As a bit of a summary: When I purchased my original Duke, brand new, the dealership I took it back to, from the 1st service were so incompetent, they would break something every time they touched it. From the first 12 months I had it, it spent 7 of those in their workshop rectifying what ever they had undone the time before:
From installing the cables on the battery backwards, to forgetting to do up engine bolts, to taking out bar end weight bolts, etc. Got to such a point that, I refused to ride the bike any longer for fear – I would be riding along and seeing fluids or bolts dropping. Had to go to the Australian Consumer watchdog and dob them in for their lemon practice and eventually they were forced to get me a whole new bike.
This sounded amazing – but there was one big problem with this… THEY would be getting it for me. Version 2.0 😀
Being naive I thought they’d get it for me, I’d take it and never go back to them. They knew this however, so what did they do as a lasting reminder? They gave me the bike and made sure every single filter in the motor was taken out. Of course the bike looked new and fine, and I did the 1000km run in period….Jeez it ran a bit rough, I thought?
Only when I went to an independent mechanic did we find out the horrendous tactics these bike shop owners used to sabotage the bike!!! Metal shavings and god knows what other crap was in the engine now as the oils and fluids all came back thick chocolate colour full of pretty silver glitter!!
Cut a long story short; I had to take them to court for they were keeping both my money and the bike so I had to try salvage something – anything. I wasn’t going to ride something that I had no confidence in and feared for my life every time I got on it. As a result the judge ordered for a whole new engine to be ordered and for them to pay some other mechanic to install it.
Eventually the new engine came and was fitted to the new-old bike – Version 2’. My confidence restored, I had to bed in the new engine, this time with filters 🙂
Only a few weeks to go before I left my home for the big trip. So I had to do the 1,000km fast. Make sure the 1st service got done and had some time to test our luggage.
**I should put in a note here saying that thankfully, the dodgy dealers either folded or sold their business onto much much more competent people since then.**
Touring Valvoline 