1200 I Give Up! Hello Ktm My Dear Old Friend.

no i got a 2014 mts skyhook ex demonstrater instead with 1750 miles on it 1 year old

 

was at my brothers hartfield uhmm weekend before last kicked down a gear past yours big rev:grimacing:

 

Something that occurred to me ... your finance ... is it just a straight forward loan or is it a hire purchase agreement? It could potentially make all the difference in how your issue is resolved.

If you've just got a straight forward loan to buy the goods then your rights are already laid out in the "sale of goods" and the "consumer rights" acts.

If however, you have a hire purchase agreement then the ownership of the goods remains the property of the hirer and you're paying for use of them for the duration of the agreement. If that's the case, and the goods are not "fit for purpose" then it is within your rights to reject them - remember you are not obligated to pay for anything that isn't of merchantable quality. The warranty that the dealer offers pales when compared to the hirers obligations to provide the service - effectively any issues with the goods are less your problem and more the hirers problem. If the goods don't work as advertised then you can reject them under the terms of the HP agreement.

 

As already been stated, you really need an independent impartial dealer to do the strip down. I'm sure your current dealer will try very hard to avoid any blame on there part!

 

Apologies if you stated that previously. Having HP increases the strength of your hand significantly. Don't worry about the dealer stripping it, just focus on the report that comes out as most of the time the finance companies will be using their own assessors. If it went to litigation then a court would insist on a report from an independent engineer before even considering the case, so there is very little for anyone to gain by not doing that at the outset. Just because they're stripping it doesn't mean they'll be inspecting it too. The dealer is just doing the donkey work. What can they do? Replace the clearly faulty parts with new ones? That wouldn't make sense, unless they were able to keep a stock of clearly abused parts to swap in.

If it's something like a bearing on a bike which is a few years old with average mileage then it would be incredibly hard to justify the failure as "wear and tear". They would literally have to prove that you abused the bike by knowingly riding it without any oil, ragged it repeatedly at tracks days. It's not unreasonable to expect an engine bearing to last for the entire life of the whole machine - it is not user-serviceable and is effectively a "last man standing" component within the useful life of any motor vehicle. If your sump was completely devoid of oil then there would be many other failing components and it should be easy to prove or disprove in either case.

 

You don't need an impartial dealer to strip it. You just need an impartial engineers report. Think of it like an insurance claim. They generally send an assessor out to the garage to approve the works and make sure the insurance company is not having their pants pulled down by the dealer. In this case, they're send an engineer out to inspect the stripped components. There will be very little that the dealer can do to influence the outcome.

 

I wouldn't trust the last dealer to do the strip down. They made a mess of it last time, why would you trust them again? You'll either keep the bike or you'll sell it and either way you never want this problem coming back to bite you again. I'd go to someone like Moto Rapido who have a solid track record in tuning and engine building, rather than to a workshop of fitters who only did half the job.

 

You're missing the point just bit. There are parties which have contractual obligations with each other and you can't just take remove those obligations forcibly from any party without severely compromising your legal position.

If you do not provide opportunities for the party responsible for ensuring the merchantable quality of the goods then they are no longer obligated to resolve the issue. Any other party instructed to perform any repair will have to be paid for on your own dime and the seller will not be obligated to pay that bill. In that scenario any case that you may have is almost guaranteed to fail. You must be seen to be reasonable.

You HAVE to give them an opportunity to resolve the issue, regardless of how crap you think they are. If you end up litigating a judge WILL look at how reasonable you have been in this case only, and will not be interested in any other dealings that might have gone before as each set of events may not have any reasonable influence on the current case. If there is a historic justification then it is for a judge to consider whether it is relevant, not you.

Unfortunately the path to remediate the issue lies with the dealer and your finance company actually has much stronger contractual leverage over them than you do. Your contractual leverage is more significant over the finance company, because it's them that you are paying and not the dealer. The finance company are effectively buying from the dealer but on your behalf, hence you're not in a position to dictate who fixes the bike since your suggested repairer will have no contractual obligation to anyone under the terms of the finance agreement. Finance companies will resist all efforts by you to go somewhere else, simply because it opens a can of worms by involving a fourth party to an existing legal argument, and in a lot of cases a lot of dealers won't want to get involved in someone else's legal mess in any case. Been there, tried that. I had a car dealer lined to replace the gearbox on a new car I had an issue with because I was so miffed with the place I bought it from. When I approached them to see if they would do it then seemed only too happy, until I mentioned that I would seek to get the bill paid for by the finance company - they simply stopped taking my phone calls.

 

I understand what you're saying but this problem is as much the manufacturer's responsibility as the dealer's who acted on the manufacturer's instructions. If, say, Ducati agree to fund a rebuild they will stipulate only that one of their official registered dealers must do the work. They won't dictate which dealer it should be. I know this because I have had good-will work done out of warranty that was partially funded by Ducati and I changed my designated dealer before the work got under way because the original dealer where I bought the bike was too expensive. The location was also inconvenient and I asked to change on that basis without any quibble from Ducati. They said take where you like, it doesn't matter. As long as its one of our dealers we'll honour our part.
If I was having a full rebuild, especially on a bike that I may end up keeping or having to sell privately and I had no faith in the abilities or thoroughness of the workshop who rebuilt it last time, I would go to another Ducati dealer who I knew had a competent workshop and a proven track record with engine builds.

 

Understood, but we're jumping the gun a bit. If anyone provides a repair on a "good will" basis then this means that it is a resolution which does not constitute an admission of liability by any party.

Also, the goods under a hire purchase agreement remain the property of the finance company, so you're not in a position to be able to dictate precisely how the issue is resolved, be it repair, replace or refund, let alone specify who gets to replace it.

At this point in time with JH's case they're still waiting to establish liability. Even without liability clearly established any party could potentially come forward with a "good will" option, be it the finance company the dealer, or even the manufacturer. I would suggest that the only time you'd get a different dealer involved is if the manufacturer was dragged into the case and agreed to provide a resolution (as good will gesture or not), in which case you'd be able to ask them to shift the repair to somewhere else in their dealer network. Not uncommon because at this point the manufacturer is clearly offering to foot the bill and would only do so if the other parties were not found to not be at fault - but in this case there has already been one engine rebuild and therefore there potentially remains the issue of liability surrounding the dealer's first attempt to repair which has yet to be established.

I would still be inclined to let things take their current course at the moment and if it transpires that the first rebuild becomes the central issue then you might be able to suggest to the finance company that the manufacturer be involved and bring into question the competency of the dealer. That said, it's the finance company's ultimate decision because it's their property. Their only obligation to you is to provide a bike which matches the description of the item you agreed to pay for of similar spec and quality (refund or replace), and if not then refund you.

 

But will you still get rid of it?

 

Good move. Put a new wheel bearing in mine yesterday and gave it a fettle and a buff up ready for a trip to Wales. Even with a Streetfighter and a 1290 in the garage its always a pleasure to get back on the SMT. I'm struggling to stay off it at the moment but I'm going away on it next week and I'm trying to conserve the nearly new set of tyres. But blatting round the back roads on a summer evening there is nothing like it.

 

@JH Glad it looks like you will get to a resolution.

Not sure where this comes from though and as an engineer would be interested to understand more?

The crankshaft main bearings on the Multi are angular contact roller bearings as they have been on Ducati’s for decades and are designed to accept radial and axial loads. The only soft bit is the cage that supports the rollers but that is not subject to load. It’s a well-recognised method of supporting high speed rotating shafts.

The big end bearings are white metal shells - the same design is widespread in the automotive world and has been since they were developed in the 50’s. Yes, the surface of the white metal shell is soft and relies on the oil film to prevent metal to metal contact, but you will struggle to find an engine built today that doesn’t use the same. Maybe when JH’s engine blew up previously contamination damaged the surface of the bearings?

As an aside for those old enough to remember, Norton had a fiasco in the early 70’s when they released the Commando with the higher power “Combat” specification engine. The crankshaft used conventional main roller bearings that were failing during the press road tests. It transpired that the crankshaft was flexing enough to cause the parallel rollers to skid and destroy the bearing surfaces.
The solution? The fabled “Superblend” bearings that employed slightly barrel shaped rollers that didn’t skid when the crankshaft flexed. Another example of good old British ingenuity to overcome poor design!