New Service Intervals

[Ron1000]

Originally Posted by crawsue

Are you still using the American guy off Leith Walk, James? Be interesting to hear what his take was on new belt construction and valve service intervals now.

Spooky. I was literally thinking; need to ask him.

I’m booked in with him for the start of March, mines will need general service items anyway so it’ll still go in. I’ll ask him about the belts and valves thing. Maybe he knows more about it.

Might recommend it, might not, maybe there’s a belt part no change so once you’re on those belts you’re fine, etc etc. Lots of unknowns, but basically whatever he recommends is fine with me. Amazingly the Ducati is proving to be the cheap bike at the moment; my other bike is looking to be very expensive repairs imminently. I’ll no go into tho; Doggy will be sick of reading about it

[Doggy]

Originally Posted by Ron1000

Spooky. I was literally thinking; need to ask him.

I’m booked in with him for the start of March, mines will need general service items anyway so it’ll still go in. I’ll ask him about the belts and valves thing. Maybe he knows more about it.

Might recommend it, might not, maybe there’s a belt part no change so once you’re on those belts you’re fine, etc etc. Lots of unknowns, but basically whatever he recommends is fine with me. Amazingly the Ducati is proving to be the cheap bike at the moment; my other bike is looking to be very expensive repairs imminently. I’ll no go into tho; Doggy will be sick of reading about it

I just feel really sorry for you, I've loved my 765RS and it's been 100% spot on .

[Ron1000]

Just painful learning curve I feel doggy. Made morse by the current restrictions as well…it would’ve been fixed ages ago if i could get it too them.

[Maggsy]

Just had email from Ducati UK.
"The latest Transparent Service Sheet is correct and the timing belts should be changed at 15,000 miles or 5 years"
This refers to my 696 but it's dead easy to download the sheet for your own model to see if anything's changed for you.

[Luddite]

Originally Posted by Maggsy

Just had email from Ducati UK.
"The latest Transparent Service Sheet is correct and the timing belts should be changed at 15,000 miles or 5 years"
This refers to my 696 but it's dead easy to download the sheet for your own model to see if anything's changed for you.

Thanks for highlighting this and for getting a definitive answer, Maggsy. Much appreciated!

[Ron1000]

Hi guys.

Just to add confusion and panic to this particular topic.

I contacted my local Ducati service centre and the person I spoke to still thought it was two years and that it had only moved (always been 5) for newer bikes. And was kind of disbelieving of my info.

But still very good service from them and they asked me for the link to the service sheet and the pdf if I could. Which I have now sent by email so just waiting on a reply. They are going to contact the factory directly and get back to me.

I wasn’t questioning or doubting anybody’s research from here. It’s more a quandary about why the change has came about; belt part no change as an example. Then it kind of snowballed a wee bit.

[crawsue]

James, it's a competitive market out there and rightly or wrongly Ducati have a strong reputation for expensive cost of ownership. I think that they used the introduction of the Scrambler "brand" coupled with proven new belt technology to move away from that perception.
The market for aspirational motorcycles is becoming much more crowded....MV, BMW,TRUMPET, KTM...the list goes on ,there are no bad bikes anymore and potential punters will need to be assured that their shiny new Duc isn't going to need specialist servicing after every run to the shops.
LOOKS LIKE WE'RE THE WINNERS 🤗🤗🤗🤗

[Luddite]

Originally Posted by Ron1000

Hi guys.

Just to add confusion and panic to this particular topic.

I contacted my local Ducati service centre and the person I spoke to still thought it was two years and that it had only moved (always been 5) for newer bikes. And was kind of disbelieving of my info.

But still very good service from them and they asked me for the link to the service sheet and the pdf if I could. Which I have now sent by email so just waiting on a reply. They are going to contact the factory directly and get back to me.

I wasn’t questioning or doubting anybody’s research from here. It’s more a quandary about why the change has came about; belt part no change as an example. Then it kind of snowballed a wee bit.

Thanks, Ron. Look forward to hearing the factory's reply.

[Maggsy]

Not sure what's going on here.

The Ducati Service Scheduled Maintenance sheet I downloaded from Ducati's website has all the operations for my bike (696).

I emailed Ducati UK because it was different from my Owner's Manual and they replied quoting their Technical Warranty Adviser:-

"I can confirm that the information on the latest transparent service sheet is correct and timing belts should be changed at 15,000 miles or 5 years".

This is for 696, 795, 796, 797 and 1100. This was always the case for the 797 so I guess the writing was on the wall then.

One highly respected independent service engineer told me ages ago that changing my belts every 2 years was a waste of money and that they would be good for 15,000 miles.

I see from the sheet that for the 821 and 1200 it's now 18,000 miles! (I bet that will cause a few squeaky bums)!

It will be interesting to hear the factory's response.

[Ron1000]

I know I’m sounding like I can’t let this go now but I’d like to know what the reasons are for the change.

My go to on this is ‘is there a belt part no change’ and if so do you need to move to those belts so you’re good for 5 years.

I can’t get that info from anybody.

[Maggsy]

Originally Posted by Ron1000

I know I’m sounding like I can’t let this go now but I’d like to know what the reasons are for the change.

My go to on this is ‘is there a belt part no change’ and if so do you need to move to those belts so you’re good for 5 years.

I can’t get that info from anybody.

Good point Ron.

My guess is they've realised, with experience, that 2 years was not necessary after all.

I wonder if 797 belts are made differently from all the others?

[Luddite]

Originally Posted by Ron1000

My go to on this is ‘is there a belt part no change’ and if so do you need to move to those belts so you’re good for 5 years.

Belts have evolved over the years both in materials and construction. There's an interesting (former Ducati Up North) article on the Ducati Community forum about this here:

https://www.ducati.community/threads...ruction.10994/

While, as far as I'm aware, the Evo belts haven't changed since the bike appeared in 2010, the exact same belts were fitted to the 1100 Scrambler and that had a five-year service life from new.

I remember when the Scrambler was first released, Bike Magazine took one out along with Claudio Domenicali. They quizzed him about the resurrection of the 1100 motor and Domenicali said that, in fact, it had been extensively reworked and about the only parts it shared with the Monster were the belts and timing system.

I've had my Evo from new and I inspected the belts after two years. As there were no signs of any wear, I decided to run them for another 12 months. I changed them after three years and they still looked like new.

I ran the next set of, (genuine Ducati), belts for four years, (with annual condition checks), and again, they showed no sign of wear. So, based on experience and the fact that the same belts on the Scrambler have a five year life, I wouldn't have any problem running the Evo's current belts for five years, (they're currently three years old). Of course, the longer you run them, the more important condition checks are, especially tension as you wouldn't want an otherwise sound belt to jump a tooth because it's become too slack.

I haven't checked the service schedule of the 'five-year' models but I wouldn't be surprised if they recommend a belt inspection every two years or so.

[Darren69]

It's no surprise when you think that similar constructed belts are used in most cars for many thousands of miles more and those engines have conventional spring loaded valves, so they are working much harder than they ever would in a Desmo engine, where the cams can easily be rotated by hand?

Conspiracy theory alert, but I think it could be a carefully constructed myth by Ducati to generate revenue for service parts that don't actually require replacement in most cases. Me paranoid? lol

[Maggsy]

Originally Posted by Darren69

It's no surprise when you think that similar constructed belts are used in most cars for many thousands of miles more and those engines have conventional spring loaded valves, so they are working much harder than they ever would in a Desmo engine, where the cams can easily be rotated by hand?

Conspiracy theory alert, but I think it could be a carefully constructed myth by Ducati to generate revenue for service parts that don't actually require replacement in most cases. Me paranoid? lol

That's an outrageous idea!
The thought never crossed my mind!

[Flip]

I’m sure there is certainly something in it that materials have improved over the years along with Ducati’s reputation for reliability- it wasn’t so many years ago that if you mentioned you owned a Ducati it was met with an intake of breath through gritted teeth while they worked out whether you were rich or stupid.

So remember that when the Monster was released in the UK in 1993 it retailed at something like £7500 (£15,800 approx today) so not cheap for a naked motorcycle (or Handgrenade with the pin pulled as some would see it) to save a troubled company when their previous 2valver (the 907 Paso) had a service with valve check at 1850 miles and their Japanese competitors managed around 15000 miles for a valve check, they had to do something.

So Ducati are not new to extending their service limits (some at the detriment of smooth low down running) to make ownership of the brand more affordable to the masses.

Have a read here:

http://www.sigmaperformance.com/service-interval.html