In my opinion Ducati is a bike that you work on at night thruout the week so you can ride it on the weekend. IF reliablility is the issue then stick with Japanese bikes. Are they the best-no. Are they the best all around -meaning for reliablility, ridablilty, performance yes. If you want performance nothing beats an italian sport bike. But that performance comes at a cost. Italian sport bikes are high to buy into and very high price wise for replacement cost for parts. But on those days when everything is clicking, there is no better, bigger grin on your face than taking a duc round a mountain road turn faster than all your pals on their Japanese machines. On the days when NOT everything is clicking, well your buddies get mad at you for having the bike that keeps breaking down.
Most of Ducati's problems are because the engines are soooo tightly engineered that if 1 part is even slightly out of spec it sets off a chain reaction that most of the time is not pretty.
