I'd have to politely disagree with you, TWR, on the paint quality. Most know what I've subjected my bike to and, though I had a couple of parts replaced due to a parking lot knockover, everyone who sees my bike is truly amazed at how great it looks despite my abuse of her. Oh and keep in mind when I wash it it's usually with dirty water and a gas station squeegie. I will say that the paint on the inside of the front fairing is pretty terrible, but the quality of where it IS sprayed is good and it's fairly scratch/dirt/bug resistant.
DSC09084x by
AntiHero-X, on Flickr
I'd have to disagree with you on the paint.
It's been my experience that the Italians aren't all that big on the finish of the paint.
I've seen things on brand new Italian cars Ferrari/Maserati in the showroom that are a bit off.
It's usually dealt with at the pre-delivery.
My SFS has a number of defects which I'm working on progressively.
I didn't notice them until after I got it home.
The dealer said I couldn't claim warranty because I had to identify the issues at the time of hand over.
Apparently it has to be documented at that time, and pics taken of the defects for the warranty claim to be effectively processed. Lesson learnt
With 2 of them, Jesus Christ himself couldn't do much about
But you've got to be in the right position to notice them
I had a very good look over the 1199 at hand over, but didn't see anything that stood out.
A week later I ended up noticing a couple of pretty crappy ones that I was able to take care of myself.
They were in the bottom of the divorced sections/grooves on each side of the removable tail section cover where the pillion seat goes. (The piece that people were loosing as they were riding down the road).
It appeared from certain angles, that it had been sanded with a new piece of 320 wet and dry in the grooves, and were never properly polished out at the factory.
I dealt with it myself accordingly, and was able to reduce it by about 75%.
Now it's almost impossible to see unless one is specifically looking for it
When it comes to paint finish though, it's very rare to not potentially find something on every panel if one looks hard enough.
It's just a reality of life.
With regard to the OP's observations.
I totally concur with all of them
It should've been better for the money.
However I don't care
The bike is so ....... good to ride it doesn't matter in the grand scheme of things
Not to mention the sound of the thing, and the way it looks when parked outside the coffee shop.(it's much better than a HP4)
Then when one compares the 1199 with anything else out there in the market today in terms of build quality. IMO, it's very good indeed
Mine's a keeper regardless.
Unless they bring out a Bayliss
