Poll
Question:
At the scheduled maintenance, where do you get your work done?
Option 1: at your friendly neighborhood Ducati Dealer
Option 2: go out of your area to a preferred Ducati Dealer
Option 3: to a motorcycle mechanic you trust
Option 4: Do it yourself or with friends in garage
Option 5: What scheduled maintenance
Option 6: go out of your area to the CLOSEST Ducati dealer
With my 6000/7500 miles coming up, I am contemplating whether to spend the $800 at the Ducati Dealer near by or doing it myself. I am pretty handle myself and enjoy working on stuff. Although, I have found some information and videos on how to do the maintenance, doing the valve adjustment for the first time still scares me a bit.
Just wondering how you guys approach the dreaded schedule maintenance.
Cheers
I use the money I save by not having services done at the shop to buy tools. There is so much good info here and other places on the interweb that make doing the valve adjustment much less intimidating. One question I would ask is if you are still under warranty. If not, recruit a trustworthy assistant and go to town.
at the only ducati dealer here in Kuwait http://tristarkw.net/xms/ (http://tristarkw.net/xms/)
Nick (Speeddog) at Valley Ducati Service. I'll do the occassional oil/filter change myself, though.
Also not much choice here in South Africa, go to the closest one which BTW is the best one [thumbsup]
I guess I have to go to our only dealership in the area which is two hours away. I was going to get the first service done elsewhere, but I will need the service indicator turned off.
Here's my take. I take it to a Duc dealer for resale purposes. If I ever sell, I'll probably make up a fair percentage of what I paid for having a bike with all the records. I personally would never buy a Duc that was maintained by a shadetree mechanic, you have no idea how mechanically in/de clined they are.
If anyone is in central Ohio or surrounding areas...........
I recommend JD Hord for ALL service.
www.hordpower.com (//http://)
His shop rate is 40$ an hour and he has a dyno in his garage, and the same labor rate applies.
JD is a former ducati mechanic that opened up his own shop. He is a top notch mechanic.
He was consulted by Larry Pegram when they did the 848 punch out on the 749 motor a few years back. JD was doing this for a local rider named Mark Hattan (I think thats his name).
I swear by JD's service. You get a nice hand written bill with all costs and he charges you to the 1/4 hour.
Metallimonster just used JD and was very pleased with the service.
I would have no problem driving 5 hours to continue to use JD. He is a nice guy and a great mechanic.
^^^
Couldn't agree more. JD is a great guy and has great prices. The work he did on my bike was superb and he doesn't pressure you into anything. Let me know what he thought I needed and worked with me on everything.
If you're in Ohio he is the guy to go to. Like Cyrus said, I'd take 5-6 hours just to have him work on my bike.
Poll is flawed. Should be a choice of...
Go out of your area to the nearest Ducati dealer.
Thanks for your inputs. Much appreciated!
Quote from: NorDog on August 18, 2009, 07:32:21 AM
Poll is flawed. Should be a choice of...
Go out of your area to the nearest Ducati dealer.
New option added.
Quote from: Goat_Herder on August 18, 2009, 11:27:00 AM
Thanks for your inputs. Much appreciated!
New option added.
If I hadn't already voted, I would vote that one.
Quote from: cyrus buelton on August 18, 2009, 07:25:17 AM
If anyone is in central Ohio or surrounding areas...........
I recommend JD Hord for ALL service.
www.hordpower.com (//http://) (//http://) (//http://)
He is a nice guy and a great mechanic.
I used to be on the old Hawk GT list with Hord more than a decade ago. He was pretty much the go-to guy back then and I've never heard a bad word said about him. If he was close I'd take my bike to him no question.
Quote from: Goat_Herder on August 17, 2009, 02:25:44 PM
I am pretty handle myself and enjoy working on stuff. Although, I have found some information and videos on how to do the maintenance, doing the valve adjustment for the first time still scares me a bit.
It's only "different", not "difficult" - if you'd be happy doing regular shimmed valves on a "normal" motor, you can do the desmo closing shims as well with the assistance of websites like ducatisuite.com (I'm not claiming they're the best site out there, but they're certainly good enough - it was their writeups I obsessed over way back when I first did mine, and it went fine...)
One other point, if you're doing this _without_ a friendly local Ducati mechanic around, you'll need to set aside time or money for shim replacement - I'm lucky to have a local guy who's happy to swap shims with me out of his huge collection, if I didn't have that I'd buy an emsduc.com shim kit (or be prepared to measure stuff up, mail order shims, check they sent the right sizes, then fit the new ones).
gregrnel does have a good point though - dealer receipts for scheduled services _do_ make for easier/higher resale. I never plan of selling mine, so that doesnt matter to me...
big
Quote from: bigiain on August 20, 2009, 12:01:25 AM
It's only "different", not "difficult" - if you'd be happy doing regular shimmed valves on a "normal" motor, you can do the desmo closing shims as well with the assistance of websites like ducatisuite.com (I'm not claiming they're the best site out there, but they're certainly good enough - it was their writeups I obsessed over way back when I first did mine, and it went fine...)
One other point, if you're doing this _without_ a friendly local Ducati mechanic around, you'll need to set aside time or money for shim replacement - I'm lucky to have a local guy who's happy to swap shims with me out of his huge collection, if I didn't have that I'd buy an emsduc.com shim kit (or be prepared to measure stuff up, mail order shims, check they sent the right sizes, then fit the new ones).
gregrnel does have a good point though - dealer receipts for scheduled services _do_ make for easier/higher resale. I never plan of selling mine, so that doesnt matter to me...
big
Very good points. I will keep that in mind as the winter approaches and I will be thinking about the scheduled maintenance.
I think there's an absence of an option. There's a difference in a "dealer" itself, and a ducati shop. Corse Motorsports (Nashville) sells zero used bikes. But its more than a mechanic alone, its a full fledged shop. Same with Ducshop (ATL), or Rust Restorations (DFW). These are schooled Ducati mechanics who have their own shops. So although I sometimes use an actual dealership, other times I'll use a Ducati shop that does everything but sell new bikes. (They get parts and everything just fine though)
Dealer maintained doesn't mean a whole lot to me. I've been to dealers I wouldn't take your bike to. I've seen private mechanics that are totally anal about everything.
You can buy a bike that has been maintained by a shop and still have the rockers flake or the tank expand or the guides wear out. Hell, they could still be setting the belts to 140hz!
Quote from: gregrnel on August 18, 2009, 06:17:46 AM
Here's my take. I take it to a Duc dealer for resale purposes. If I ever sell, I'll probably make up a fair percentage of what I paid for having a bike with all the records. I personally would never buy a Duc that was maintained by a shadetree mechanic, you have no idea how mechanically in/de clined they are.
It's not accurate to idly toss out blanket derogatory terms like "shadetree mechanic" to describe those who do their own work. From what I've seen most if not all the Duc riders who do their own work and independent shop owners are very conscientious, even to a fault. Not so for many dealers who have a reputation for overcharging and doing things like overtensioning cam belts and generally not knowing much. I personally would be more comfortable buying an owner maintained bike than a dealer maintained bike, unless the dealer was one of the few with an exceptionally a good rep.
And of course there are a lot of variables but I'm not sure how much of the high cost of dealer maintenance is recoverable at sale time.
Quote from: Langanobob on August 20, 2009, 09:05:19 PM
It's not accurate to idly toss out blanket derogatory terms like "shadetree mechanic" to describe those who do their own work.
In his defence, from the potential buyers point of view it's a fair bargaining-point-assumption. _I'd_ certainly use that exact phrase as I was negotiating the price down.
big
Understood, and in order to get quality work done, don't you guys have to ship your bikes to NZ?