The old saying that “time is money and money is time” continues to be true. Both are the price you typically pay when you want something.

My husband, Jason, loves his Harley Davidson motorcycle. It is his passion and his joy-filled escape.

I have affectionately dubbed it his “Metal Mistress” and many a summer family road trip has occurred with him on his bike and Nick and I following behind in my snazzy two seat convertible.

We purchased the Harley slightly used in December of 2006. It had just a little over 3,200 miles on it. Over the years Jason has slowly customized it into exactly what he wants. Like any other riders on two wheels, he glories in the dry, warm days that tend to fall between May and September as individual or combined opportunities to take it out on the road. As the bike ages, we expect a certain amount of maintenance and replacements of parts to occur.

Early this past May he took it out for a ride with some friends up through the Olympic Peninsula. At this point the bike had around 20,000 miles on it.

During the ride a complete failure of the transmission and drive train occurred. Basically a bunch of metal parts breaking apart and flinging themselves around in a small contained space to break even more parts all while traveling down the road at about 50 mph.

I really try not to think often of that part of the story. Of course he pulled over to the shoulder as quickly as possible, but the terminal damage had already been done.

We pulled strings to get it trailered home. Legend Harley Davidson was able to come out to our house with their trailer and hauled it into their service department for an estimate of the cost and recovery time involved.

This bike had originally been purchased from this dealership in 2005. Sadly, it became apparent within the next week that a full autopsy was needed. Almost nothing was recoverable from the transmission and drive train. The really bad news was that the full bill for repairs and parts was comparable to the value of the bike itself.

At this point most would consider it to be a total loss and a lesson learned, but that did not turn out to be the case. Such a terminal and catastrophic failure to this degree on a machine with only 20,000 miles on it was not acceptable to Harley Davidson.

After weeks of phone calls between the dealership and the corporate office, a deal was reached and the overall bill was divided into three parts. The dealer picked up a third, corporate picked up a third and we picked up a third.

The Metal Mistress came back home this week.

It spent 92 of the sweetest riding days of this summer in the service department, but the end result is more than worth it. How this was handled has greatly increased our loyal faith in a company and dealership that stands behind its products. Some things are worth so much more than money if you are willing to be patient.

This week, man and mistress are out on the road with a group of local riders traveling to Lake Tahoe and back. They are having the time of their lives.

Thank you Harley Davidson.