Severe issues with 2023 Panigale V4R. Need help.

v4rretard said:

When ripping the bike to its max (not redline, just changing gears at indicators and keeping 6th gear pinned), can the blowby air, push oil into airbox and throw it down the breather hose connected to the airbox? I was ripping my SF v4s 2022 on track today, and when pushing it to its limit, I saw a smal amount of oil leak from the same breather pipe like the v4r. After 30 min of cooling down, and riding sanely, it didnt leak any oil for another 30km. Again let it cool down and started ripping, and saw the oil being thrown again from the breather hose. What do you think is the possible issue here?

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Which racetrack you driving?

andyb said:

https://www.ducati.com/gb/en/current-offers/panigale-v4-r-exhaust-offer

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are they desperate to sell the inventory ?

Sutki said:

Which racetrack you driving?

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Its a local one in India. Nothing Fancy

v4rretard said:

Its a local one in India. Nothing Fancy

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There must be long straight, if you can go you V4r + 330km/ h. I think in here Europe, maybe Monza (maybe Mugello also), that, is only possible…if remember right, Biaggi get around 330 km/h in his WSBK Aprilia in Monza back in the days.

panibadboy said:

are they desperate to sell the inventory ?

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These guys have an arrangement with akra and probably will have to eat the inventory otherwise. What you're seeing is their cost. Which means they had 80% gross margins on these. Thanks for being so customer friendly Ducati.

v4rretard said:

When ripping the bike to its max (not redline, just changing gears at indicators and keeping 6th gear pinned), can the blowby air, push oil into airbox and throw it down the breather hose connected to the airbox? I was ripping my SF v4s 2022 on track today, and when pushing it to its limit, I saw a smal amount of oil leak from the same breather pipe like the v4r. After 30 min of cooling down, and riding sanely, it didnt leak any oil for another 30km. Again let it cool down and started ripping, and saw the oil being thrown again from the breather hose. What do you think is the possible issue here?

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The separator is connected to the airbox near the filter opening if memory serves me well and the drain is at the bottom. The oils pretty hot but you'll still have a thin coating in the airbox before you see a drip. If you were flogging your SF like the V4R and you had a couple of drips whereas your V4R is dripping oil all over kinda defines the problem. Something in the V4R is causing too much pressure in the crankcases and you're overwhelming the separator with oil or too much oil being evacuated from the valve covers. Other than that no source of oil in the airbox.

baggerman said:

What you're seeing is their cost.

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Please post an invoice that supports this statement.

baggerman said:

These guys have an arrangement with akra and probably will have to eat the inventory otherwise. What you're seeing is their cost. Which means they had 80% gross margins on these. Thanks for being so customer friendly Ducati.

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I wonder if my dealer would sell me one for 1500 lol

bp_SFV4 said:

Please post an invoice that supports this statement.

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You do make me laugh. We're in Colorado hopefully by the 12th of June. Zigzaging across the passes then turning at Walden and running northeast towards Glacier. There are some fine twisty roads in Colorado. Open invite, you can evaluate the handling of the clown car as I clear off repetitively on sport touring rubber no less.

So no invoice?

Every post you write needs a fact check.

Sounds like Ducati has extra Akra exhaust inventory in the UK and they need to move it quick bc there’s probably some sort of tax they have to pay on it.

bp_SFV4 said:

So no invoice?

Every post you write needs a fact check.

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All right grasshopper (that's probably a cultural reference before your time) we as Akra's newest manufacturing engineers need to project cost on a limited production run for Ducati. 10,000 pieces 2500 delivered annually? Since Ducati has Akra by the short hairs (they're a lot of the volume) Akra accepts 35% gross margins on my sales to Ducati. Now every system needs about 20 feet of tubing of varying sizes for which my average cost is $1 per inch or my raw tubing material costs are $240. I have to process that material by cutting sections to length that will later be bent. My tubing cutter which requires a full time operator and can cut 120 pieces an hour. I'm paying all my production workers $50/hr btw. So each system requires 30 pieces or 15 minutes of my operators time. Now I have to bend each tube and my tubing guy can bend 60 pieces an hour. On the CNC machine I'm processing the flanges but after set-up my tubing cutter can keep an eye on the CNC machine. So 30 minutes per system for bending tubes. We'll fixture the assembly for welding but even so my welding guy takes 3 hr and 15 minutes per system to weld. So I have 4 hours of production labor. Now on top of that $50 an hour I have to add about %30 for benefits. Now my direct labor costs are $65 per hour. Then I need to add the manufacturing white collar costs to the direct labor so that's $35 of burden added to each direct labor hour. So my burdened direct labor costs are $100/hour. I'll need to final prep, inspect and package so add an hour. So burdened labor $500, material cost including tubing, plate for flanges and packaging $400. Now we have to amortize the cost of the fixturing into the cost of goods. fixturing costs $25,000 or $2.5 per unit. We as manufacturing engineers will design and built the fixturing and our cost is part of the manufacturing burden. So our cost is $902.50. $902 divided by .65 (remember 35% margin) equals $1388.

Oops forgot silencers $125 per. Total cost $1638.

baggerman said:

Oops forgot silencers $125 per. Total cost $1638.

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Don’t forget R&D and tooling.

Akra’s operating profit margin for 2023 was -1.6% so they lost money on production.

Lets get back to the main topic shall we? I got the bike today. Will test it tomorrow morning. There is a long stretch on my place as I cant keep going to track every day. Will test it and see how it goes. My dry clutch went out. So Ducati was kind enough to give me anew dry clutch for free due to the oil leak issue. Lets see.

Just curious, What do you mean the dry clutch went out?

Did the plates just need to be replaced as in normal wear or did something else happen to the clutch?

Only asking because I know of 1 V4r that is having the entire clutch replaced due to bent parts which caused Ducati to warranty it.

I mean I used the dry clutch for 4.5k km and the plates and the basket went out due to normal wear. Its under wear and tear, but I am happy they covered it due to the constant issues I am facing with the oil leaks.

Understood, thanks for the reply. Sounds like a different issue than what this other V4r is experiencing.

SuperDomestique said:

Don’t forget R&D and tooling.

Akra’s operating profit margin for 2023 was -1.6% so they lost money on production.

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SG and A, and R&D are in the what the manufacturing guys call the true overhead. Manufacturing personal costs are in the COGs (cost of goods). So the 35% gross margin (man I hope they're getting 35% from Ducati) was turned into (spent into) a -1.6% net margin. If Akra is losing money they need to fire some part of the management. Most manufacturing firms actually require margins to be in the mid forties to cover the true overhead costs especially if you're spending much on R&D. And it takes deft management at that level of gross margins to get a black zero. I assumed Ducati was squeezing their nuts but would expect their blended gross margins to be in the at least high forties to be an ongoing concern. Maybe I'll take the time to look at their filings if they're public. The last year before I walked away we threw off 14 points net from 55% gross margins on 200 million turn over. These guys can tell me I'm full of .... all they want.

baggerman said:

SG and A, and R&D are in the what the manufacturing guys call the true overhead. Manufacturing personal costs are in the COGs (cost of goods). So the 35% gross margin (man I hope they're getting 35% from Ducati) was turned into (spent into) a -1.6% net margin. If Akra is losing money they need to fire some part of the management. Most manufacturing firms actually require margins to be in the mid forties to cover the true overhead costs especially if you're spending much on R&D. And it takes deft management at that level of gross margins to get a black zero. I assumed Ducati was squeezing their nuts but would expect their blended gross margins to be in the at least high forties to be an ongoing concern. Maybe I'll take the time to look at their filings if they're public. The last year before I walked away we threw off 14 points net from 55% gross margins on 200 million turn over. These guys can tell me I'm full of .... all they want.

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I think you have a communication issue. The feedback you’ve received from others is that you communicate ambiguously. You clearly have some technical knowledge. You also undermine your credibility by reaching conclusions presumptively without acknowledging ahead of time that you’re speculating.

An example is when you advised a member it would be a good idea to send their motor to Mark Sutton (Duc Shop) for blueprinting. When asked if you had talked to Mark about that, you refused to answer directly and instead, gave a lecture on engine building. Only after being asked repeatedly, did you finally acknowledge that you had not talked to Mark about it, and didn’t even know if he was recommending that service for the pv4.