As per the title my 1260 failed to start this morning, haven't used it for a couple of weeks, the engine will fire on each press of the starter button but won't start. So it's getting recovered and off to the boys at Italia Moto. Having covered the best part of 70k miles over 3 Multistradas, this one on 12k, this is the first time I've been let down. I'll update when I know what the issue is.
Same issue this morning 4C outside, bike normally starts every time, this morning turned over but wouldn't catch and run. The dash looked normal nothing odd then it went into "Preload recalibration in progress" so waited until it finished then tried again - turned over tried to go but still wouldn't run - then ABS light came on and then off. Tried on and off and still wouldn't run, this went on for 10-15 minutes with a strong smell of petrol. My mate has similar issues on his 1260 when it is cold but he has a termi fitted and mine doesn't. Left it outside for 30 minutes and then tried again one more time, same thing, so tried his start procedure. Switch on let the bike do its checks and the dash is looking normal, Open throttle FULLY and hit the start button - hey presto - it fired up and ran! immediately shut the throttle fully and it continued to run with no problem. It did run a bit quick when it started but then went to normal cold start revs as soon as the throttle was shut. Seems like there is a fuelling issue when the bike is cold and it gets too much fuel and just needs some more air to get it fire up and keep running.
That's interesting re the temperature, when this happened to me it was about 6c, I also tried it with the throttle open halfway, but made no difference, maybe should have tried it fully open, as you suggest. Having heard back from the dealer, it seems that the bike just fancied a free trip to them, as the following day it started on the 4th attempt (usually starts on first attempt), so a bit of head scratching going on there, no errors came up when plugged into the diagnostics, so a bit of a mystery at the moment.
Just started mine after 3 months at 2°C Switch on, waited for the fuel pump to prime, pulled in the clutch and started without any throttle. Started right up You guys had me worried. I have the 1st year service at the end of February so not had the updates. Can't wait for some better weather.
Picked the bike up from Italia Moto today and by strange coincidence they have another 1260 in the workshop having been recovered with exactly the same issue as mine. The factory are aware of the issue and that it is not just an isolated incident, seems they are now working on a software update to rectify the problem, in the meantime if it fails to start, use full throttle as per @Veetwin post and it should fire up .
Resurrecting an old thread here, but this happened to me lately - and on a mid 2019 1260 - so it wasn't fixed at the factory by then. The bike has been laid up in the garage, battery got a bit weak and so I put the non-starting down to that. I topped it up with the optimate overnight last week - still wouldn't start. Exactly as @Veetwin describes above, turns over but won't catch and run. I ended up running the battery down trying. Did some searching on this forum and found this thread; went with the full-throttle method and bingo. FYI, when I released the throttle after it started, it died again. I found I had to keep the throttle quite open and the bike was only getting to 3000-3500rpm, then as the revs naturally rose, I just rolled off slightly to try and keep the revs around 2000. I didn't fully release the throttle for about 45 seconds. At that point, the bike seemed happy. I let it run for a bit, and switched off. Switched on again and she fired right up as normal. I think one of the things to help notice if you have this issue is if you're attempting to start the bike and it's failing, you'll have a very strong smell of petrol. Anyway, called the dealer, they did the typical thing of "never heard of them doing this, no there's no software update, Ducatis have some issues and we'll just sort anything the factory has discovered at your next service, etc" If anyone knows whether this was addressed by the factory, when that was, and what that entailed, I'd love to know. Ruined my Sunday! I just should have searched on here sooner
It seems that what was/is happening is that the plugs are gassing up. Too much fuel - not enough air. Holding the throttle wide open does allow more air, you would have struggled for it to idle cleanly until the plugs burnt clean enough for the bike to run properly. It's actually a good thing the bike will start at all when gassed up - that may be the dual plugs helping out. Many sportsbikes need a plug change when it happens. My ZZR was terrible for gassing up. Then an hours job to put new plugs in This was quite common on the older stuff that generally had a manual choke - too much of that and starting had to be as described. 250 and 350LC's had a starting procedure all of their own
