My Superduke is due a service. Turns out my dealer - InMoto is offering a £50 discount until the end of the month on stuff at the mo. Yay!
In case anyone else needs anything bought/doing:
https://gallery.mailchimp.com/711c75b67df0b6880aa542bbf/images/c695abe5-e8fb-49f4-bb5a-31cdfca7d896.jpgLucky you 
Unfortunately for me Croydon is over an hour’s ride across the worst of London. Since Metropolis have gone, all Ducati dealers are over an hour’s ride away from me!
Motorcycling is having a tough time of it lately, no doubt. Dealers dropping like flies.
Yep it’s 2007/08 all over again with dealers and retailers just disappearing over night.
It’s not just a question of the health of the economy but also the complexity of the bikes is changing our needs. I think the manufacturers will have to step up their game.
I needed a new indicator wire for my Supersport, a small nick in the lead was throwing up computer errors. I took the bike to my local indie place which has done MoTs for me for decades. He wouldn’t even look at it, telling me that Ducati simply won’t provide the parts to him.
I had to take it to a main dealer - my nearest one being Hyside in Romford. They were very professional and I’d highly recommend them but it’s one hell of a schlepp for me to get there and back. Their service manager told me that a few years ago they would have repaired such simple damage with a quick solder but daren’t do that now because the current CANBUS technology is bound to throw up errors.
Like cars, bikes have become so complicated that they need dealer support. Manufacturers need to recognise this with either better availability of parts and training for indie shops, or factory support for main dealers which would allow more of them to survive.
So my bike’s in for service and apparently the KTM diagnostics computer was due to load some software updates and part-way through it totally b0rked. The bike’s now dead and won’t start. Hah. In my experience as an IT pro, this normally this happens when you interrupt power during an update, but as I wasn’t there I can’t comment.
They’re due to speak to KTM tomorrow and see about a remote diagnostics session.
Oddly they also said there’s a number of outstanding recalls for my bikes so they’re performing those (front brake issue mentioned!?) - I find this a little shocking as neither KTM nor the dealer had contacted me before about any recalls.
I’ve had bikes from nearly all manufacturers and they’re all the same when it comes to customer engagement it seems, except for BMW who put the rest to shame by a country mile. They actually engage with their customers, from the bike’s dash telling you when a service is due, them ringing you to book in a service/recalls, emailing you, letting you know about new bikes, etc. It’s like they’re the only company actually interested in keeping customers and selling bikes.
Ducati aren’t bad. This is the first new bike I’ve owned, so maybe I’m not best placed to comment, but they’ve been quick at letting me know about two recalls (another trip to Romford coming up for me) and even sent me a birthday card.
Rather than birthday cards, I would prefer if they would put that budget towards supporting their dealers.
On my tracer 900, I can test all the electrical components from diagnostics on the dash, even down to making the fuel injectors open and close.
On the second generation of the tracer, they disabled that menu.
