Ducati maintenence costs!!!

You always hear people complaining about the costs of owning a Ducati - and then someone ostensibly comes by and says that it costs just as much as any bike.... well if you don't ride your bike, then its true, it does not cost much, a service or two every couple of years and you are good.

Well, I just did one of the major services on a Monster 796, with a comparatively smaller engine, a twin with a total of 4 valves.  The service itself mainly consisted of checking a bunch of stuff and when there was work to be done, i.e. three valves adjusted/ shims/ fork oil changes, you get charged a solid amount, so this little visit to the shop cost a little over $1,600 - to be fair, this also included a little exploratory surgery to figure out some electrically issues, which ended up being a bad headlight connector that was blowing fuses, every time it shorted.

So in all, in the last couple of months, a new tire, battery, brakes and a full service ended up being a little over $2,200, but who's keeping count ;).  It is running soooooooo much smoother now and all the lights work - so worth it, I guess.

23,000 miles

This has become more of a record of the work I have had done on the bike - I end up referring to it for records, so I guess I'll keep it updated.

Last year, I had the chain, sprocket and rear tire replaced. This year (2017) in July, I replaced the front tire - just the front tire - as I had not replaced it with the rear last time around, so next time, I guess I should replace both so they are back on schedule.

In addition, I got a new battery, the original finally was not completely charging at 21,450 miles (7 years) and even with a trickle charger the bike gave me at least 2-3 rsw.0005 errors before firing up.

The front brakes were ready for a new set of pads as well.  They were at 25% and rear at 50%, so had the fronts replaced with EBC pads.

The wrench icon came on at 22,500 miles, so the bike is in at the dealer now for a major service - valve check, fluids, fork oil change, etc.

Also dealing with some electrical issues, which I'm hoping are not major - on a long ride out east, I got caught in a rainstorm, which seemed to short out my lights, blowing a fuse a couple of times. We'll see what the diagnosis is on that.

Still love this bike - just did almost a 2,000 mile ride on it and it handled it like a champ.