I've had my ST4s for five years now and have done 35k miles on it, it having 11k miles onit when I got it. In that time, I have had to change the front wheel bearings twice. Last week, as I cam came down onto the motorway, I throttled off to merge with traffic, without hitting th brakes and the there was a very distinct grumble from the front hweel, as if the ball bearings had suddenly changed into the shape of kidney beans! The feeling lasted a few meters and was gone, but happened three or four more times, again, throttling off without braking. A visit to the friendly local non-dealer Ducati guy got the bearings for €20. WHat should have been a relatively simple job though, turned into a bit of a swearathon as the bloody spindle seemed not to want to give up the old bearings and was stuck bloody fast. A fair bit of persuasion with a drift and a socket managed to get it all apart and fitting the new bearings was relatively simple too. However, I was fairly shocked that it was the bearing on the left side, the one under the speedo drive, that was buggered. It had started to let in water and the grease was gone but worse still, the cage had started to break down and was fairly rough. All of this having done less than 10k miles. The Ducati guy said that this was normal and that Ducati's tend to eat their bearings quicker than the Japanese bikes. Anyone else's experience tally with that? A
I've not had this problem but for a Ducati dealer to say this is normal is very bad. If this happens regularly to any vehicle then there is a fault in the design which is allowing water into the bearings, and lubrication out. Trouble is, we seem to accept this sort of excuse for bad engineering from Italian motoring companies. My Alfa 159 gets some odd electrical faults after prolonged rain and I'm told "thats Alfas for you" as if it is acceptable for them to turn out defective goods or shoddy engineering. Still, I'm mug enough to buy them and still love them so I guess if you want a car or bike with that extra indefinable something you just have to put up with some weak design areas.
If Ducati are still using SKF as the OEM bearing manufacturer, I'm very surprised that the wheel bearings are failing so quickly, if at all. That said, I have just had wheel bearing trouble but that was either because something was wrong with the bearing housing at manufacture, or a previous owner had been careless inserting new bearings (I didn't think they were quite right when I put new bearings in as well)..........my bearings in the rear wheel had been turning in the housings and had made the house oval shaped, putting one bearing off centre; plus it had created another shoulder with was uneven so the bearing was not only off centre but it was tipped at an angle.....the spindle only partly corrected the problem. Still, that doesn't appear to be the fault of the SKF bearings which I have now removed....So are Ducati wheels badly machined which causes excess bearing wear? AL
I have just replaced the rear wheel bearings this weekend in my ST4S , the left one had quite a lot of play in the inner race. This is at least the third set of rears for this bike in 21k miles. I know this because there are 2 other sets on invoices within the service history. It doesn't bother me but i do think its a lot compared to other bikes i have owned. To be fair to the bike i have just returned from a 10 day trip to Italy fully laden with wife and luggage where it rained for most of the trip.
The bearings I took out were SKF, but the ones that went in were NSF. I have always known SKF as top quality, but TBH, I don't care. The 4s seems get through them anyway. As regards the housings, mine looked fine and a bit of a clean up with Scotchbrite had them looking perfect. They went in relatively easy and seemed to align well as the axle/spindle seemed to run true. A
Just about to put new front bearings in my Multi......after 100,000 miles ...I think that's fair mileage Pressure washed since getting the bike in 2009
Steve In my case i have not used a pressure washer while in my ownership. There is about a .5mm play in the rear spacer, i do not know if they are supposed to be touching both sides or if this small gap is normal. To be honest i assumed that it is more likely to wear them out sooner on the ST range because A: i am on the substantially constructed side and B: ST's are likely to be used with a lot of luggage/pillion due to their intended purpose. I would be interested to know the bearing sizes of some of the heavier bikes around like harleys and gold wings to illustrate my point B above. SKF came out and SKF went in by the way.
You will definitely get a problem is the ends of the spacer aren't 'square' and dont compress against the centre race properly.......On further investigation, I am pretty sure that is what caused my bearings to get b*ggered. 0.5mm is a bit too much IMO.....................the centre races and spacer through the hub, plus sprocket carrier all need to nip up together, but 0.5mm is a lot between the two bearings and will put side thrust onto the bearings (you try to move the inner race 0.25mm within the outer race.....it won't). If bearings are failing, then it is very likely the spacer as Steve says. In one of my wheels, the spacer was too long............hence the bearings moving in their housing and not being properly seated. AL
seems like accelerated wear to me although i'm no expert have had 3 ducatis, 30k, 22K, 11k miles never had a set of wheel bearing collapse touch wood, if you use a jetwash to clean your bike you should think about stopping
Just to be clear , The rear bearings i have just replaced had a degree of free play that allowed a detectable movement at the wheel. When i gripped the tyre 180 degrees top and bottom just like you would expect an MOT tester would. I am not talking about a collapse or anything that dramatic. Enough to make me want to make everything perfect for my own peace of mind.
Seems to be a few varying experiences here. I don't generally use a power washer to clean the bike, in fact, I don't really clean it much at all. Hmmm...
I have had a couple of sets of wheel bearings fail at both ends of my ST4 - it's done about 35,000 miles now, so I would say 10K miles per set is about right... The bearings you get from Ducati are just SKF bearings in a Ducati box - simple and cheap to source from a local bearing shop instead of paying bike shop prices : I think the last ones I bought were about £6.00 each. The problem with Ducatis is that the bearings are not actually very big compared to the spindle diameter, and from my experience tend to wear fairly quickly compared to some Japanese bikes. that said, it's not that difficult a job to do to change them...
Hi Steve Thanks for the info but that leads me to the following. Either the dimensional tolerances of the factory spacer is poor and i need to get a better one turned up. Or the .5mm play i detect when the wheel is removed is closed up once everything is correctly torqued and i have no way to measuring that. Can you point me to a source document that shows the correct size. Thanks in advance keith
If I may add, that every time I have my tyres changed: 1. With a flat very small watchmakers screw driver, VERY GENTLY lift and take off the rubber gasket of the bearings (only the external side). 2. I try to clean the old grease with a rug and inspect for rust. 3. I add a lot of new grease while rotating the ''balls'' 4. Put the rubber gasket back very gently 5. Wipe off any excess
