If you're like me, you've spent a lot of money on your Street in changing out parts - seats, mirrors, mufflers, etc. If you haven't, well... sooner or later you'll probably get the bug.

Buying parts at the local Harley dealer will usually mean paying MSRP, plus tax, but you can walk out of the store with the products that same day. There are some Harley dealers out there that have established well-known sales arms to conduct internet sales. I've bought from a few, like Intermountain Harley, Surdyke, and Boardtracker. I haven't yet bought from Newcastle HD, but they've got great prices too. The ones I've bought from have all been honest, straight-forward, and I recommend them all.

One thing that I've found is that while these places generally offer at least 10% off and usually up to 20% off, it can take a while to get your order. It's not like aftermarket dealers; I got my Mustang Touring seat from Revzilla, and I think it was delivered within 48 hours of placing the order. But with the discount Harley dealers, that's not the case. My most recent order is from Boardtracker, and they say right on their site "Allow 3 business days for order processing." Then, after the order has been "processed", they'll ship it. What does this mean in reality? I placed an order on March 4, they didn't even ship it 'til March 9, and I won't get it until March 15. That's 11 days.

Why so slow?

Near as I can tell from googling, it appears that it may be due to a Harley policy where they don't want dealers selling stuff out of their stock, online, at a discount; they'd rather have customers buy from their local dealer. So the "3 business days for processing" is really a delay caused by them not having the product in stock, so once you place your order, they then have to first order it from Harley, and wait for it to arrive, and then when it arrives at their place of business, then they can ship it out to you.

Then there's the cost of shipping. It's pretty tough to get "free shipping" from most of these places. Surdyke will pretty much do it for ordering over $200 of stuff, but if your order is under $199 you're going to be paying for shipping. Boardtracker offered a $5 shipping flat-rate deal good through the end of the month. But if you're buying something big or heavy and can't get a "free shipping" or cheap shipping deal, it may just end up that paying for shipping negates much of the discount you'd gotten, so you may as well buy it from your local dealer and support them in the process. It also means that you can't just assume one dealer will be the same as another; on this particular order I placed (about $450 of stuff) Boardtracker was about $30 less expensive than Surdyke, even though Surdyke had free shipping. You have to go through the process, add the stuff to your cart, and then start the checkout process before you really know what it's all really going to cost. It seems like many things are 20% off, but not everything; some things may be 10% off or whatever, and it may make a difference in the total cost.

So is buying genuine HD parts online worth it? Well, the wait is killing me, but on the other hand, the stuff was about 19% off and shipping was only $5. If you want the discount, you're likely going to have to wait. If you're buying something expensive, and you can wait for it, you can save some dough. Or, if you need it quick, your local Harley dealer may have it in stock, and hey, you can always ask about discounts; some will give 10% or even 15% off, which might in the end make more sense to just get it local and support your local HD dealer, rather than waiting over 11 days for it to show up via UPS.

Disclaimer: I have no relationship with any of these businesses other than as a customer.

Well, My Guess would be this:


They Don't stock Every Part. So, They Order it. Then ship it to you. Reason Why it takes a few days to ship.

You can usually get your local dealer to match online pricing

Also, if you are a HOG member or veteran you can usually get 10 percent at any dealer.

Which when you add in shipping is pretty close to the online price.

I've been scrounging eBay and Amazon and I bought every single mod/customized part online for a fraction of the HD sticker MSRP price... I just got a whole luggage rack, back rest and sissy bar with the mounting bolts for $210... Brand new shipped... Genuine HD Reach seat for $70 on eBay.... Guy bought it he sold the bike cause of his wife.... (Facepalm) The "daymaker" headlight, the diamond back grips, pegs, brake pedal, hyper white led light bars, Krator mirror adapters etc etc all online.... All watching and searching everyday... You gotta snag them when you see them... Even my Oxford weatherproof gear all online...

back in 2008-2009 most of the genuine H-D parts i bought were from Zanottis online, which always priced out to lower than if i ordered thru the local dealer (who never stocked V-Rod specific parts anyways). Unfortunately, Zanottis was shut down in 2012

being that my "local" dealership for the xg750 is 90 km away and the upcharge for imported parts borders on highway robbery, i haven't bothered with much customization for my 750

Apparently Zanottis became Newcastle HD, which has terrific pricing.

Also, Boardtracker is what was once Kutter. If you google you'll find a lot of older threads of people talking about Kutter; Kutter is now Boardtracker.

It seems like dealerships get bought out or change name fairly frequently, or the staff who made one dealership a leader in the parts-selling area might move to another dealership and brings their policies with them, making that dealership a standout now, so -- I'm sure over the years the list will change, but it seems like there will always be someplace one can go to buy factory-new genuine OEM HD parts at a discount.

As DragonTalonTSiAWD said, ebay also rocks and you can find great deals there. I got that $90 Willie & Max swingarm bag for $60 including free shipping, so always check ebay too, you never know what you may find.

Update: just ordered some more toys from Surdyke. Surdyke had (slightly) lower prices than Boardtracker this time, and they had a St Patrick's Day special of free shipping for orders over $99, so I chose them for this order. Placed the order Friday (3/17). Got a notice today (Monday) that they expect they will ship the goods out on 3/30, nearly two weeks after the order was placed. Then it'll take however long it takes for free ground shipping from the Surdyke warehouse to get to me. So it'll probably be over two solid weeks, if not more, from the time of order to the time of receiving the goods.

This happens every time. It seems like those who said that these dealers don't/can't stock for their online operations, are probably right. They have to first order it from Harley, wait for it to be delivered to them, and then they can send it to the customer. Although Surdyke does have a section that they say is "ready to ship"; but it's extremely limited. I figure it might be restricted to customer returns or cancellations maybe.

In summary: these are good dealers, and they do deliver up to a full 20% off (my order this time was indeed 20% off) and I even got free shipping -- but if you want the savings, you gotta be prepared wait. And wait. And wait. I don't think there's anything they can do about it, I think it's a Harley policy; if you want it fast, your local dealer is the best bet, but the pricing may be higher than what you can get online, if you can wait.

I've ordered from Surdyke twice with different results, which lends credence to the theory that some items they sell are not actually in stock but ship when they can be received.


The first order was placed on a Monday or Tuesday. The tall boy seat and sari guards I use as makeshift saddle bag supports were in stock and arrived at the house on Thursday.


The second order was for the long stem tapered mirrors. I ordered them as soon as I saw them as a newly released item on the H-D site. These went into a status of "warehouse transfer" and they provided an estimated shipping date about two weeks out. They actually shipped a little early and arrived on or maybe a day before the estimated shipping date.


Two to three weeks doesn't seem like an awful turn around time on orders, but I grew up in the era of mail order purchases which could easily take 4-6 weeks for common items. Specialty retailers might leave you hanging for months.

Seeing as my order hadn't shipped yet, and wouldn't ship for another 11 days, I asked Surdyke if I could add something to it - just a little $28 bag, wouldn't be worth ordering on its own because of shipping cost but if I could get it added to the order, it'd be worth it, right?

The response I got back is:
So, yeah, it sounds like they order the parts from Harley, wait for them to show up, and then forward that box on to the customer as-is; might be how they're able to operate at the discount they offer. Not complaining about it, just pointing it out, where in this day and age where we have lightning fast shipping from most dealers and free 2-day shipping from Amazon and the like, that the discount Harley dealers apparently don't work that way and if you want the discount, you've almost certainly got to wait.