T120 Gearbox Woes

like has been said just ride it and enjoy it,in my experience triumph are very good with warranty claims, do you know anyone who’s had problems with there t120 gearbox?, good luck.

 

Shaun, there is an uploaded blurb on YouTube by Stuart Fillingham?? he does rattle on a bit about this but there are a couple of useful informative sections, particularly in relation to the VIN numbers of bike from the Bonneville range likely to suffer from this:

 

Me too, need to look at the VIN on my Street Twin when it lands, it's a 2019 in the hands of a Ducati dealer!

 

Are you buying your street twin from cob& jagger ? I’ve found them pretty good over the years.

 

No pal, its the Preston Ducati dealership they don't have a Triumph affiliation anymore. It came in on a part ex, registered in the Isle of Mann, low mileage with a few nice bits and bats on.

 

So here is an update.

I emailed Triumph to make a formal complaint about the issue and said that I thought it needed to be recalled for safety purposes and if I hadn't heard back from them, I would be directly contacting DVLA. Two days later (on the Friday) they rang me to say they had picked the bike up from Aberdeen, had it back in Hinkley and would get it sorted and back to me in the Highlands by the end of the following week. They confirmed that:
(sorry PDF formatting went weird. ETA: Argh! screenshot attached!).

So a threat to report to the government seemed to do the trick. The wife however refused to agree to ride pillion on it because - well she doesn't trust them, so we angled for a buy-back. No dice, though they did say if it were newer (I'm guessing less than a year old?) they would. They have however given me a transferable one year warranty and I've now exchanged it for an R NineT Pure. I'm happy, wife is placated so all is good.

Strongly recommend that if any one experiences this in the future, it is worth mentioning the O-ring thing and negotiating an extended guarantee.

 

That gives the rest of us owners hope that the issue is a result of incorrect assembly rather than a basic design issue, although the statement from Triumph states that the O ring is fitted to a “spares assembly”, had your bike already suffered a gear change failure and been repaired only to fail again Mathew?, or did Triumph mean to say “parts assembly” maybe?.

EDIT: Apologies I read back through the posts and saw that it was indeed a replacement part they had fitted, I’m not sure why Triumph would be fitting O rings to spare parts if they are not needed when assembled to the bike?, maybe to protect a machined surface during storage?, but that seems unlikely, I’m taking my Thruxton to Pidcocks Triumph for a service on 14/09/20 and I’ll see if I can find anything out from their mechanics whilst I’m there.

 

Hi Mark

This is the second time it happened.

It looks like the assembly on some bikes was faulty, something Triumph knew about hence the tech bulletin (and why there should be a recall imo). What they are saying is that the problem with my bike was that the new part was incorrectly fitted because the O-ring wasn’t removed. I’ve seen a few people report similar which suggests the fault is with Triumph’s communication rather than the mechanics who fitted the part. The tech bulletin which mentions the importance of removing the O-ring only came out after my bike went the first time.

I’ve heard reports of this happening to people multiple times but have no idea if it’s because of the new part being incorrectly fitted or because the part itself is also failing. Either way, if it happens, then make sure you negotiate an extended warranty.

 

Hi Mark

This is the second time it happened.

It looks like the assembly on some bikes was faulty, something Triumph knew about hence the tech bulletin (and why there should be a recall imo). What they are saying is that the problem with my bike was that the new part was incorrectly fitted because the O-ring wasn’t removed. I’ve seen a few people report similar which suggests the fault is with Triumph’s communication rather than the mechanics who fitted the part. The tech bulletin which mentions the importance of removing the O-ring only came out after my bike went the first time.

I’ve heard reports of this happening to people multiple times but have no idea if it’s because of the new part being incorrectly fitted or because the part itself is also failing. Either way, if it happens, then make sure you negotiate an extended warranty.

 

I used to follow fillinghams video's but i've unsubscribed now as he's gone a bit batshit crazy. 15 minute video's about global warming, how much he hates youtube and how expensive his camera gear is wore me down. I don't doubt there are gearbox issues with the bonnie but would take what this chap says with a pinch of salt......

 

Back at it again! 2018 T120 repaired for faulty shift selector shaft at 1300 miles. Repaired under warranty and I rode for another 3500 miles and it wouldn’t downshift again. Triumph paid for the tow this time and they still have the bike. It’s under warranty for another 10 months. Not sure if I’ll be waiting to see it fails again11 months from now.

By the way, while I have been waiting to have it repaired and before I pushed it off a cliff in frustration I bought a Harley. Now I have 2 bikes. At least one works and it’s obviously not the Triumph. Now that’s what I call an expensive investment to keep my sanity.

 

This seems to be a major issue do you know what years and models it effects? No pics of the Harley?

 

Sadly this seems typical of Triumph nowadays.

When the water-cooled Bonnies first arrived on the scene there were lots of poor engineering based problems unresolved - front brakes squealing is the first one to come to mind.

The attitude to after-sales service, helping customers achieve the level of satisfaction that is reasonable to expect from a Premium brand is derisory.

It comes as no surprise that over the last 3 yrs Triumph sales globally are down (2020 sales look to be around 55,000 units), but in the same marketplace RE sales are up.

Europe is the second more relevant region for this manufacturer and after 9 months is up 4.2%. Sales are growing in ASEAN (+14.2%, preliminary), LATAM (+25.1% preliminary) and North America (+55.7% preliminary). In all these regions, Royal Enfield growth is spectacular and represent a sharp gain in terms of market share.

As far as the full year 2020 projection, we foresee a total of 580.000 sales.
Ten times the amount of Triumph sales.

 

fillingham declined the offer.

I spoke to Triumph's Technical Manager about Fillingham's T120 gearbox video when he visited our workshop recently. He told me he had contacted Fillingham and offered to collect the bike and strip it down in order to identify the problem. Fillingham repeatedly declined the offer. One can only speculate on his motive.

 

The more cynical amoungst may conclude he's a slighty quirky youtuber enjoying his 15 minutes of fame and getting more hits therefore more money.....all in my humble opinion of course!

 

As far as I know James it was all newer water cooled Bonnies, except the Thruxton. This was the reason I got rid of the Speedmaster because it fell in the affected batch. I’m going to stick with Japanese bikes from now on. I know my VFR800F may get the known rectifier fault at some stage but it’s small fry compared to broken gearboxes. If I ever thought about buying another old style bike I’d get a Royal Enfield.

 

I have been following Stuart Fillinghams posts on this.
I have a 2019 T100 and am concerned about a repair out of warranty. With the numbers apparently effected I had hoped Triumph would do the right thing. I contacted The Department of Transport as suggested. They did investigate but said it was not a safety issue so would not instruct Triumph to recall the bikes.
Very disappointed with the brand and will not be buying Triumph again when the time comes.
As for the video from Stuart Fillingham, it is long but worth listening to, particularly as to why he didn’t let the bike go to Triumph initially. It did go back and suprise suprise they did not do the repairs promised.

 

Having read this thread I was wondering about what actual % of supposedly "at risk" bikes had run into this problem so I started a separate thread with a poll to try and gather some information from this community:

https://www.thetriumphforum.com/thr...nnie-engine-gearbox-issues.27465/#post-510856

The poll has so far bombed - but some interesting feedback from one member that I summarise as follows:

A few riders have managed to damage the pivot plate in the gear change mechanism by being heavy footed on the downshift.

It DOESN'T lock up the gearbox, it makes downshifting difficult....that's all.
The vast majority of owners haven't had and won't have any problems.

The replacement shaft assembly has a revised treatment for the affected plate to eliminate the possibility of damage due to harsh use. (it takes @ 60-70 minutes to fit)

Less than 50 bikes of the thousands sold in the last 5 years have suffered this problem.

[I get this information] from a friend who is the lead technician at a Triumph dealership. They have had one bike affected out of @ 500 sold (bonnevilles,bobbers,scramblers etc) so he questioned triumph technical about the issues and he was told (unofficially) less than 50 from the total production had given problems.

 

This is interesting about the you tuber mentioned above. Im inclined to agree as his attitude can be a bit strange and blinkered. He did reply to me over some trivial response, to which i responded. Like you say how many vids does it take to top up his police pension?