Are you using a VPN? As per the other advice, go independent for this. It will be considerably cheaper than your main dealer.
Welcome to the Forum Chris. Don’t blame Ducati or tarnish all Ducati’s with the same brush IMO you’ve just been incredibly unlucky with this. Depending where in South London you are, in addition to Ray Petty, mentioned above, there’s also a very good indi in Wandsworth, Dave Robinson, plus there’s Pro-Twins in Godstone. However, the one that most rave about is ‘Ducati John’ aka John Cellier, of Cellier BVT Workshop. Admittedly he’s in Leeds but there’s a fella on here, Carl aka @I’m closing in (the system never lets me tag him for some reason) who lives in Leeds, passes through the SE regularly and is an expert at transporting bikes; he’s the man to move it for you. I don’t think you’ll get anything from Ducati UK as your notvthe original owner of the bike but it’s deffo worth a try, and an independent will be considerably cheaper than a franchised dealer both in labour rates and may have access to NOS spares that will be cheaper than Ducati’s prices for spare parts of this nature (although it must be said Ducati can often be the cheapest source). Let us all know how things progress.
I would either... take a chance on a used engine. Or spend the money and get it rebuilt and at the same time get a bit of balancing/blueprinting done to really maximise the potential of the engine. But that's because mine is an 848 Evo where potentially there's more advantage to be gained in pure performance terms.
Oh yeah! I guess we all should have read it better. The last thing the OP wants is ‘nah, you shouldn’t have done that mate, you should have done this’. Sorry Chris .
How would that work? A bike bought privately 6 months ago with a full service history and has been faultless since. How could any seller reasonably know what was going to happen and how could it be proven as to how it's been ridden since it left him. If you want a warranty, go to a franchised dealer and pay a premium. Unfortuanatley the buyer has just had poor luck this time and will have to bite the bullet.
What seems a little strange to me is that the bike apparently failed while moving off in town but it’s 3rd gear that was knackered.
Again, good luck with that route too. The bike has been repaired, what is an engineer to look at? How can the engineer go back 6 months and examine the bike at the point of sale? And on.........I'll leave it here as it could be a long list.
Sorry Mac, unfit goods only works against a trader. It’s caveat emptor in private deals - buyer beware.
Doesn't anyone else think this sounds like a blatant rip off? Assuming £3900 is vat inclusive, and further assuming the dealers suggestion that the parts are £1000 but may have said that as an ex vat price, that'd leave circa £2250 ex vat purely attributed to labour.....on a gearbox. If the figure of £1000 parts was actually inclusive vat then it'd be a whopping £2416 ex vat for labour?? Taking the lower ex vat figure of £2250, Even at a very hefty £75/hr ex vat labour rate (£90 Inc vat) it would mean that they've booked 30 hours directly connected work on the bike. Nearly 4 full working days of only working on his bike, not doing the weekly shop, or popping down the pub, but 30 hours purely on his bike? Perhaps I'm missing something here but if the above stacks up math wise (it's early morning), I'd say firstly that the rate of £90 inc vat is extortionate, and if it's taken 30 solid hours of focus on the gearbox repair / replacement then the mechanic is in the wrong job. Sounds wrong to me
It may be an idea to ask Ducati directly the typical cost of repair/replacement of a gear box to see if the dealer is taking the piss or not.
I'm not sure what that does as math is math, apart from Ducati might be able to give an expected fix time for the gearbox I suppose, if it's a main dealer they're hardly going to bad mouth them and commit to a figure Ducati or not, but labour of £90/hr is ridiculous isn't it? The only way that the job could have taken less than 30 hours is if the labour rate was even higher
