The owner of this 1198S rocked up and complained his bike running badly and the clutch was noisy. Now, when we got out to it the poor thing was only firing on one cylinder. Oh dear, this can be bad. Previously we’ve had Ducatis turn up here (after not having their belts serviced) with a broken belt from the ride to the workshop and running on one cylinder, for obvious reasons.
For a brief moment of horror (the cost of repairing an 1198S? Scary!) we feared the worst. But luckily it was only a spark plug. To be fair the 848, 1098 and 1198 use a wider belt and it is a lot stronger than than it was on the 916/996/998. With the previous models it’s not use that snaps the belt but the opposite; if it’s stood for a long while the belts can get brittle.
So panic over we carried on with a normal service, put a new clutch and belts in it and went through the ECU clearing off the fault codes that had accumulated after its single-cylinder activities. Good as gold!
Belts aren’t a worry if you use your Ducati regularly…
