Folks.
I've just had a disaster with my beloved 03 Trophy 1200. Apparently a needle bearing in the crank case has broken/collapsed/died and has caused all sorts of mayhem to other internal components. My local Triumph dealer has examined it and it looks like my bill is going to be £1000+++ to repair it. Needless to say I am gutted!

The bike has 13000 miles from new and is in excellent condition. To date it has been serviced according to the book, twice by a Triumph dealer and lately by a non-Triumph mechanic. I was thinking of writing to Triumph to see if they would provide any assistance seeing as the bike is built to be a big miler but seems to have made itself very sick. I appreciate it is out of warranty but it seems unfair that a bike sold as a mile muncher has gone so badly wrong. The dealer is trying to tell me that this fault has occurred because the last service was carried out by a non franchised mechanic. Now Im not a technical genius but as the needle bearing is an internal part it is not something that would have been detected as being faulty during a routine service....or am I wrong? The bike was giving no bother whatsoever until it suddenly stopped and spit all of its oil out through the slave cylinder. I ride sensibly at all times and the bike is never abused and I guess that adds to my frustration and disappointment. If I had been abusing it then I could understand when a problem occurs. But this bike is my baby and something seriously bad has failed inside the engine, and I don't think I have done anything to cause it.

I appreciate fully that even if Triumph did make a gesture it would be purely out of their own goodwill and there would be no requirement for them to do anything to help. Does anyone have any suggestions as to how I should go about this? I simply cant afford to fix it at the moment but the bike is in pieces at the Triumph garage.

If anyone can give me any guidance I would be eternally grateful. Promise!!

Chris

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"Life is too short to drink cheap wine!"

Hi Chris
One thing for sure, if you don't ask , you won't get anything so for the sake of a politely worded letter you may get lucky. I'd suggest you write something that is polite but reflects your disappointement with the failure after such low mileage use. That's all you can try but it's got to be worth a go. What have you got to lose ? Manufacturers have been known to show goodwill sometimes. Let's face it as it stands now you have already communicated your negative story to hundreds of people by posting it in the internet. The manufacturer could see the opportunity to reverse this an help you out upon which you'd be an instant Ambassador for them because of their goodwill and be telling everyone about it.
Good luck
gecko

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...on the road to nowhere...

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Hello Chris,
Agree with the reply from Gecko about if you don't ask you don't get, but my experience with manufacturers has been even when you do ask, you don't get either; maybe I don't write the proper letter!
Once their guarantee period has expired that appears to be the end of their interest, this has been my experience with both bikes and cars.

Would be worth you ensuring that your non-franchised mechanic used genuine Triumph parts in the previous servicing; I believe that it is "OK" to go to any "proper" servicing mechanic for bikes that are under warranty, in order to maintain the warranty, but that the servicing must use the right parts.
The same principle would be applied, IMO, for servicing outside the warranty time.

You could look at the Triumph webpages for any history of this failure and/or quiz the dealers for such insider information?

Hope this helps, a bit,

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Dave

It cant hurt to write to Triumph.... In teh old days when the real Triumph company was at Meriden, all you had to do was turn up and they would fix your bike.
I cant believe changing, or even inspecting any crankshaft/crankcase journal/bearing is part of any planned maintanance.
Sadly from time to time faulty parts or assembly happens ( used to be called friday afternoon job). Sometimes certain machines usually considered dogs will work flawlessly for a lifetime ) referred to as first offs, as these were carefully inspected)
This is why averages are completely useless, as usually we each only have an unrepresentative sample of one.

Folks, I have the ultimate result on my dilemma. I dunno if any of you are into road racing (Isle of Man TT etc.) but for those of you who are then the name Philip McCallen will be instantly recognisable as he was one of the greatest riders ever to grace the tarmac. Philip is now an authorised Triumph/Aprilia/Kawasaki dealer in Lurgan, County Armagh. I brought my bike to him and asked him to fix it. He split the engine and diagnosed the problem in an instant. His opinion was that there was a serious problem with the crank cases and crank shaft in addition to all the other damage that had occurred. So he spoke to Triumph on my behalf and they have agreed to give me new crank cases and a new crank shaft at no cost. It's still gonna cost me £1000 to repair all the other bits, but when you remember that my bike is 4 years old I think it is a fantastic gesture from Triumph and a tremendous effort from Philip McCallen who could so easily have told me there was nowt he could do. So well done Triumph.......and thank you Philip!

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"Life is too short to drink cheap wine!"

Excellent news Chris. I'm very glad that it has turned out well from your point of view and it is a good result for both Triumph and your "dealer of choice".
No doubt you will be sticking with both the manufacturer and your new found dealer; I reckon a dealer that you can trust and get a good relationship with is worth a lot in this day and age!

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Dave

And I still cant believe my luck with this whole disaster. I havent sat on my bike for 3 months since the disaster occurred in Arnhem, but I'll have it back next weekend.....and I cant wait. Fair play to Triumph and Philip for backing me up on this one. Needless to say, it won't be forgotten

Chris

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"Life is too short to drink cheap wine!"

It is really heartwarming to hear Triumph hinkley is keeping up the old tradditions

Good on ya mate!

I havent sat on my Dommie for more than TWO years
will be riding it again soon!

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