Polaris Is in the Hot Seat Over Your Indian Motorcycle

At the beginning of the year, Polaris shocked the motorcycling world by announcing that it would close its Victory Motorcycles brand. The company reported that Victory wasn’t performing well enough, so it was refocusing its resources on its other motorcycle brand—Indian Motorcycles. Whether this was a good idea or not has yet to be determined, but we do know one thing, it suddenly appears like Indian could use that extra attention.

Your Indian Motorcycle Could Put You in the Hot Seat

Polaris has just recalled around 24,000 Indian motorcycles. The company says that a fuel rail inside the engine can collide with other motorcycle parts, which can cause a fuel leak and potentially start a fire. This defect effects the company’s Chief Classic, Chief Dark Horse, Chief Vintage, Chieftain, Chieftain Dark Horse, Roadmaster, and Springfield models built between April 2013 and July 2016.

However, that’s only the latest problem for Indian and Polaris.
In 2016, Polaris recalled 18,000 of its SlingShot three-wheeled vehicles because of an ignition problem that could cause a fire. A month before that, Polaris had to recall its Ranger ATV line for fire hazard problems, and before that it had to recall its popular RZR line of ATVs. That means Polaris has suffered nothing but setbacks for most of 2016!

In light of these problems, Polaris’ move to close Victory Motorcycle doesn’t seem as out of the blue as previously believed. But could this also be a sign that the motorcycle and ATV maker is in danger of folding? Could such a loss hurt the overall motorcycle industry? Is there anything Polaris can do to right its ship? Log on to Twitter and Facebook to tell us what you think, and keep following the attorneys who ride on this blog for more updates on the motorcycle industry.