I apologize in advance for the length, there's a lot going on here—
I'm trying to ask around on behalf of my father, who is having a rough time with his new V85TT. As a bit of a background, he bought the bike towards the end of April and while trailering the bike home from the dealership, the left hand protector bolt and handlebar weight came off. Then a few hundred miles later, the starter switch housing broke. Little things, not a huge deal, but kind of annoying. After about a month and with 1700 miles on the bike, while on a trip, it started making a horrible noise. He got it limped to a parking lot, had that vacation ruined, and I went and picked him up and we hauled the bike back to the dealership.
Initially he was told “something” had come loose in the clutch (still not sure what) and that somehow also caused the starter to fail. While there, they discovered a crack in the driveshaft housing. The dealership initially started going down the road of rider abuse to put the blame on my father, but saw from the motorcycle the problems were not rider error and there were no signs of abuse.
As an aside, my father has been riding for over 30 years and has owned multiple motorcycles. This one was the first new bike he has ever bought and it is his baby. He was not out rallying the bike and I know because I've done a lot of riding with him. He's not so young anymore and has no desire to beat himself or the bike up.
After 5+ weeks of waiting, the dealership finally got parts in, put everything back together, and the bike was still making the noise. They then thought it might be the transmission, so they drained the oil from the trans and found it only had 25cc of oil (apparently there should be somewhere around 7500cc). The dealer said there was no evidence of any oil leaking out anywhere. My dad keeps it parked on a cement floor in his shop and there have been no oil spots there.
The dealership is now saying Moto Guzzi will not cover the transmission under warranty because “if it had that little oil it should have failed sooner.” The dealer already admitted to not checking the transmission oil level on initial bike setup. The transmission is not something easily accessible for service—it's not like my dad somehow drained the transmission oil when changing the engine oil and then did not fill it back up. The manual even states the transmission should be serviced by the dealer. There was no reason for him to even be in the transmission, especially with that low of miles. They are implying that at some point, for no reason, he drained the transmission of oil, didn't fill it back up, and then kept riding. They have not specified how many miles it should have taken for a problem to crop up when running with low oil, just that they won't cover the repair because it should have been fewer.
They are also now saying that the transmission failure caused the clutch and starter issue as part of a “chain reaction.” They still haven't said how that would work, and before they were willing to acknowledge defects in the bike, which tells me they did not (and do not) know what the actual problem was, they just found a convenient way to pin it on the customer.
The point of this long story is the dealership says the warranty won't apply and a new transmission is $2000 + labor costs. They have exonerated my father of wrongdoing, but said Moto Guzzi still declined to cover the fix. So, with less than 2000 miles on the bike, and more time in the shop than on the road, he has to shell out that kind of money to get his bike back, with no guarantee the final drive or engine won't grenade in another 2000 miles and he'll be right back in the same spot.
My question for you guys is, does anyone have any connections at Moto Guzzi? The dealership has thus far not provided any contact information for their Moto Guzzi rep. He would like to go to someone at MG directly instead of working through the dealer, who hasn't been very helpful thus far. If any of you people know anyone at MG, or anywhere else, who might be able to do something, that would be greatly appreciated. The lemon law doesn't apply to motorcycles in his state and he will be talking to a lawyer next week about a breach of warranty claim, but that would be a stretch. The best option would be to work it out with the manufacture, but he doesn't know who to contact.
If you made it this far, thank you so much for reading. Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated, and take this as a caveat emptor if you are considering a V85TT.
I'm trying to ask around on behalf of my father, who is having a rough time with his new V85TT. As a bit of a background, he bought the bike towards the end of April and while trailering the bike home from the dealership, the left hand protector bolt and handlebar weight came off. Then a few hundred miles later, the starter switch housing broke. Little things, not a huge deal, but kind of annoying. After about a month and with 1700 miles on the bike, while on a trip, it started making a horrible noise. He got it limped to a parking lot, had that vacation ruined, and I went and picked him up and we hauled the bike back to the dealership.
Initially he was told “something” had come loose in the clutch (still not sure what) and that somehow also caused the starter to fail. While there, they discovered a crack in the driveshaft housing. The dealership initially started going down the road of rider abuse to put the blame on my father, but saw from the motorcycle the problems were not rider error and there were no signs of abuse.
As an aside, my father has been riding for over 30 years and has owned multiple motorcycles. This one was the first new bike he has ever bought and it is his baby. He was not out rallying the bike and I know because I've done a lot of riding with him. He's not so young anymore and has no desire to beat himself or the bike up.
After 5+ weeks of waiting, the dealership finally got parts in, put everything back together, and the bike was still making the noise. They then thought it might be the transmission, so they drained the oil from the trans and found it only had 25cc of oil (apparently there should be somewhere around 7500cc). The dealer said there was no evidence of any oil leaking out anywhere. My dad keeps it parked on a cement floor in his shop and there have been no oil spots there.
The dealership is now saying Moto Guzzi will not cover the transmission under warranty because “if it had that little oil it should have failed sooner.” The dealer already admitted to not checking the transmission oil level on initial bike setup. The transmission is not something easily accessible for service—it's not like my dad somehow drained the transmission oil when changing the engine oil and then did not fill it back up. The manual even states the transmission should be serviced by the dealer. There was no reason for him to even be in the transmission, especially with that low of miles. They are implying that at some point, for no reason, he drained the transmission of oil, didn't fill it back up, and then kept riding. They have not specified how many miles it should have taken for a problem to crop up when running with low oil, just that they won't cover the repair because it should have been fewer.
They are also now saying that the transmission failure caused the clutch and starter issue as part of a “chain reaction.” They still haven't said how that would work, and before they were willing to acknowledge defects in the bike, which tells me they did not (and do not) know what the actual problem was, they just found a convenient way to pin it on the customer.
The point of this long story is the dealership says the warranty won't apply and a new transmission is $2000 + labor costs. They have exonerated my father of wrongdoing, but said Moto Guzzi still declined to cover the fix. So, with less than 2000 miles on the bike, and more time in the shop than on the road, he has to shell out that kind of money to get his bike back, with no guarantee the final drive or engine won't grenade in another 2000 miles and he'll be right back in the same spot.
My question for you guys is, does anyone have any connections at Moto Guzzi? The dealership has thus far not provided any contact information for their Moto Guzzi rep. He would like to go to someone at MG directly instead of working through the dealer, who hasn't been very helpful thus far. If any of you people know anyone at MG, or anywhere else, who might be able to do something, that would be greatly appreciated. The lemon law doesn't apply to motorcycles in his state and he will be talking to a lawyer next week about a breach of warranty claim, but that would be a stretch. The best option would be to work it out with the manufacture, but he doesn't know who to contact.
If you made it this far, thank you so much for reading. Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated, and take this as a caveat emptor if you are considering a V85TT.
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-- so I think you might be better off to look into using small-claims court for this.
Again, buon fortuna with this. As I have bought five new Guzzis in past 20 years, I have had my share of headaches, but, overall, the joy has so outweighed those that I can (almost 
) forget the negatives. 