As I've mentioned many times I know nothing about Triumphs other than having watched many of them disassemble themselves on road trips in the bad old days. When the "only the name is the same" new company started up (in the 90's ?) I had a change of heart and was very impressed with the Kawasaki copies they'd come up with.

Old habits die hard though and it took a decade or two before I ever considered buying one. I really liked the 800XC when it came out though and decided that if I was ever going to buy British this would be it. A new company, a modern Japanese-alike technology design, what's not to like about that. Put my prejudices aside and look at what they are now.

What's changed my mind is the raft of bad publicity that seems to be gathering around them like a miasmic evil spirit - broken frames, peeling paint, rust, electrics - all airily dismissed with a wave of the warranty department's hand. Now an inability to see a marketing coup if they tripped over it in the car park. What's the point of mining Triumph's 50's and 60's legacy for model names if they ignore one of the (very) few 70's successes the company had - even if it was more by accident than design. Ted's book was hugely influential and it amazes me that nobody at Triumph realised the sales value of a follow up. Does nobody read at Triumph? If it was "race on Sunday, sell on Monday" years ago it would be "buy book on Sunday, buy bike on Monday" these days.

I'm beginning to wonder whether some kind of short sightedness gene got transferred over with the Triumph name. Public perception of your products is almost more important these days than the product itself - look at Apple as an example of that. It may be of course that many of the reports of poor customer service are just the disgruntled revenge postings of owners whose dodgy warranty claims have been rightfully refused but whatever the truth of it I have no desire to spend money on something that could just end up in endless arguments or considerable expense if there's a problem. I haven't had that for years with our cars or virtually anything else that hasn't come from Poundland. Even if it really isn't like that and all their spares are gold plated, it's how it seems to me and the Ted Simon episode only increases my disquiet.

Backofbeyond - I bought one of Mr Bloors triumphs shortly before buying a KTM 950 when they first came out.
The triumph was bought as a two up tourer really it was a tiger 955i, it was new and i knew before having ridden it 100 miles I had made a mistake. It was very heavy - top heavy, wallowed and i did not like the engine that much (I had hoped it might have had some of the raw edge of my jotas - being three cylinder and all - but it just felt like a jap bike to me) no character and compremises everywhere .
Before three hundred mile had been racked up the gear lever fell off when i was on a motorway (apparently my fault for not checking the bolts had been done up !) and i was left too ride two up through lots of traffic stuck in top gear to reach a dealer to buy another gear lever. A few weeks afterwards a few miles south of Edinburgh the bike started to wallow really badly - i thought i had a puncture - turned out 7 spokes had sheared on one side of the rear wheel - which was wobbling frantically trying to take the other spokes out - The bike was recovered back to the dealers (a Bloke i had known for a good few years) where i got a full refund from the dealer towards the KTM which was pretty much almost faultless for the time i had it and it covered a good few miles along with some descent long distance trips two up.
it certainly put me off Triumph - although lots of people love them and have no problems with them - they are after all just copies of jap bikes. Mine though was a Monday morning or Friday afternoon one me thinks probably built by a bloke who had trained some years earlier at the meridin works.

Jake.

Wow! That's quite a load of Triumph issues!
I guess I've just been lucky with my 3 Tigers (many other Triumph's tested going back to '95, first year Triumph sold in USA).

I've done several Triumph launches in the USA, 1999, 2002, 2003.

True, 1st generation "modern" Triumphs had their share of problems, no where near as reliable as typical Japanese product of those years.

Early Triumphs had:
Sprag clutch issues (possible total loss of motor!), air box and air filter as ONE unit, PITA to service.
Valves got beat down into head early, no longer adustable. Most riders of the early 885's did not get much more than 50K miles. I got less. (30K) But a good riding bike despite the problems. Better off road than newer Tigers, in my experience riding BOTH.

But overall 2nd generation Tiger ('99) was a big step forward. Alu frame, F.I. all new save motor. I attended USA Tiger launch in SoCal where former Triumph America CEO Mike Vaughn was our ride leader. Fun ride! Good bike!

Bought a '99 in UK, rode round Europe over a 3 year period.
20K miles riding UK, France, Spain, Portugal and Morocco. Tigre never missed a beat. Valves stayed in spec.

The top heavy issue is certainly A FACT. One had to be very careful off road, but never bothered me ON road. I rode through all the twisty roads of Southern Spain and Andorra's mountainous narrow tracks, had a ball. Not the sportiest bike but not bad once you learn it.

My current Tiger is a '07 1050. No issues. ... but needed suspension re-do. Custom revalved forks and Ohlins shock put it on better footing. But Tigers are still top heavy ... even the new 800's to some extent.

My 1050's chassis was made in Thailand and it's been perfect. And it's been tested hard, doing unintended jumps with very hard landings.

In '03 I visited the Triumph factory in Hinckley. Very impressive set up. I saw frames on the trollies from Thailand and boxes of matched motor sets being unpacked from A.R.T. of Japan. (supplier to Suzuki among others) Pistons, cam blanks, et al. The Thai factories took NO UK jobs according to Exec's there. Big boost for Triumph expanding to Thailand.

On the MANY Triumph forums I've been part of I've not seen a lot of problems. Not perfect, but generally good with mostly happy owners.
Just my .02 cents.

Talking older british bikes I went through a stage of buying and using British bikes - but soon went back to the Germans and Italian stuff.

This was my Royal Enfield 700 super meteor - two 350 barrels on a common crank a nice twin long stroke engine it was very well built and fairly quick really the only problem of note was a dragging clutch in hot weather when in heavy traffic but it made a very good everyday bike - I tried fitting the motor into a Norton Featherbed frame but it was way too tall so it ended up just being used as a get to work bike. I ended up selling it to a mate at work.

The next is my triumph t140 - just terrible i could never feel love the thing it was just not for me - I can still look at triumphs and think yep i would like that but the reality does not work for me. Funny enough i was torn between a triumph t140 and a BMW r65 when I was starting out on bikes - i bought the r65 which took me to North Africa and back without a single issue so pretty glad i never got the trumpet. The t140 made a hundred mile journey into an epic adventure and was always something to talk about afterwards.

The last one was my Indian Enfield that i built up into a scrambler, actually quite nice but very basic and so slow it was hard to live with in modern traffic but on a back country road it did put a smile on your face. It was physically to small and backbreaking on the ride quality - again a 100 mile trip felt like 500 mile - i take my hat off to people doing trips on these things.






I think Black seems to be a bit of a theme when buying British (or Indian being British)
Jake.

Yes, Triumph have come along in leaps and bounds since that phoenix arose from the ashes, but I haven't owned one since I had a tiger cub in the mid-60s.
So, 50 years have elapsed and no more Triumphs in my ownership.
I can't really pin down why I have not owned another over all those years but I do recall what a UK based ex-dealership told me, perhaps 10-12 years ago: this came from the owner of the dealership who had stopped selling Triumph motorcycles but continues to sell the big 4 Japanese marques.
"He became tired of Triumphs "policy" at that time of asking the dealerships to carry out "secret" recalls without formally calling such actions a recall".
His words, not mine, but he didn't have to tell me.

Maybe they have upped their game more recently for warranty issues, but that lack of transparency did nothing to encourage me to give them my business.


Ford cars come to mind immediately!

__________________
Dave