Maybe could have offered to strip it for him and if ducati pay all well and good if not we all know what went wrong
I already did! Lovely black thing with every conceivable DP or Rizoma part, 21k from memory, all the recalls including heads, but the mains were gone. Bizarre swishing sound from the crank. The motor has now been refreshed, so should be ok for some lucky new owner
In your experience Martin would you say that Ducati would likely warrant/cover cost of parts failure outside of the warranty period if the bike was fully up to date service wise, not raced and generally well maintained? I appreciate its not a question you can answer with any guarantee and authority but in many of these reported instances the failings of parts whether catastrophic or not concern current and/or future potential owners. Take Toyota for example, 6.5m cars recalled covering anything from airbag connectors to seat springs. Im not suggesting anything on that level but consumers (customers of Ducati) expect a decent life expectancy from the product and the parts associated with them, I certainly do. Having to concern yourself with 3rd party warranty on a product that should run for years and years without fault or failure shouldn't be the way people talk about a motorbike. Its a tad over the top isn't it. Surely Ducati as a company don't want this kind of doubt creeping back in, they managed to unshackle themselves from the 'dodgy electrics' tag for a while but now theres other issues starting to rear their head. Just curious as to how your experiences have been up until now. i understand if you dont want to be specific
Thanks, missed that.........main bearings, seem to be a common denominator in quite a few of the engine failure stories.
Its why you should always use the best oil possible. Main bearings have a very tough life so need all the help they can get.
My mate lunched two big ends on his T9, another did 2 gearboxes, and 2 separate engine booms on his 1098 then A grarbox or two in his SP. Lost count of the number of 9** and 748s that have gone kaput. Seems to me the only reliable Ducati is a 600 or 620 coz those little feckers can be smashed to pieces, live over the limit and yet hold it together year after year with little more than oil, belts and valve checks... So sell all your modern 4 valvers people, they are all shite
Apologies for my late response, i've been in the workshop for a couple of days. Hi Damo, In short yes, but there are obviously caveats that I have no control or influence over. Those warranty decisions are above my pay grade i'm afraid. But truthfully, my honest feelings are that Ducati are excellent at considering out of warranty claims. (Although as you correctly say, I'd rather not be specific). I'm sure there are rules to how those decisions are made but I am not privy to them. For whatever reason Ducati have chosen to examine the engine of our unfortunate OP and consider their actions thereafter but it would be unwise of me to publicly guess why as frankly I don't know. I know for a fact Ducati would of course not want any "kind of doubt creeping in" but I honestly think that isn't happening at all, quite the opposite in fact if the general feel of our customer base is anything to go by. Our conquest clients have never been more enthused about the reliability of the brand in general and I agree with them. (I can hear many shouting "of course he's gonna say that") but those are my honest feelings - believe it or not. Failures and the severity of the issue can and will only be able to be monitored by the factory as they have the specific details (bike and owner) to hand. I think the very fact that on a regular basis they consider out of warranty claims is an absolute bonus! I have never heard of any other car or bike dealer / manufacturer coming close to doing so. I think this should be remembered at the back of our minds. With every due respect to this forum (and any other), I don't think here is the best place to determine the severity of any issue. Even if all of the various Ducati forum users in the UK were combined, I still think drawing any kind of conclusion from the experiences of that small sample size is a particularly flawed approach; purely because forum users only represent a small number of actual owners. If we assume that DUK sell 2,500 units per annum (very rough figs), since January 2010 to December 2013 there have been approx 10,000 (+460ish in the first quarter of this year) new Ducati motorcycles registered in the UK. If you were to analyse those bikes / owners and their experiences against warranty claims, you would see that the actual numbers of serious failures are extremely low indeed. I can say this with some authority (12 years selling Ducati) but am only using our experiences here. I think it's fair to say that simply because there are some reports on here, doesn't give you any idea of the grand scheme of things, furthermore you are only getting the side of the user which is tricky to base judgement on without having all of the detailed facts. In addition; you are only getting a measure of those owners who are forum users. And yes, you would be correct to retort that by default there will therefore be other non-forum users who possibly could have also had issues and I bow to that theory. However the voice of the ecstatically happy owner; and in my opinion the vast majority, with absolutely no problems is simply not being voiced to the same magnitude. In overly simple terms, you're just not getting access to anything like the full story. I feel this fact is key to this discussion. Do I feel there is an underlying problem with the Multi? Absolutely not! Do I feel it is worthy of in depth discussion, of course, hence my posts. Do I feel it is worthy of the headline on the front page 'Multistrada engines failing?' Sorry but no. I think this kind of headline will only put off buyers unnecessarily when I honestly feel there is nothing to be concerned about. As I noted above, i've genuinely never seen a Multi engine fail like this. we've sold over 200+ so if it was a common issue I would most certainly know about it. I would tell the truth on here as I always have and would do my best to offer the right advice. But, considering my experience and this post there is no story and nothing to report. However I again acknowledge the OP's problem and further note there have been other reasonably isolated issues (by no means I am suggesting anyone is telling anything less than 100% truth in their reports - that is not my intent in the slightest). My advice to everyone is worry about it, only when you find you have something to worry about. Otherwise it is just wasted energy. Just go out and use the damn thing as the odds are stacked enormously in your favour that you aren't ever going to have a problem like this. Apologies for the lengthy reply. Mart
that was worth the wait martin , have to agree with that as well although would like to see a positive outcome for chris
My tuppence worth, I don't think or wouldn't expect anyone to shout or even mention about the fact your bike is doing what it should be doing. So if your bike is working as it should why would you laud it that fact. But if it doesn't do what it is supposed to do then everyone should bemoan that fact. So I don't agree that its a biased opinion.
Toyota have to be one of the bravest motorman out there. Many of the recalls they have done could really be a rework and no need to tell everyone. Or they are on old vehicles so no need to tell everyone. Yet they have, and they have done it head on. We have just bought a new Toyota, and part of that is I know if they discover some small issue, they will tell me and they will put it right Alas they seem to be alone...
Yep, just look at the trouble GM is in the USA. Congress involved, Senator led inquiry, their version of our VOSA in big trouble. They are ment to behave better and have more teeth than our system but still a big delay in sorting out a lethal fault with the ignition barrel/key interface on their models.
Martin, absolutely superb. Thank you! That was the most thought out and intelligent response I think I've read from a dealer in a long while and sums it up perfectly. Couldn't agree more with the remark about the headline of the other thread as it does more harm than good to all of us. I took the multi out for a really good spin last night after collecting it back from Nelly and I must say its just an amazing machine, as you say they are a bike that need enjoying. Really appreciate the well thought out response, next time I'm up Glasgow I shall drop by and buy you a Beer/Curley wurley (delete as appropriate)
I agree regards Martins post.....well done Martin for coming forward and adding your thoughts and opinions (based on considerable experience) to the discussion. Whilst I think it is important that these (any) shortcomings and/or failings of either the 'hardware' or Ducati service/support should be well documented publicly it is important to keep a realistic perspective - as far as we know (and certainly evidenced by your post Martin) the engine failures have to date affected a tiny percentage of bikes......still too many, who knows? I know it will never happen but in my perfect world I would be able to access accurate information on issues such as these engine failures, how many bikes have been affected.......and what is at the root of the failures / what is the actual cause(s)? On the customer service/support side of things though I do feel that (from what I've been told by the few (but all of) people that have had difficulties and contacted me and a certain amount of personal experience) that Ducati do too often make it very difficult for a resolution that satisfies their customers to be reached. Sad also that, to the best of my knowledge, there's never a 'sorry for the inconvenience' / 'sorry you've been let down' or any sort of good will 'sweetener '/gesture from Ducati. Dealer support is always important, the Ducati Dealership network needs more Dealerships like Ducati Glasgow, Snells, Cornerspeed imho! (apologies to the other Dealers out there with top notch reputations whose names escape me right now).
rarely you will here the good stories. they all brake down, my work load is mostly v.w group. who would off thought it. i found when i worked with fiat the after care was above and beyond. i have worked on several marques. to give but one example was a recall on punto brake pipes that were corroding and where renewing brake pipes on vehicles that at that time where over 10 years old is it unreasonable to have to change the odd brake pipe at 10years?.
