Hi guys

Below is some of what I posted about July last year in the Newbie intro section

"I have just purchased SP3 #132 , which was previously owned by Firefly_1965 on here, and someone else on here before that ( Mr Otten in Holland - I don't know who he is on the forum ) who Firefly bought it off in April 2010, and then put up for sale 4 months later in August 2010.

I think Firefly_1965 sold it to www.madeinitalymotorcycles.com as that is where the dealer / importer I bought it off got it from. It's still in England, so once it's had a nice cruise on the water from England to Perth, I should hopefully have it in time for Christmas. It'll be kept company by a '92 900 SS ( red / white frame / black wheels, with 10,978 km on it ), and 2 Honda CBR1000RR's. Then I'll take them all home with me to NZ when I go in a few years time.

I'm excited like a fat kid at the candy store waiting for this bike!!!"

So now to today. The bike didn't arrive in time for Christmas, and in fact it only eventually arrived on Jan 24. I wasn't able to pick it up until yesterday Jan 25. The importer had sent me a couple of pics of the bike when he had received it off the ship, and when he had crated it up to send it across the country to me. He had told me the bike was excellent condition, and it is better than his own SP3, and I'll be very happy with it. When I went down the the transport yard to pick it up, the cardboard box over the crate which the importer has wrapped it up in was missing, so naturally that got my attention and thinking " what's happened between there and here?"

The guy at the transport yard says I have to take the whole thing on the crate and all on my bike trailer, and I'm thinking how the hell am I going to get it off the crate off the trailer at my storage?? I was lucky a mate was home and able to come down and help me. Anyway when we took the plastic wrapping off the crate, the bike is lying over like it's sitting on the side stand, except the stand is up. The stretchy cord tying the front left of the frame down had broken and then the front tyre has been pulled over to the right and the whole thing is on the piss and kind of hanging. Unbelieveably the bike hadn't touched the crate frame while slip slogging around over the 4127 mms from Sydney to me. Lucky.

So we got the bike off and put in the garage, and that was all for the day as I had to go to work. Today is a public holiday here, so I went and had a look at the bike, and took the fairings and tail off to have a look at it. I started with the right hand fairing, and was very disappointed. 2 of the screws weren't even the correct ones, they were ordinary stainless capscrews that had been shortened with a hacksaw and not even had the ends filed nicely, and because they aren't the slim head ones, the head sticks out of the black plastic washer. Some of the well nuts are stuffed too and the nut and screw turn together which makes it rather hard to remove the screws as there is not a lot of room to get long nose pliers in to hold the well nut. The paint is cracked ( about 2 inch long crack ) out from one of the fairings screw holes, the fairing area around the front indicator is all cracked to hell and the indicator lens doesn't sit nicely, and there are lots of stone chips on the bottom front edge. I know you're going to say you've got to expect that on a 20 year old bike, and I would normally, but when the bike was advertised on here ( http://www.ducati851and888.com/showt...ight=SP%23+132 ) it is listed as "Fairing resprayed (just to freshen it up, as looking a bit dull)". Well bugger me, it looks like it needs a respray, not it's just had one!!!

Even more disappointing are the repairs to the fairing from the bike being dropped, and the accompanying scrapes on the foot peg and exhaust pipe ( they've tried to sand the pipe smooth with an angle grinder? but didn't do a very good job - it's plain as day it's been sliding down the road ). The repairs themselves look ok from the inside of the fairing, not all rough and lumpy, but on the outside you can see lines in the paint where they have sanded the areas around the 2 repairs in the right hand fairing, but were too lazy to sand the whole panel back, so there are 2 "circles" in the panel. Respray because "it looks a bit dull", or because it's been dropped?? Someone's trying to hide damage from a drop, but couldn't be bothered doing a proper job, and now all this proves is that whoever did it is dishonest, and hasn't represented the bike to prospective buyers honestly. 😡

All 4 bolts holding both mirrors on are incorrect, as are the rectangular washers under the back bolt on each mirror. How do cut down body washers grab you? Reaks of roughness and not giving a crap to me. How about the bolts holding the front brake callipers on? Three bolts have washers under them, the fourth one doesn't, and hence has dug into the tab on the fork leg 😡

I pulled the front wheel off and removed the discs to clean everything as the wheel and discs are filthy, even though "Rear and front rims powder coated six weeks ago". I don't know, maybe the English roads are dirty?? Mind you the whole bike is rather unkempt, and just generally dirty, not really in the condition you would expect for a limited edition collectable Ducati. It looks like it's been used as a daily ride to work and washed once a month. Could've bought a Hyosung for a fraction of the price to do that with............

The bike was also most recently advertised as "Ohlins seals replaced 500 miles ago......hence not leaking". Well the forks were pissing oil all over the place when the bike got to me. I know the fork seals are a weak point, and the bike may have been strapped down a bit hard for a bit long while being transported, so I'll let that one slide. Also the forks are deeply scratched / gouged where someone has hamfistedly removed the forks from the triple claps, and removed the clip-ons. Don't know how I'm going to fix that yet, they really need the sharp edges machined off, the gouges fill in, and then re-annodising. Matching the colour won't be easy though.

The importer here had another SP3 for sale as well, but told me #132 was a better bike, the other one has been dropped and fixed, + it had carbon Termis, chopped rear fender etc. So I went with #132 because I wanted a nice stock original bike that had't been dropped. I did as much research as I could, looked up posters on this forum, checked their previous posts, saw that they have had / got other 851 / 888's so they should know about them and treat them accordingly, especially an SP3. Just goes to prove you can't trust anyone these days. Next time I'm thinking about dropping this much coin on a bike, I think I'll fly halfway around the world to look at it in person first.

So to sum it up I'm very disappointed and pretty demoralised, and highly pissed off. I don't know who has done what to it, who dropped it, who did the sloppy crash repairs, who lost bolts and washers and couldn't be bothered getting the right ones, or anything else. All I've done is pull the fairings and front wheel so far, and I don't like what I see. The bike won't be going on the road for some time now because from what I've seen today it needs a very through going over, and the correct bolts / washers / whatever else I find wrong, will have to be purchased and fitted to get the bike back to a decent state of repair, plus a damn good strip and clean of everything. I won't be worrying about what was supposedly done to the bike recently either ( belts, full service etc ), as how can I trust that it actually was done, and done correctly?? I PM'd Firefly after I had purchased the bike last year, but he has never replied to me, so that's another alarm bell ringing, as he has posted on here since. Maybe those thoughts posted by others of him buying and selling several bikes in quick order to make a buck ( dealer?? ) had an element of truth to them?? Anyway, I'll get the bike right, but it'll take a fair bit of time, and a lot of $$$$ to buy / replace all the missing / incorrect / stuffed parts. Looks like it'll be a total strip / check / repair / repaint / rebuild.

Not happy. Over and out.
Andrew.