What exhaust is this?

Hi All.  I'm looking at a bike in San Diego.   I spoke to the owner a while back when he had it advertised for sale.  It is now on consignment at a dealer.  They just lowered the price to $10,990.  I offered them $9500 two weeks ago and they told me to pack sand.  It has about 1 year of warranty left, so i'm torn between getting this if I can get it at a right price or getting a new one with 2 years of warranty.  The list price on new ones is creeping down at the dealer ship in Thousand Oaks near to me.
Since I have been paying attention, I want to make sure that what ever exhaust I end up with is something for which Mark has a full roller map.
The stock exhaust may or may not be available.
The salesman says it is a Mistral and there is no DB killer, but he can get me one for $150. (!).
It does not look much like a Mistral to me.  It's not an Arrow.  It kinda looks like a Guzzi Tech, but does not seem exactly like what is on his site.  If the exhaust is not in the Beetle happy-place arena  and the stock is not available I'll probably just pass.
Any help appreciated.
Link

I did a Google image search and I'm pretty certain that's no Mistral. Salesman talking out his arse I think. I'd go with the new one closer to home.

Doesn't look like any Mistral I've ever seen. It does bear a striking resemblance to one of the Guzzitech offerings. If it is a GT product, unless something has changed since I was last assaulted by one of these, it will be ear bleedingly loud and any dB killer provided will make little difference.

Usually these are sold as part of a 'Package' with a raft of other *Improvements* so enquire whether the machine has a buggered about with airbox/Stupid air filter set up or any widgets installed to improve its 'Performance'. Open pipes with the stock map will make the bike run like a complete munter. Most of the aftermarket widgets achieve nothing apart from encouraging the engine to over-fuel grossly resulting in lousy fuel economy and premature engine wear. They may in some cases also cause the dashboard to recognise there is a problem and throw up periodic 'Service' warnings.

This is a very new, extremely low mileage machine. It's been modified and now it's for sale! This obviously begs the question of 'Why?' Depending on what exactly has been inflicted upon it making it run well again may be simple or very difficult and expensive. While not advising either for or against a purchase I would ensure I knew everything about its provenance and service history/modifications before jumping in. If there is any lack of clarity or obfuscation on the part of the vendor? Walk away. There are plenty more fish in the sea......

Pete

Hi Pete,
I spoke with the actual owner a few months back and he said he needed to sell to buy a house or something. He said no other mods had been done. But he was not particularly communicative. He said he did have a db killer and the stock pipe. The dealer says differently. The bike is now at the dealership where it was originally bought. The sales drone said that "We bought a bunch of these pipes and installed them for our customers without the DB killers because no-one wanted them. It's not too loud."
Since I'm relatively new here I did not want to call bullshit on the Mistral claim. I too think it looks like a GT pipe.
I don't think I'm gonna schlep down to SD for this one.

My opinion, for what it's worth, is that if you can it is best to start out with a 'Blank Canvas' if you possibly can and if you are looking at a used bike always ask about maintenance before modifications.

A full service history with receipts is of course good but doesn't really mean an awful lot unless it's from a well known *Knowledgeable* shop. It's stuff like have the swingarm bearings and suspension linkages been checked and greased? Have its tappets been inspected, (If a flat tappet machine.) or has it been rollerised? Have the throttle bodies been messed about with by a shaved ape? These sorts of things are, in the long term, far more important because they will have a bigger bearing on the long term wellbeing of the machine. If you have some nong who can only tell you how awesome his bike is and lists/and or/shows you receipts for aftermarket tuning widgets and bling or tries to woo you with dubious looking dyno charts showing how his be-lipsticked pig now produces unfeasibly large amounts of power and torque because they've fitted a magic box it's best to run screaming into the night! If they've invested so much time and money making it so much better why the fuck are they selling it?

Let's face it if you buy something like a motorbike when you are cash-strapped and are also considering buying an asset like a house for which you will need the motorbike money you're an idiot! That begs the question 'Do you want to buy something that has been owned by an idiot?'

There are plenty more fish in the sea. Thousand Oaks have changed hands and are, I believe, getting out of Aprilia/Guzzi so there will probably be bargains to be had there but Guzzi dealers come and go the whole time and inventory gets sold down. It should be possible to get a new or nearly new but un-messed with bike for a very similar or lower price to the one in that advert.

Pete

Actually the Thousand Oaks shop was just purchased by the long-time dealer across the street Thousand Oaks Powersports. I think it may be a good thing, as they are now part of a larger (well-funded) group. They kept the Aprillia/Guzzi/Vespa showroom separate, but it's literally across the street. I spoke with the head wrench there about grease-less splines and steering head bearings, and he said it had gotten better but they would be willing to check it for me. He did say they were factory trained. I like your blank canvas concept, as I intend to get elbows deep into synch-ing, mapping and valve adjustments and what-not. I'll keep dropping by there and making offers on their Rosso bike until they relent.

Steering head bearings I've not had a problem with but I, and most of my customers, live in a really dry area. Swingarm bearings though are almost always as dry as a nun's chuff and due to their position much more vulnerable to water intrusion, even in light rain. The suspension linkage even more so.

With regard to the recent bike So? Well from about the start of the roller engined series factory set-up seems to have improved markedly. Earlier bikes always used to come out of the box with the TB's just flung on and both air bleeds open. Since mid 2012-ish that has changed and the last few new ones I've done not only has the balance been pretty much spot on but it is so throughout the range with both air bleeds closed. It's like they are taking a lot more care on the flow bench at Marelli when setting them up. This could just be chance but it does seem to be getting better.

Nice thing about buying a comparatively un-mollested bike is that it makes identifying and fixing issues much, much easier. If it's covered with O2 sensor/air temp foolers and/or the loom has been chopped up to fit a PC or similar in-necessary box of go-fast 'White Man Ju-Ju' any physical issues will be a lot harder to identify because all the add-ons may in and of themselves be causing problems due to bad connections, poorly installed hardware or cheesy software glitches.

An un-mollested machine can be easily returned to 'Stock' configuration which gives an easily understood and examined 'Baseline' that greatly aids diagnosis of both physical and tuning issues.

This isn't to say that a bike that has been treated well and modified should necessarily be avoided. Simply that one has to know both all and exactly what has been done to it and when. Simply being told "It goes like shit off a shiny shovel since my cousin Virgil sprinkled it with pixie-dust!" doesn't really cut the mustard when three weeks down the track it drops the head off an exhaust valve and you're trying to find out why?

Pete