Ex-demo covered 5000 miles more than the clock showed

A Triumph customer is threatening legal action after buying a TT600 which had done 5000 more miles than shown on the clock.

In January, Michael Hastings travelled from his home town of Dumfries to buy the 2000 bike from On Yer Triumph in Tring, Herts.

He paid £3800 for the bike, believing it to be just 1109 miles old. But he became suspicious when he found the chain was so loose it looked like ” a necklace ”

So, he took the bike to his local Triumph dealer, Dave Petrie Motorcycles. There, a second logbook was found under the seat. It had a stamp confirming that the bike had undergone a 5000-mile service some months earlier.

In fact, the bike had covered 6069 miles, as Hastings found out when he complained to On Yer Triumph and Triumph itself came to the dealer’s defence. The factory wrote to him admitting it had made a mistake when fitting a new speedo to replace a faulty one while the bike was being used as a demonstrator.

It had left the miles at zero on the new speedo, instead of winding it on to reflect the distance the bike had actually covered. That effectively wiped 5000 miles off its history. It was then returned to demo duties, but was later passed on to a dealer to be sold. By then., its past had ” disapeared ” .

Triumph has put its hands up and offered Hastings a brand new TT600 as a replacement. Hastings decided he wanted a new Sprint RS instead. Triumph agreed as long as he paid £500 to make up the difference in price, but Hastings declined and has now instructed a solicitor to deal with the matter.

Triumph marketing boss Bruno Tagliaferri said: ” Mr Hastings has bought a used bike for around £4000 and we’ve offered him a new one worth £6000 as a replacement, along with all the warranty and servicing that goes with it ” .

” We have accepted there was a problem and we made a mistake. We’ve been very up-front about this and put him in a position where he is better off than before ” .

Hastings says the TT600 lost its appeal after all the wrangling, that’s why he would prefer a Sprint RS. ”

But many motorcyclenews.com regulars are calling him ” greedy ” . Take a look at the threads in Talk News and have your own say on this story by following the ” comment on this story ” link.