Brought in for one job initially, this 1098S is gradually receiving more and more attention. The owner does a lot of track days on it so the bike’s well used, in the sense that it’s ridden as it was built to be. The valve clearance check limit is 12,000 miles, which is a good distance and they rarely go out thanks to generous tolerances. One thing that is important is new belts; every two years or 12,000 miles if that comes round quicker. The starter sprag clutch on this engine is showing signs of wear – squealing out on start up – so will have to get sorted in the not too distant future.
Sorting belts and valves together as in this case is sensible and we’re seeing a lot of Ducatis like this one, quite new, that aren’t going to Ducati dealers because while the service intervals are now reasonable the cost of the service itself has skyrocketed. For us, we deal our time in hours spent on the job and everything no matter what gets dealt with in the same way, and goes out the door the very best we can make it – which seems to us the fairest system.
Service intervals are much better now on newer Ducatis like this 1098S, but the prices charged by Ducati dealers have also grown, a lot it seems…
