships and ask them if they will do the warranty work? I then said ,sooo if you buy a HD motorcycle and have trouble on the road not all dealerships will honor HD warranties? The Manager just shrugged his shoulders and walked off! I called HD corporate and gave them a cussing and told them I wanted my money back and that the bike was being left in Omaha, Nebraska HD dealership to refund my money so I could catch a flight back to NC. They didn't refund all 5 thousand dollars I paid down but did send 2,800 dollars to my bank account, I flew back to NC and Bought a new Indian the next day,I haven't looked back since. I'll Never buy another HD in my lifetime! ~ F'm

I've had to replace digital speedometer on Harley-Davidsons and when you buy a new speedometer from Harley-Davidson it comes programed with the correct mileage from the previous speedometer.

Odometer affadavits are completely normal. Replacing odometers with new or used odometer heads is totally normal. You just keep the affadavit with the title and transfer it to the new owner at time of sale. I wouldn't even have bothered with any of that crap.

Shouldn't have folded like a lawn chair to the dealership that bought the bike from you. You were in the right. Sometimes you have to stand your ground.

I won’t buy an Indian simply because its not an Indian,, its a Polaris ! Plain and simple..

So the odometer was already sketchy when you bought it. A previous service invoice search should have been performed to match up mileage and dates prior to purchase. Who knows how many miles were actually on it when you bought it. The current owner may have over-paid for a bike with 40K miles on it. 🤔.

The title should have been 'Why You Should Never Buy A Bike At An Auction' '!

"because you can get 20 Chinese for the same price!"

Indians are great bikes. Bummer you had a bad experience, but that’s no reason to ditch the brand completely. Besides, Harleys are overpriced trash. Really glad I traded up for an Indian.

Lol, the thumbnail "Why we don't buy indians anymore" If someone who doesn't know that Indian Motorocycles was a brand, they'd be so confused

I'm in the welding industry. Any machine that needs to be sent in for a problem costs $125.00 just for them to look at it, whether they fix it or not. Their time and knowledge is not free. Nor should it be. They give an estimate, and if you go for it, they take the $125.00 off the work. It's basically one hour's labor. If your guy looked at the odometer, and spent several hours trying to fix it, then saying he "didn't do anything" is wrong.

"I'm like, he's like, I'm like, he's like, I'm like, he's like, I'm like, he's like"

Buy royal Enfield real indian bikes

Frames break..I know a dude an his wife were killed going around a corner..the front end completely broke off ..it was a straight clean break too..the metal looked just like white metal...totally pieces of junk..

so is that indian bike the only one you ever lost money on? If you stop selling every name bike you lose money on, you will not have anything to sell. You win some, u lose some, thats the way it is.

So the take home is that you don't buy indians cause you over paid for a tire, can't change a tire on your own and didn't disclose the whole story to the first buyer... Um, ok. :-/

"But there was a silver lining..." I wish my wife were as positive as you.

This is dumb. You never truly know how many miles a bike has. Any bike on marketplace could have had the odometer swapped. They’re too easily customizable. It’s not a car. It’s not the same thing. But at least your goal is honesty. That’s respectable.

So let's look at this: 1) Indian replaces the gauges for 50 bucks, and gives a certificate of the actual miles, srkcycles gets salty 2)srkcycles takes it to a guy who schedules them, puts the time in, and attempts to work on the odometer. After working on it, he cant do it. Srkcycles makes a big deal of paying him for his time. Eventually hes able to fix it. 3)srkcycles proceeds to sell it without disclosing problem (right after complaining about deceptive marketing), is surprised when buyer is sketched out. 4)proceeds to sell it again, without inspection And this is all Indian's fault?

I watch this to go to sleep at night, works every time!

It sucks but any mechanic will charge you for his "labor"- by the hour- even if he does absolutely nothing to fix your bike. Apparently, Indian mechanics are paid more than cardiovascular surgeons.

"No good deed goes unpunished" lesson learned 😞

I don’t know why your blaming Indian for your screw up. Simple deal Indian honored their warranty, you got new odometer installed by them. All you had to do was place repaired warranty odometer paperwork and your original paperwork and leave it at that. Explain in sale ad in detail of what took place and you have paperwork / pics before and after warranty repair and selling it with no issues. Done, sale complete no issues everything shows correct in paperwork and matches up. Done deal for any private buyer or dealer buyer. You screwed the deal by adding miles after the repair and muddied the waters with not being up front when you sold it. That’s not Indian or any buyers issues that’s all yours. It’s called the stupid tax.

That's a pretty weak reason to condemn a whole company.

Just saw this one....who 'drives' a motorcycle. You get the manufacturer to write up an confirmation letter listing the original mileage when odometer was changed. Any Dealer will help you. Is it really that hard to figure this out?

I recently received my M1 license and l'm in the market of purchasing my first motorcycle ! I asked the sales men or their supervisor at the Indian dealership if I can test ride an Indian Chief Bobber, their response was "no, because I need riding experience, I need motorcycle insurance, and I need to own a motorcycle" ! . Now I see why people told me before hand they have had bad experience at Indian dealerships, had to see it with my own eyes !

You buy and sell motorcycles for a living and you don't have your own mechanic to deal with this kind of stuff that doesn't make a lot of sense

I owned an Indian Scout ( yellow) for fourteen years and loved that bike . My only problem that turned out to be a real pain in the butt was the 10 HD dealerships within five miles of my house and the ONE Indian dealership that closed down a year after my purchase. Please be sure when you chose a certain motorcycle that plenty of places will be around to work on them when you need them or else learn how to do your own work. There is now one Indian dealership that is open near me but now I’m subject to whatever they charge, good or bad.

Now Polaris Owns Indian... And Indians have become the most bought and better cruiser then Harleys now. Who knew

Box of chocolates - you never know what you're going to get.

When I read the title I thought the problem was with the bike itself...

Dude has 1 experience with 1 bike and stays away from the brand forever lol this story is horrible. Didn't even show the odo change slip on the ebay listing lol

You can change odometers if they are broken...you can repair them if they're broken

In Britain. It is illegal to tamper with an odometer. We call it clocking. However, it is not illegal to replace the whole facia, which includes another odometer from another vehicle. From a scrap yard, for example.

I'm sort of confused as to why this is an issue? If an odometer breaks, you can replace it. Indian didn't do anything wrong. The guy buying it was the person in the wrong if you advertised it correctly. This could have been any bike. As for the tire, that's just poor luck and also could have happened to any bike.

Really, this sounds like a snow flake story, and a huge waste of time. Just document, and sell..we have done many this way.

so you had one bad experience and now you don't buy Indian,,,, i dont know if that says more about you or Indian.....

How is Indian still manufacturing motorcycles when they're apparently not aware of the concept of marketing. WHO ARE YOU???

I'm late to the game on this video, but hopefully with over 2.1 million views you made more than $10 on monetization. As an Indian owner, I feel the title of the video is a little misleading. It's not like you no longer buy Indians because they aren't good bikes, but you had an extremely unlucky string of events with it. This could have happened to any bike, any, any odometer, any dealership. From the odometer breaking, to a nail in the tire, it was just bad luck. The only thing I agree on is the dealership not fixing it properly. Sadly some dealerships are good, some bad. Dunno if you tried this, but you could have called Indians home office and explained the situation. Anyhow, you seem like a cool dude who just had bad luck, and maybe could have done somethings different. But I wouldn't swear off Indians forever.

Years ago I had a Yamaha Roadstar that had the odometer replaced due to not registering properly. It came back to me from the dealer with 0 miles just like you describe. Indian is not the only one that does this. Indians have improved since 2016 and are priced less then an equivalent Harley motorcycle. The best thing is to ride each one and see what fits you the best. Don't count out Indian. Yes, I own the Roadmaster and I wouldn't trade it for the Ultra/Limited Harley. I buy a bike to ride.... not to make money on! If it fits and you like it then ride it.

I now have an Indian Challenger...love it! I have owned at 25 Harleys, and many metrics, Wings, and BMWS! They all have their issues and bad dealers.... good way to alienate your audience!! I have lost money on most all and have been stranded on the side of the road on quite a few Harleys!

I think the real lesson here is don't buy any bike or car with odometer problems. I had a similar issue with a Honda. The dealership sold it knowing the issue but claiming since they fixed it it was no big deal. That bike was very hard to sell when I traded it in a few years later. If the odometer has had any kind of issue, don't buy it. It has lost a significant amount of value.

It's, "deceiving" not decepting. The other reason to never buy Indian is you have no idea if Polaris will shutter the Indian brand in a few years like they did Victory.

Why not let us know which dealers shipped it back, so we know not to give them business, cuz making you pay shipping when you legally didn't have to take it back. That's plain dirty.

you always think you got a good deal with Indians till they decide their reservations weren't enough

That's pretty f'd up on their part. I don't think I would ever buy an Indian now that I know this.

I've owned roughly 25 motorcycles in the last 35 years and riden probably over a hundred bikes. I've owned 6 street glides and 4 road glides, bought a 2017 Indian Chieftain and I have to say it's all around a better motorcycle than anything Harley is building. The OEM FOX suspension and electronics with auto locking bags are top notch and the engines are way more reliable with little to no vibration like the famous vibrating harley engine, everything comes stock on the bike. Harley better step up their game to compete. The new indian challenger is definitely a competitor in the market with the fixed fairing and the liquid cooled American made V-twin pumping 134HP stock. I still think Harley is the better looking bike but Indians are hands down better riding motorcycles. Im not brand loyal I'm about the performance of the machine and overall quality of the ride. The fact that you get all these upgrades OEM stock for the same cost of the HD is amazing.

That receipt the guy “found” in the saddle bag should have been photographed and prominently displayed in the EBay listing.

People don’t buy Indian because everyone knows it’s just a Polaris. Indian is just a name now.

The reason I wouldn't buy an Indian: Polaris: Let's build motorcycles, we'll call them Victory's and try to take some the market from Harley. SQUIRREL! Also Polaris: Let's make Indians, screw all the people we convinced to buy a Victory.

Your title is very misleading. Indian did what was necessary to fix the issue with the odometer under warranty. They replaced it with a whole new unit, which of course is set at zero, but you had the paper identifying the actual miles prior; that's all you need to sell the bike. You paid some private dude to mess with the new odometer; that's on you. I also don't believe you had to buy a tire from Indian. That is nonsense. I bet you anything I could find a tire for it from a tire shop for way cheaper than a motorcycle dealer would charge you. Indian makes a great motorcycle, and nobody should shy away from buying one based on your experience; which in my opinion was caused by your own misguided steps.

Really think that could have happened with any bike not just Indian. Anything can have an odometer replaced just as you guys did and you would have to just put it on the bill of sale what the mileage was at time of changing it. Could have saved yourselves the headache.

What you need to know before you buy an Indian. Number 1: Don't.

Because harly compensated you to trash a bike that is better , all the way around

I would've bought the bike. That really isn't a big deal to someone that plans on using it.

Not many valid reasons to avoid Indian in the future. This vid boils down to "we sell bikes but don't really work on them ourselves so we get bit in the ass by a specialty shops."

Bought a 2021 Indian Scout abs awesome bike no problems. Very quick and sharp looking.

Did Harley put out this video? I’ve owned Harley’s my whole life … my 2020 Indian Chieftan is by far the most dependable and comfortable bike I’ve ever owned … just saying

Sorry, I have a hard time sympathizing with a flipper that doesn't do ANY work to a bike nor even even bothers to check what might be in the saddlebags.

Any bike whose tires are only available from the dealer is a bike you definitely want to stay away from.

The Indian dealer should have programmed the new odometer with the correct mileage. There service department is garbage.

Harleys have contiguous evolution, Indians have retro engineering.

Learning lessons the hard way is usually never cheap.

“Deceptful” ? No, it’s not! Since that’s not really a thing.

The mainstream US motorcycle manufacturers seem to be desperate to ensure that no one buys their bikes,unbelievable.

Had a GMC Envoy with a check engine light. Take it to my guy, and he can't figure it out. Inspection is due, so I need it gone to get my PA driving tax sticker. Go to dealership, and they have it for A MONTH, and call me to tell me they can't figure it out either, and I owe 175 bucks. I pay. In the meantime I'm getting everything else done for the inspection I HOPE to get, which includes tires. I drop the truck off to my tire guy, and mention the light. Something like "if you get a chance to look at it.." So he calls me, tells me it's ready, and I pick it up. I pay my bill, jump in, and when I start it, NO LIGHT! I look at my bill, and there's no charge on there for any diagnostic work or light fix. So I go back in and ask him how he did it. He says "brake cleaner". Turns out my throttle body was dirty.

nail in the tire? How is that Indian's fault? Let's say Indian had got the Odometer to read the correct mileage, they're going to give you the same slip of paper telling what they did. Tennessee guy finds the slip of paper in the saddle bag , same story.... Indians aren't the only machines that have odometer failures.

Guys poorly mstaken, you CAN change odometers you need to have an affadavit but thats for dealerships not private party transactions and especially auctions...

Don’t care. I love Indian. Sounds like a dealership problem.

The biggest problem with Indian is the lack of authorized dealers and worst is authorized repair shops. Not all dealers have authorized repair facilities. From my family farm I would have to travel more than 3 hours one to find an authorized repair facility in order to keep it under warranty. This is the only reason preventing me from buying an Indian to replace my 2006 Kawasaki Vulcan.

For this one Indian story.... theres 1000 more Harley stories. And that's not because there's more Harleys on the road, it's because Harleys are horrendously unreliable, just scroll back though these videos of Harleys blowing up, leaking oil etc etc etc. Trash over priced bikes with no power and bad handling.

You would have been better off leaving the OD at 00000 with the mileage affidavit. It happens all the time. Anyone with 1/2 a brain would know what was going on.

You say that the guy didn't do anything while he spent time trying to repair the odometer, so you shouldn't pay him? ......... If you hire a private investigator to search for weeks for your long lost sister and he doesn't find her,,,, you still have to pay the man. ...... If someone works for you, they require money in exchange.

Come on Sean! There's no such word as "decepting." There's deceiving and there's there's deception, but not decepting :)

June 2019 - they have an Indian Scout listed for sale on their website.

Sounds like a real love story. Should have taken the bike to Daytona, put a Forsale sign on it, leave the keys in the ignition then come back two days later.

We don’t buy Indians because they came with the real estate, and there was no need for any more of them. “We bought Africans, and Asians to help build this great country”.My grandmother was born on October 20th, 1900, grandfather a couple of years sooner, “always talked about his Indian in Oklahoma”. He came to the northwest to build engines for the ships that shot the BMW’s out of the sky during world war ll. Then a wrecking yard, “and it was a helluva playground”. Three acres, he had the job, $13 down payment, left $7 for groceries for that week until payday. “Times are changing”. Oldest brother (RIP) had a 1956/74…Harley (hope I got that right) On Diablo, purple, with twisted chromed bars, suicide shift, pipes pointed up, and “a metal flake gold full faced helmet”. About 1970’s, he made it home safe from Viet Nam. It was quite a site, going down the road.

I know the person who bought this bike from you. great guy and the bike is still going strong.