Martin Alva
Since its grand launch this year, Ducati’s Panigale V4 has been grabbing the headlines under several occasions. Earlier reports of celebrating the moniker and tweaking major components of the engine made us believe that the bike was a compassionate iteration from Italy.
However, multiple variants of the bike have now been issued a recall by Ducati North America for a potential oil leak from due to the oil cooler from the output port. Recall documents for the 2018-19 Panigale v4, V4S and V4S Speciale stated that the oil cooler output port was subjected to minute cracks during extreme usage. This could prove dangerous during track runs.
The problem was first spotted in the European market and reaches out to 1,663 units of the Panigale V4 lineup. Ducati’s recall documents say that the issue may be visible as a small oil leak, and if a leak is not present the bike can be ridden to the closest dealer at low RPM.
Ducati will notify the owners after which the problem will be remedied by replacing the oil cooler, free of charge. According to the release, the recall is expected to begin January 24, 2019.
This news comes to a couple of days after Ducati issued a press statement notifying a major change in the 998cc machine. In compliance with the standards of the WorldSBK Racing, the Ducati Corse Team had decided to now embody the bike with a dry clutch.
Ducati, which will be represented by Aruba.it Racing, had to make the appropriate changes to the street bike as well, which called for last-minute clutch installations on the press fleet of the bike that was used at Jerez last week.
Our knowledge on the new clutch system is limited except for the fact that it comes from STM. The slipper variety as the company says is the STM EVO-SBK dry clutch model, with nine pressure plates and an adjustable secondary spring.
Over the years, the rattle of Ducati’s dry clutch has become music to our ears as the bike passes by. Unfortunately, in the European market, the sound they create is near impossible to get past Euro4, EPA, and other noise restrictions. This, subsequently makes us wonder what the company will work out to introduce the same in street variants.