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2017–2018 · Tourer · Buyer's Guide
Milwaukee-Eight In Its Element
This is Harley's modern bagger with the hot-rod attitude turned up. The Milwaukee-Eight V-twin runs 1745 cc and makes 89 hp with 111 lb-ft, pulling honestly from a slow-traffic burble to a hard top-gear wind-out without forcing you into a narrow band. The Boom! Box 6.5GT anchors the cockpit, tying phone, audio, and navigation together cleanly. Steel double-cradle frame, belt final drive, ABS standard, blacked-out styling. In the touring class it lands as the bike built to swallow miles with a soundtrack, not the silent long-hauler that disappears underneath you.
On the move it steers with far less effort than its 829 lb hints at, willing rather than darty, and front-end confidence settles into place inside the first few corners. Build feels solid and high-speed stability is genuinely reassuring, while the relaxed riding triangle and a good seat let a hard day pass without leaving you wrecked. This one is for the rider who wants presence and sound first, then real long-haul comfort underneath it. The honest caveats: the front brake leans hard on your hand over long descents, and the rear gets soft over rough pavement.
Spec sheets don't ride bikes, but they set the baseline.
| Power | 89 hp (66 kW) |
|---|---|
| Torque | 111 lb-ft (150 Nm) @ 3,250 rpm |
| Displacement | 1745 cc |
| Engine | 45° V-twinMotorcycles With V-Twin Engines → |
| Cooling | Air/oil-cooled |
| Gearbox | 6-speed |
| Final drive | BeltMotorcycles With Belt Drive → |
| Fork | Telescopic |
| Front tire | 130/60-19 |
| Rear tire | 180/65-16 |
| Seat height | 27.0 in (685 mm)Motorcycles With a Seat Height Under 30 Inches → |
| Wet weight | 829 lb (376 kg) |
| Fuel capacity | 6.0 gal (22.7 L) |
| Top speed | 110 mph (177 km/h) |
Equipment check
Chassis
Connectivity
Safety
Thumb the starter and the Milwaukee-Eight immediately gives you something worth listening to. The sound, the faint vibration coming up through the bars, the mechanical feedback in your hands: none of it has been sanded smooth for mass appeal, and you catch yourself just wanting to sit and hear it run. The riding position is genuinely relaxed and the seat backs it up, so hours stack up without the restless shifting that quietly wears a rider down. The cockpit is easy to live with too. The menu logic made sense fast, I had it figured out in minutes, Bluetooth paired before the engine was fully warm, and the screen stayed readable all day without hunting for an angle. By evening the dealer offered a second day on the bike, and the only thing saying no was a booked flight home.
My own 0–100 score for this bike against the class, area by area — the marker on each bar is the class average.
What stays with me is how little the bike took out of me. I ran it through steep drops, repeated switchbacks, and long grinding climbs, the kind of day that usually leaves you stiff and slow getting off, and I stepped down at the end ready to keep going. For a touring machine that is the whole point. The posture sits you naturally, no strain reaching the bars or pegs, and the saddle holds you in place so you are not forever squirming to find a fresh spot. Two things keep it honest. Crawl through a packed lot at walking pace and slotting neutral turns into a fishing expedition that wore on me by afternoon. And when the surface breaks up badly, the back end stops absorbing and starts passing the hits straight through, the one place I would ask for more give.
This is the clearest gripe I came away with. On long, sustained downgrades the front lever wants a firm, lasting pull to keep your speed reined in, more than I think a touring bike should demand from one hand. Bringing the rear into the mix takes some of that strain off and shares the work sensibly, so it stays manageable in practice. Judged on its own, though, the front simply asks too much of you across a day full of descents.
For a bike with this much mass, it asks for shockingly little at the bars. I braced for a wrestling match in the tight stuff and instead it tipped in on light pressure, eager without ever feeling twitchy, so the narrow sections never became a workout. The front earns your faith quickly, planted and talkative from the opening corners, and over a full day of mountain hairpins that grip never once left me guessing. Putting it where I wanted simply was not a fight.
Living with the cockpit is easy. The phone, audio, and navigation cooperate rather than competing for your eyes, and the menus made sense to me quickly even with every label in a foreign language. The display stayed clear in all light without me craning for a usable angle. The one gap sits in the nav: it routes you through unfamiliar country without trouble, but its live-traffic feed lags behind the phone already sitting in your jacket.
This motor refuses to fade into the background, and I love it for that. Harley left the texture in: the beat, the trace of vibration, the feedback running into your palms, all of it present instead of polished away for the sake of comfort. It carries real range too, content to lope along at low revs in town and just as willing to stretch out when you open it up, never demanding you keep it spinning to feel alive. And the fueling is clean off a shut grip, handing you precisely what your wrist asks without a stumble or a lurch.
The strongest signal came at the close of the test. After a long and genuinely taxing day, I wanted more time on it rather than less, and the only thing that stopped me was logistics, not fatigue or frustration. A machine that has you angling to keep riding once a hard day is behind you has already answered the question that matters most here: it is built to go on long after the rider would forgive it for asking to stop.
Secondary clutch actuator cylinder leak (recall 18V734)
The clutch master cylinder may lose the ability to generate enough lift to disengage the clutch due to internal fluid leakage in the secondary clutch actuator cylinder. This can lead to loss of control. A recall (NHTSA 18V734) was issued to replace the piston assembly.
Early M8 engine oil sumping and oil pump issues
Early models can experience oil pump scavenging failure leading to sumping, where engine oil accumulates in the crankcase and creates severe drag on the flywheels, resulting in significant power loss and elevated operating temperatures.
Where this Harley-Davidson Touring Street Glide Special FLHXS pulls ahead of — or falls behind — its rivals on the numbers, and the typical bike in its class on character.
Power
Torque
Displacement
Wet weight
Top speed
Seat height
Forget spec-sheet bragging. Here's who the Touring Street Glide Special FLHXS is actually built for.
If the ride is identity, ritual and sound, this fits you cold. The Milwaukee-Eight serves up the presence and soundtrack the rallies run on, and it'll happily cover the miles between them.
Made for Florida State Road A1A · Black Hills · Main Street, Daytona Beach
Long hauls and big routes are home turf, with all-day comfort and a 6.0 gal tank for range. Two-up it still works; just know the rear softens on rough pavement and the front brake leans on your hand downhill.
Made for Beartooth Highway · Blue Ridge Parkway · Going-to-the-Sun Road
It steers far lighter than 829 lb suggests and front trust builds fast, so day-rides on twisty roads genuinely work. Don't expect sport-tourer agility, though; this is a comfort-first bagger at heart.
Made for Black Hills · Blue Ridge Parkway · Cherohala Skyway
If you're cross-shopping the older generation, here's what changed.
Previous generation · 2014–2016
Factory Bagger, Connected Cockpit
Compare to the previous model →If this one isn't quite the fit, these are the bikes worth riding back-to-back against it.
Any price note compares both bikes at the same age — the youngest age both have on the used market — against this Harley-Davidson Touring Street Glide Special FLHXS. “cheaper/pricier” is what that bike costs second-hand, not how worn it is.
Successor · 2021–2023
Factory Custom, Highway Ready
Competitor · 2014
Thunder Stroke Touring Bagger
~$1,900 cheaper used than this bike at 6 yr
Same Platform · 2017–2020
No Fairing, No Apologies
~$5,700 cheaper used than this bike at 7 yr
Compare it with every bike that shares the same spec or equipment.