@SVP I will hereby tell you my experience as a customer with Ducati, India. I purchased a Ducati Diavel on 22nd July, 2015 from AMP Ducati, Gurgaon. After 4 months, bike’s engine suffered from alarmingly low levels of engine oil, causing excessive wear and tear and residue build up in whole engine. Since i got my bike in workshop on 19th Nov and till date, the bike is still in the workshop. (current pictures attached) This whole experience has made me go through excessive stress, deprived me of my bike i paid them for and wastage of my time. If I wasn’t keeping a proper maintenance check, It would have led to serious injuries if bike’s engine seized. They want to ‘repair’ my bike’s engine instead of providing me a new one. They told me, ‘rebuilding and opening an engine is completely normal for Ducati’ (pictures attached). Currently, every customer is being cheated for 12-15 k service interval( 15 k for my model) for their bikes and i was again told ‘that’s the service interval for Italy.’ So this shows how unprepared they were to launch their bikes in India. They said, my engine will be ‘fixed’ and the returned bike will be ‘brand new’. As pictures show, no owner would call a patched up bike as ‘brand new’. I am currently losing bike’s value, insurance, time, warranty,and health due to stress caused and i have to travel 370 kms just to be told, ‘sorry sir, you will get your bike next week’ What their service head said when i asked for an engine replacement was, ‘The engine assembled in factory isn’t great as people working in assembly line are not professionals. The engine that we will rebuild will be far superior’ And this is after bike’s whole engine went through excessive wear and tear and they refuse to acknowledge that. Even Piston’s chambers have 1.6 mm clearance issue. Within a week of purchase, i got my first service done in timely fashion and did a proper break in as per the manual. I was extra careful so that engine will have a good life as i planned to keep this bike. After 4 months, during my regular maintenance check, i noticed my bike’s engine had alarmingly low engine oil levels. Bike had 6600 kms clocked by then and the second service according to the manual is at 15000 kms. I took it to workshop after topping it off with 1 litre engine oil. The oil drained out was just 2 litres after i topped it up with 1 litre. So the engine was running on 1 litre engine oil instead of 3.8 litres which again according to them ‘isn’t any serious issue’. Such alarmingly low engine oil level was caused in a high revving performance machine due to engine malfunction and If i didn’t always check bike properly, would have led to engine seizure and maybe at high speeds. There was no smoke, no fire from the exhaust, no low engine oil level light, nothing to give a single hint about what was going on inside the engine. I have since been just calling them regularly, even multiple calls a day but as you can see in pictures, the progress made. They instead told me, that the issue was caused due to excessive dirt entering through the filter. So between first service at 1200kms and lets assume this problem might have started near 5500 kms, it just took 4300 kms, with majority rides on NH1 to ‘choke’ the filter, and causing engine malfunction. It’s like a blame thrown back at me for their long service interval and poor air filter. Even if service interval was at 6 k kms, the damage was still done. And i even took my bike to workshop roughly around 3-4 k kms for replacement key and i requested to clean filter for me. I just asked that because i thought it will help. They said it’s fine. It’s just collecting dust now which will enter the system directly again. I tried to write my concerns to Italian headquarters but those emails are redirected to same Indian team. Even contacted Ducati India many times and nothing good came out of it. I Just hope my experience is shared with every customer before they go through what i have been through. This filter issue is a serious one and all of their bikes are facing it while their customers are being cheated with long service intervals. I personally saw dust inside the air box of other bikes at even lower mileage. It’s just a disaster waiting to happen and probably already shortened the life of the bikes sold till date. Even if they take the preventive measures now, the damage has been done. * Please mail me if you have any good suggestions. They have just stopped contacting me. 49 days and counting.*
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