Hi New to the Forum, I bought a Pikes Peak last month from Ducati in Croydon, I got caught in biblical rain a couple of weeks back and the bike is running really rough and so far the dealer cant find anything wrong (on diagnostics anyway), it wont run smooth at a steady speed and the exhaust pops and bangs when you come off the throttle. Anyone experienced this? Thanks
Usual suspect is water ingress on the horizontal cylinder coil. Remove coil and blast out with airline.
Seized exhaust valve on the cat box maybe. Take the black cover off near the twin tips and you'll find a cable that is connected to the valve, try to see if this moves. It should do with just hand pressure.
I had similar issues when wet once, it was the horizontal cylinder centre spark plug cap at fault, it was arcing to the head, although once it dried out it ran fine again. Feel around the plug cap whilst it's running, if you get a shock that's your problem. Not advisable if you have a pacemaker or other heart problems!
Also could be worth checking the TPS connections . On another Ducati after a days rain I had similar and the connections had got damp, then rusted a bit which gave the poor running. A quick clean and we were all happy again.
Not necessarily. Tends to be the independent specialist who knows this stuff along with a very few select Ducati dealers
By Ducati Croydon do you mean InMoto.? If so, then I wouldn’t hold your breath. I’ve had two bikes from them, one Duc, one KTM & I wouldn’t trust them to change a valve cap.! I won’t be buying from them again. Two mates have point blank refused to go back to them for servicing and one even threatened legal action. If you struggle to get anywhere with them(your choice) then perhaps try Pro Twins in Godstone for a 2nd opinion or just go directly.
To be honest, I'm getting that vibe from them, I'm picking the bike up from them today after being told there is nothing wrong with it and that it's perfect, loving the bike but beginning to suspect they sold me a dud!
It’s going to be something very simple , maybe as already described. Possible fuel contamination? keep the faith!
Ducati Croydon are my local dealer but they are not good. I now always use Protwins better by far in every way.
If this was caused by water ingress then it is possible that the bike had dried out by the time it was examined by the dealer. Hence, no problems found. Is the bike now running OK?
My money is on faulty spark plug lead. I had ongoing running issues with my DVT and removed all 4 coils to check and cleaned everything. It was still a bit crap but better then I washed it and it was terrible. Diagnostics had showed nothing. It turned out, thanks to Lee on this forum, to be the main spark plug leads. Prob the horizontal, but I changed both.
Thanks for all your responses, I picked up the bike yesterday and spoke to the salesman who had ridden it 90 miles and had no problems at all and they had done nothing to it. I rode it back to work in central London and it was exactly the same, in fact when I rode home in the evening I would say its the roughestg ride on any bike I have owned in the last 30 years. I have collated everyone's suggestions and I am going to take them to a local garage to check them out. When I got home and gave the bike a good going over I found this dodgy wiring repair, not sure what this is but it doesn't look good! BTW when it was running well the bike is amazing!
Hope your local garage is a Ducati specialist. If not, you’re possibly throwing good money away. It needs to be looked at by people who really know what they’re looking at.
Good luck. Tbh, the fact nothing came up on the diagnostic has me convinced it is the plug leads. Will be only the main (centre) ones. Because you are right, these are an amazing machine when they are going right and I was getting very despondent with mine too so was more than pleased to have had such an easy fix...
Just a quick update. I took it to a local garage and they found the rear coil was sparking against the frame, they put some insulating tape around the frame and re-fitted the coil pack using electrical grease (didnt know that was a thing). Unfortunately I am still having the same issue, so it's back to Ducati Croydon with this new information. Only had the bike 6 weeks and half of that the bike has been problematic!
