My Triumph Australia experience sucked. How bad is it in other countries?

[Turk]

Hi guys

After reading the forums I can clearly see that I am not the only person who suffered from bad gears and stuff in past history but interestingly it is still an ongoing problem.

I bought a brand new Roadster in 2010 and at 2012 the drama started.

My 2nd gear started to play up at 30000km

(Since I rebuild my bike with my own hands I exactly know where the problem is as in build quality/engineering errors but also how they have cut the power of the bike.)

Now back to the subject.

When the problem started I had my bike assessed by my local dealer and he said he has seen this many times before and the problem was the dog gears. Which made a lot of sense other than going bad on me at 30000km... He said he will report it to Triumph Australia and see what they say.

A week later my dealer told me said Triumph wasn't going to help me out with the problem. The bike was just fresh out of warranty. So I decided to call 'em my self.

When I contacted Triumph Australia telling my 2nd gear was toast they said it was my car tyre causing the problem making my clutch slip under load.

Now when I explained 'em that I was not an idiot and that I know about engines they got aggressive and said "We talked to people who know you"

• You ride your bike hard
• You do burnouts
• You pop wheelies
• You have a car tyre
• You have a tuneecu map

And they still were saying that there was nothing wrong with the gears. They said that was a problem fixed long long time ago... They said "Put your original map back on and get rid of the car tyre"

I went on to the Triumph Australia Facebook page and wrote about my experience. Not a single bad word used. Guess what they did? They removed my post and limited my account to view and like things only.

So I called 'em again and spoke to the exact guy I did at the first time. I remember the guys name being Cliff... Had a real arrogance to him.

He said "Mate why should we help you? You went on our Facebook page and complained. We would have thought about it if you didn't do that"

He also said "Mate you had your bike for more than 2 years and 30000km how long do you expect it to last?"

I said I would expect a 25k bike to last more than 2 years and definitely the gears to last around 200000 which is 2-3 piston ring changes, shell bearings and stuff before having to get to the gears...

I so wished that guy was in the same room with me

Anyways this is prehistoric stuff for me. I rebuild my bike from scratch and I don't even call it a Triumph anymore. For me it WAS a Triumph.

So how are your regional distributors and your experiences?

 

[Tripps]

I'll be honest, I'll never buy another new Triumph, for this and other reasons

 

[Seanii Plunkett]

My 2010 Roadster has done 80,000km now with a sidecar attached and a car tyre on the back with no gearbox issues.
Having said that, I hate the way Triumph in Australia seem to have precisely no back up service at all. They never have any spare parts in stock and there is always at least a 3 week waiting time for anything to show up...brake pads... gear sensor.. In the end I just gave up on the big bike shop in Newcastle and either get my stuff online or use a local ordinary motorcycle shop who will get me tyres, a battery, brake pads etc within a day or two.

 

[Claviger]

@Turk I had a good warranty experience for my transmission, however, that's certainly based on the dealer and not Triumph themselves.

Sounds like Cliff doesn't know what the **** he's talking about. The R3 DID have a dog issue on 2nd gear early on, so they updated 2nd to have 1/2 as many dogs as originally and the problem there was fixed. The problem NOW is that the bikes are being assembled wrong, leading to poping out of gear, and each time it pops out it slightly rounds the corner of the dog and the slot on the gear. Eventually, you end up with semi-circle dogs and very rounded slots and it wont stay in gear.

My two running theories are: Slightly bent shift fork when originally installed, triumph source the forks from someone and who's to say they actually checked for straightness prior to installing. The alternate theory, the one I have for my bike, is missing shim/spacer in the assembly leading to too close a tolerance, leading to a bend fork, leading to the above problem.

They've warrantied a number of them for these issues, at least 3 just on these forums, over the last year. They know about it, they just don't give a **** because the R3 is a dying breed.

 

[Turk]

My 2010 Roadster has done 80,000km now with a sidecar attached and a car tyre on the back with no gearbox issues.
Having said that, I hate the way Triumph in Australia seem to have precisely no back up service at all. They never have any spare parts in stock and there is always at least a 3 week waiting time for anything to show up...brake pads... gear sensor.. In the end I just gave up on the big bike shop in Newcastle and either get my stuff online or use a local ordinary motorcycle shop who will get me tyres, a battery, brake pads etc within a day or two.

Yeah every time I ordered something

• Head gaskette
• Gear position sensor
• Flywheel puller
• Gudgeon Pins
• Selector Forks

And the list goes and goes absolutely nothing in the country...

I now order from fowlers in UK.

You know by law distributors are required to have a sufficient amount of spares for each model they sell

 

[Turk]

@Turk I had a good warranty experience for my transmission, however, that's certainly based on the dealer and not Triumph themselves.

Sounds like Cliff doesn't know what the **** he's talking about. The R3 DID have a dog issue on 2nd gear early on, so they updated 2nd to have 1/2 as many dogs as originally and the problem there was fixed. The problem NOW is that the bikes are being assembled wrong, leading to poping out of gear, and each time it pops out it slightly rounds the corner of the dog and the slot on the gear. Eventually, you end up with semi-circle dogs and very rounded slots and it wont stay in gear.

My two running theories are: Slightly bent shift fork when originally installed, triumph source the forks from someone and who's to say they actually checked for straightness prior to installing. The alternate theory, the one I have for my bike, is missing shim/spacer in the assembly leading to too close a tolerance, leading to a bend fork, leading to the above problem.

They've warrantied a number of them for these issues, at least 3 just on these forums, over the last year. They know about it, they just don't give a **** because the R3 is a dying breed.

The main problem is the angle of the dog gears. With the tiniest rounding they slip and there goes your selector forks too...

I had mine undercut and you can actually feel how much better the gears lock in.

Yeah that Cliff is a character.

 

[Claviger]

It's the same in the US. They rarely have the correct part in stock, and it goes straight on back order for weeks. It's got to be a "lean manufacturing" thing where they keep only whats in demand on the shelf or production cue.

What's kind of hilarious: The Daytona 955i 2002 caliper is listed as "not available" ... The Rocket 3 caliper is clearly available... THEY'RE THE SAME PART!

Triumph are a **** company with **** technical department and **** track record of QC.

I'm also doing the undercut, can't be assed to deal with the original design mistake anymore.

 

[Turk]

I'll be honest, I'll never buy another new Triumph, for this and other reasons

100% agreed. What is the point when you have to reengineer the bike?

For thr amount of money and time I spent I could have bought a 2nd hand +80000km bike for 6k and spend the 12k I spent on reengineering. Would have had my bike for 18k instead of 25k + 12k = 37k + The hassle...

 

[Neville Lush]

I have more conrod bolts in stock than Triumph Australia, they are like $14 ea and they still cannot carry a set. Normally they stock two FFS and it is a six week wait from UK. Same for any gasket pretty much, crank bearings etc. A fuel pressure reg is not available for a R3 unless you give them the part number for one which fits over 20 different Triumphs. Do I need to keep going???

 

[Claviger]

The problem is this: No one else makes bikes in the same niche markets as Triumph.

Want the meanest cruiser on the market? See Triumph.
Want the most agile middle weight sportbike with the broadest power band? See Triumph.
Want the original factory naked hooligan bike or it's little brother? See Triumph.
Want the best throwback retro styled bike? See Triumph.

They don't make the fastest bikes in a straight line, but they all do what they do better than the Japanese counterparts. That's what keeps T in business imo, niches.