What's so hard about it is that it's a complicated, time-consuming process of taking things apart, layer by layer, to get at the thing that actually needs to be replaced, and then putting it all back together again. These things just don't seem to have been designed for maintenance. I have NFI about the details of the procedure; I'll find out if I ever have both the need and inclination to try it myself.
This is getting mystifying. We are only talking about working on the pannier, not the whole bike. How many layers can there be? How complicated can it be? Just asserting that it's complicated without giving any details tells us nothing.
I'm not sure how much clearer I can make this: I'm relaying second-hand information from the person who actually did the work for me. I was not involved in doing the work, nor have I researched it, because it was a warranty job and I have other things to do with my time. It _does_ tell you something, which is that an experienced mechanic, who works exclusively on Ducati and Moto Guzzi bikes, found it to be a frustratingly complicated job. To me, that's a reasonably informative datapoint. It just doesn't tell you what _makes_ it a complicated job. If you're fishing for the procedure, stop probing me because I don't know what it is. I don't have the details, so I can't give them to you. If you want to do your own research on your own time, go right ahead. Sorry I can't justify this assessment to your satisfaction, but you have all the information that I do on the subject. If you find this insufficient to satisfy you, then feel free to dismiss my input on the subject. In any case, please take a deep breath, calm down, and reserve your angst for a more worthy object than somebody making a second-hand assertion on the internet.
Get over yourself, will you; I'm not probing you and I don't give a toss whether you know what you're talking about or not. If you don't, as is apparent, feel free to hold your peace. My query was addressed to the forum at large. There might be somebody out there who actually knows the answer, and with any luck they might contribute something useful. Somebody usually does, on this forum, and that is the way the forum works.
I'm very happy to report that Riders in Bristol supplied and fitted the replacement latches free of charge and once again, all is well. My sincere thanks to Riders for providing excellent customer support. My only observation is that it's still a tricky task to get the unladen panniers to engage fully with in the mounting points on the bike and care really must be taken when fitting or removing the panniers.
The difficulty is simply that the Givi built pannier requires the various elements of the lid, handle mechanism and lock removing - fiddly but not too difficult if you know what you are doing (my dealer has now done it 3 times!). The issue, Pete1950 is hardly the degree of difficulty, but the need to repeatedly do the job. To my knowledge Givi/Ducati have singularly failed to sort out this useless piece of material specification and that's the problem. For what its worth, ExKat, I now protect my lugs by gentle knee pressure in the desired direction (on or off) to ensure the lugs are fully engaged/disengaged... and haven't broken one of the useless little buggers for 9 months! A friend of mine, however has... 3 times... I see you are still using the font of the Domesday Book, Pete1950
That's actually very helpful. Having read about the problems people have had and played about with my own panniers I realised immediately that you need them to be empty when taking them on or off. The dealer who showed me how to do it (Riders in Bristol) took great care in explaining that they needed to be fully engaged before you locked them in place and that the lightest pressure was needed on the locking handle. Any resistance at all would indicate they were not fully engaged and would potentially damage the lugs. So far so good, but I've only had mine 3 weeks so far :sweatsmile:
There does seem to be a common theme with "lug failure" I've had both mine fail after a trip to Corsica which resulted in it being very difficult to remove the left hand pannier. Speaking with the dealer they say they should be installed and removed empty which I guess kind of makes sense so not to stress the lugs. I am getting both replaced under warranty but interested to see the above comment state "reinforced lug" @Craneguy do you know what the modification is for reinforcement as I'm guessing that's something a dealer has stated? be interesting to know....
The new lug seems to have a metal core. The name of the game is 'extreme care' I broke mine when the pannier was empty... I wouldn't try it with them loaded. When everything is lined up right it requires no force at all. If you feel any resistance at all, stop, realign and try again.
