So here we are…again.
Details redacted as original post was made in reactive mode to not very good news.
With the benefit of a few hours to calm down, I have now reconsidered and think that perhaps we ought to see how the warranty claim goes before I get too overexcited about the situation.
Thanks
S23
Completely unacceptable 
what a disappointment for you with trips planned as well.
Doesn’t bode well for any of the new models either coming up
How disappointing for such a promising model. I hope Piaggio step up smartly. My sympathies.
These are the risks one takes when buying a completely new product, rather than one that has been on the market for a couple of years.
Have they given you a courtesy loan bike?
Catastrophic failures can occur even in well developed devices. In my day job we had a big end failure in a brand-new Diesel engine, of a type which has been around since the 1970’s.
Well Piaggio came up with a new engine. Happy days…until time came for “2nd 1st service”. Took bike in, duly attended to, set off for trip to N.Yorks.
Got there, had nice overnight stop, on way back stopped off at services and noticed…this.
4 - 5 hours running time after “service”.
Bike went back. Owing to my naivete, I assumed the bolt had just fallen out, or not been fitted at all after the engine was replaced.
Oh no. It had sheared off.
Apparently “all on its own”.
Hmmm.
over torqued by dealer?
They made a big point of how they’d had to extract the bit of broken bolt…
Until I asked how they thought it had actually got “broken”. Then it all went quiet.
Know nowt about Mandellos, but why does the exhaust collector (assuming it’s that) needs to be removed for a first service? It infers routine maintenance will be a bit more involved than we are used to!
The exhaust had to come off because the engine was replaced under warranty- catastrophic big end failure at 2300 miles.
The cat can doesn’t have to come off for the first service but you would have thought that any half competent workshop would have noticed it before handing the bike back…
Yep, you would have thought so! I’ve had a catalogue of shoddy, unchecked work by supposedly reputable service ‘engineers’ over the years, so much so that I now do EVERYTHING myself. At least I know where the buck stops! I wish you good luck and many happy trouble-free miles!
Guzzi have been making bikes so long, there shouldn’t be any risks. I brought a new Triumph Trophy 1200 in the early days of Hinckley Triumph. Bulletproof! I suspect something to do with John Bloor and the team he built around him.
Unfortunately there is a growing mass of evidence that Guzzi’s customers are Guzzi’s R&D department…
Latest story out there is chewed-up bolts dropping out of the crankcase at oil-change time, accompanied by metalflake oil…
The new Stelvio engine has received beefed-up swingarm mounting points. This after a V100 in the US has been seen with what are apparently collapsed s/a bearings (s/a wobblable by hand with the bike on its stand).
Many cases of bikes belching out coolant after a run due to crappy Chinese radiator caps.
I’m not saying that Chinese parts are crap per se, only that Guzzi have specified a really cheap and nasty part that is prone to sticking and thus pressurising the coolant reservoir, expelling the contents.
This theme continues with the springs in the windscreen mechanism - they go rusty the minute a cloud passes in front of the sun.
Then we had the disintegrating lower shock mount on the Standard models (some bikes had spacers missing…).
Before it had its new motor, my bike was one of the “selector mechanism assembled with too much loctite” cohort. Again, a fairly common fault.
So for a company that’s “been making bikes so long”, they don’t seem to have learned much from their experience.
Or maybe they have.
That they can flog any old rubbish, and loyal customers will keep on buying it.
as per the British motorcycle industry (?)
Not really. I was just getting into bikes properly in those days, and the British MCI demise was down to systemic decay, mismanagement (yes, looking at you
Lord and Lady Docker) and complacency (we’ve just had an order from Australia for BSA 650 police bikes but can’t fill it? Doesn’t matter. Just rebadge a load of Bonnies as T65 Thunderbolts and send 'em out anyway. No one will notice/say anything. Except they did.)
I saw it all first-hand and by the time I was in a position to buy my first new bike, there was no suitable British offering. All gone.
Rather, the problem here is a bit more company-specific. Moto Guzzi have produced some great designs in the past, culminating with the Tonti big-blocks (but even they have their foibles) but now…?
I fell in love with big Guzzis in 1980, when I purchased my SP1000.
However, what do we have these days? I feel that Moto Guzzi has become nothing more than an offshoot of the faceless Piaggio empire.
What are we saying? That any Moto Guzzi is better than no Moto Guzzi?
I still (typical victim) love the brand - but my experiences with the new V100 have really made me take stock. As I’ve said here and elsewhere, when the bike is going well, I think that it is truly great. It’s just that it doesnt go well too many times for comfort.
I beleive that the last time anything like this happened, it was the flat tappet/roller tappet disintegrating DLC business that affected the 8V models. Yes, that was eventually resolved but not in what would be considered to be an acceptable way.
I think Guzzi need to tread very carefully here. They are on the cusp of introducing another truly great motorbike, but they ain’t home and dry yet.
There were Guzzis in the 80s and 90s that needed exhausts removed for a number of maintenance jobs. Nothing new.
I test rode a V100 at the Guzzi fest back in August. I rather liked it, a “modern” machine that was easy to ride effortlessly, but still seemed to retain some of the charm that makes Guzzi’s that little bit different to other more mass produced machines.
But I promised myself that I’d wait 3 or 4 years for all the potential development issues to be engineered out of production. Whilst Guzzi have been making bikes for over 100 years, they’ve been making liquid cooled Euro 5 compliant machines for less than 2. Amongst my Guzzi’s I have a Griso 1200 8V that I had rollerised. This flat tappet fiasco and the way it was managed by Piaggio did much to undermine confidence in the CARC bikes. The 1200 8V roller tappet engine is a fine machine but it should have been launched with the roller tappets and not with the various versions of flat tappets. Perhaps Piaggio penny pinching accountants made that original decision.
I have no wish to purchase an underdeveloped liquid cooled V100 so I’ll observe how this platform develops over the next 3 to 4 years.
I’m truly sorry to hear of your engine reliability issues. Did Piaggio issue an analysis report regarding the root cause of the bearing failure?
Very probably a wise decision…there have already been a few changes on the new Stelvio motor (beefed up S/A mountings)…a V100 in the US has what looks like S/A bearing collapse. And there’s no way that they will be producing 2 different engines for the V100 and Stelvio.
Not a peep regarding the bearing failure. Personally, I suspect it was “surplus loctite” migrated from the earlier gear selector problem, but its just guesswork.
New engine now has about 2000 miles on it and seems OK albeit a little “tappety”. We shall see.
In fairness there are an awful lot of V100s getting used a lot and giving good service. This has been true of all the “problematic” Guzzi models.
It’s not a problem unique to Guzzi or even to motorcycles.
Not good when it’s your bike but……
Steve
As you say, the engine was replaced, so we will see how it goes. Lest anyone think otherwise, I still like the bike and I still enjoy riding it.
So that must say a lot about the basic design/concept.
In reality, it would have been better to wait a couple years so that the new-model hiccups were sorted out, but I’m at that stage of life where “couple of years” is a moot point… 
