| Its pretty bad when you look at some of the quality issues on the 999 (and 749) range. I dont remember the 748 or my 998 ever looking quite so poorly after so few months of use. I have ridden it in both wet and dry conditions and always do my best to keep it in as good a state as I can. I have replaced all the fasteners that are most prone to corrosion with titanium ones as if you take a close look at any 999/749 you will see a lot of these bikes will already be looking tired around the edges and on bikes that cost the equivalent of a small family car these days and then some, its just not good enough. Its a shame we cant as a club put more pressure on Ducati to address these problems. I understand there are economics invlolved in this, but these quality control issues affect even the 999R, a bike not far short of twenty grand and if I spent that much on a car and had it start to corrode within 3 months of buying it I would be mighty pi**ed off. Most of the plating on Dukes is Zinc Pas which is normally quite hard wearing but for some reason the bolts, screws and fasteners on the 999/749 are either microscopically coated with the stuff, such that it is near next to useless or not at all. For example: Look inside your side fairings and there you will find a veritable feast of rust where those cheap and nasty mild steel washers hold the soundproofing panels in place. I ditched those after streams of rust started to stain the outside of the lower fairing panels. Got a load of em powder coated and refitted new ones. Cost minimal. Job sorted. Why cant we expect that level of finish on a bike costing this much. If not perhaps we can club together and get a load of fasteners and fixings treated in bulk and distributed to those that want to fit them at a sensible cost. There are only a handful of items that are really prone to corrosion and if any one is interested I can say (from someone as fastidious as me!!) I have pretty much identified the worst culprits. Somewhere between 30 - 34 items need to be treated, the rest will survive well if coated in the likes of WD40 or an inhibitor spray of some kind.  |