Just fitted the official Ducati Oil radiator guard Part No. 97381181AA. Its held onto the front of the radiator by threading 4 cable ties through the radiator mesh in the corners and looping back to the front to close the cable tie. The fitting guide says 15 minutes!!!! Its taken me over 90minutes as what they don't tell you is that there's plastic back fixed to the back of the radiator and getting the end of the cable ties to loop back to the front of the radiator when there's no access is nigh on impossible.
Did that but it only moves a little and doesn't help with the plastic back tightly bolted to the back of the radiator. The only way I could bring the ends of the cable ties back to the front was to push a looped piece of electrical wire behind the radiator prior to threading the cable tie into the radiator, then pull the wire loop which pulled the end of the cable tie with it. Sounds easy when you say it but a pig of a job.
Sorry, I'm struggling with the concept of an 'Upgrade' being the cable tying of something over the radiator, be it official Ducati or not. You'd think they'd come up with a better solution more befitting of the price than making do with what would be considered a bodge by most.
My thoughts exactly! I bought it second hand as I would not pay over £90 for a small ally pierced sheet.
I had a go at fitting mine a few years ago and gave up. The dealer fitted it in minutes at a service.
I’m no mechanic, but am able to fit most accessories to my bike, and do the odd bit of light maintenance. I’m aware though that there are some accessories that are too fiddly to fit myself (such as the foot pegs, with springs that fly round my garage!) so as my dealer has all the right tools to make any job much easier, just get them to fit those items.
I bought the one from DBK special parts (formerly Ducabike), it’s a one piece design that protects both the central oil rad and the 2 water rads, left & right. It genuinely took only 20 mins to fit (now I know how it goes on I reckon it would take 10mins or less) and is secured in place by 4 bolts. Just FYI for anyone else thinking of getting one.
Well, there is the evotech equivalent on Aliexpress (it even uses the same mounting hardware), it is worth four bucks, and it holds perfectly and prevents major problems.
I certainly would not put anything of no known origin bang up against my expensive radiators. very easy for something to rattle and rub through causing a leak. Why save £50 on a £20k bike?
Well, I found out during the inspection because they called me to show it to me before touching the motorcycle. In any case, I agree a little about not buying from China, but a little, because the reality is that if a Chinese is the one that manufactures it, (almost certainly, since companies have more and more more factories there), can make it and send it to you for 50 dollars, I would be happy to buy it from evotech, even if it were 50% more expensive. The greed of the margin is what makes many people buy in china, and not for pleasure, since in the end, if you check your 20 thousand dollar motorcycle, there is a very high percentage that says made in china, both on ducati, like bmw, honda, yamaha etc. If these multinationals didn't want to fleece us like a turkey, we would respect these things more. Didn't someone explain to them in the financial master that 150% of 0 is equal to 0. Let them review the notes and make them look at it
Ahh but. When a Chinese company or anyone for that matter, just copies your product then they have made zero investment in the r and d. And have no associated costs to recoup….it’s illegal ( but unenforceable ) because it’s theft of intellectual property. Some of what appears to be gouging on the OE manufacturers prices is actually to cover the costs of less volumes due to copies getting sold. But, the other but is, if the OE’s where a little less brutal on price the copy products would most likely fail to make any sense. It’s a hard circle to square. These things have a tendency to level out naturally which is probably where we are now without some sort of global IP enforcement that actually works…and that’s unlikely anytime soon I’d think.
For $262 USD, and add-in a Black Friday discount, it was a non-brainer to get the complete guard package for my '22 MTS V4 PP: https://evotech-performance.com/col...eak-radiator-oil-cylinder-head-guard-set-2022 The guards also install without the removal of any bodywork.
