Dallara said:
. . . I've just owned a few Ducati's over the years, all of which I've maintained myself, and I've never had any real problems. Maybe some just get along well with Italian bikes...
. . .
And my apologies to the forum if I have been one of those to get this Super Tenere thread off on a tangent.
Not necessarily off on a tangent, because there are a couple of items in this that are relative. As with airplane accidents, the first failure in the chain may be the operator going beyond the limits of what the machine was designed to do. Neglect maintenance or dive an airplane almost to redline, pull hard on the stick, and yes you can break a good machine.
In Dallara's "Maybe some just get along well with Italian bikes" there seem to be two types of Ducati owners. One group is much more likely to run the bike hard to adopt the racing heritage and reputation. I've seen too many "young artistic" rider types who just don't understand the need for maintenance. Or leave their Monster outside their apartment and can't/won't pay for maintenance. They seem to complain more about their bike after the initial glow.
Super Teneres may be left outside and neglected, but few are going to get flogged this way. And imho the Tenere is heavy because an adventure bike needs to be slightly over-designed to be reliable, versus Ducati being weight conscious. If NOTHING else, Yamaha knows how to design for reliability and test prior to model release. The Super Tenere was proven in Australia and South Africa before it came to North America. These are probably the two biggest reasons taht we don't have a list of major parts failures.
The other type of Ducati rider may or may not ride an occasional track day or weekend road burner, but is at the other end of the maintenance scale and generally more mature. They generally have very few problems. Hmmm - Sounds like the majority of Tenere owners.
This is NOT to say that Ducati hasn't had design and manufacturing issues. Duconce rightfully named a few and there have been others. I kept an ST2 when I was itching to trade for a ST4, because ST4 valves went through a couple of waves of major issues. The plastic tank issue is 90% of what has kept me from buying a new 'Strada. I love riding the bike, but you just can't fab up your own tank & they are truly expensive when they blister.
And here is the other reason I think it was worth bringing up the comparison. Ducati seems to warranty only one replacement tank per bike, even though the new ones are the same and are known to also blister. And Heaven help you if the bike was a day out of the warranty period or you are not the original owner.
Yamaha occasionally has issues, like any manufacturer. It always seems to be the same, in people complaining louder and louder while the company denies that a problem exists. For example, the current headlight harness issues. What makes Yamaha and the other big Japanese manufacturers differ is that if the model stays in production a service bulletin or shop bulletin will quietly be released and they will generally allow claims well beyond the warranty period.
I met one of the Yamaha service engineers when the FJR fleet had an issue with failing key switches and it seemed that no relief was coming. He related that they are a relatively small group and they watch the forums like this one, so they had been aware and had been researching the issue. I learned that their priorities are assigned to what company management believes are currently most important. They also talk regularly with NHTSA, which can affect their priorities. At that time the limited number of engineers was addressing an issue with one of the quads that led to a number of injuries and lawsuits. Once those were addressed, they did get back to the FJR electrical issue, changed the design, and Yamaha paid to install a LOT of them. Even for bikes well out of warranty. Same as for cracking top boxes, same for valve guides ticking, etc.
