Wheels on new monsters

[bob795]

Guys,

I'm not sure which forum I should post this question in ... hope it's the right forum.

I was told by a guy, that the wheels on the recent monsters are "soft". What he meant by "soft" is the wheels are more prone to failure, or can bent easily when hit a pot hole. This guy is a shop owner mostly work on Japanese bike but his shop also works on ducatis and he rides one too, not an authorized ducati shop though.

Is it true what he told me? I hit a pothole on my sportster once, hit it quite hard that both the fork seals blown, but the wheel was fine.
thanks in advance,

[SDRider]

I have over 9000 miles on mine and haven't bent any wheels yet nor have I ever heard of anyone saying their wheels are soft.  Sounds like pure bullshit if you ask me.

I wouldn't worry about it.

[Adamm0621]

I'm pretty sure that if his statement held even the slightest bit of truth, there would have been a massive recall by now. 

[mmakay]

I'm pretty sure that if his statement held even the slightest bit of truth, there would have been a massive recall by now. 

or at least a ton of forum pregnant doging

[wannabfast]

there was a recall.... and a handful of 2012 1100evo rear wheels were affected... and they probably are all been fixed by now

[ungeheuer]

....I was told by a guy, that the wheels on the recent monsters are "soft"....

Wheels on recent Monsters have been sourced from both Enkei and Marchesini....  so how likely do you think its gonna be that both manufacturers are supplying "soft" wheels to Ducati?

So with the exception of these few.....

there was a recall.... and a handful of 2012 1100evo rear wheels were affected... and they probably are all been fixed by now

.....I'm going with this

Sounds like pure bullshit if you ask me.

[bob795]

Thank you very much guys. Great to hear that.

You know, I was worry when I heard this, worry enough that I thought about replacing the wheels on my bike. Because even though the road surfaces in the city are smooth, well with holes here and there just like any other place I guess... the roads out of town are not really smooth. And I don't want to worry about every holes on the road when I ride, you know, hit a hole and worry about whether it bent the rim or not... I'm sure you know what I mean.
Thanks again guys.

[Speeddog]

I've seen quite a few bent Duc wheels roll into my shop.

9 times out of 10 there's 20psi in the tires (or less ).

Just keep your tires properly inflated, and you're 99% there.

[forza110]

never heard of "soft" rims before...

[wannabfast]

never heard of "soft" rims before...

well the magnesium rims are mad soft but pretty light and usually used for race only, using them on the street is asking for trouble... the aluminum forged rims are a happy medium between weight/strength

[SDRider]

there was a recall.... and a handful of 2012 1100evo rear wheels were affected... and they probably are all been fixed by now

IIRC, they were doing testing for the SF848 which was using the 1100 EVO rear wheel and found cracks in some of the spokes on the rear wheel, they looked at their Monster 1100 EVO test mules and found 1 test bike which had over 26,000 miles on it with a couple cracked spokes.

[Kev M]

UH Guys....they're soft (at least the 3-spoke Brembos), and they're frickin expensive.

I hit a pothole a few weeks ago on our 11' M696 and put a couple inch long, about 10mm deep bend in the almost $1200 front wheel.

As I understand it some European manufacturers (BMW comes to mind) follow the philosophy that they'd prefer a softer wheel material that is more likely to bend than to fail catastrophically after cracking. I've seen plenty of BMW car and bike wheels bend over the years, but I'm newer to Ducati and this was my first.

Yes, tire pressures were in spec.

[Kev M]

http://www.ducatimonsterforum.org/index.php?topic=59537.msg1098780#msg1098780

[SDRider]

http://www.ducatimonsterforum.org/index.php?topic=59537.msg1098780#msg1098780

Did you get your wheel fixed?  A friend of mine bought a set of Marchesini wheels off an ST3 on e-bay for his Sport Classic and the front one was bent.  He took it to a specialist who straightens motorcycle wheels and had great results with that.  He has been riding on these wheels for a couple years now.

I can't imagine what you'd have to do to bend one of these wheels.  I've gotten air, hit speed bumps at a pretty good speed, dips, rises, rough pavement, even some off-road.  Never bent a wheel.  I sure wouldn't discount buying a Ducati because of this anyway.

[Kev M]

Did you get your wheel fixed?  A friend of mine bought a set of Marchesini wheels off an ST3 on e-bay for his Sport Classic and the front one was bent.  He took it to a specialist who straightens motorcycle wheels and had great results with that.  He has been riding on these wheels for a couple years now.

I can't imagine what you'd have to do to bend one of these wheels.  I've gotten air, hit speed bumps at a pretty good speed, dips, rises, rough pavement, even some off-road.  Never bent a wheel.  I sure wouldn't discount buying a Ducati because of this anyway.

I got a replacement wheel (earlier model take-off) from a board member. I'm sorting spacer issues right now (because the model it came off had a speedo drive so I need 9mm more of spacer).

I might get the original one fixed eventually - if I can do it cheap enough. But it's the wife's bike and I really don't want to risk an undetected crack or weak spot. I mean, she put the first 1k miles on this bike pregnant - we even got ABS for that extra margin of reassurance, so I'd feel pretty weird about a repaired wheel.

Anyway, I'm not saying NOT to buy a Duc because of this, but it's good to be extra aware of...