[VijayAnand1]

Subbed. Vaishnav, appreciate you taking the time to log a serious yet under-reported issue. I am positive that there might be dime a plenty of such issues happening with the 790 and other RC8 lots that were sold in India, and the reason one doesn't get to hear might perhaps be down to the owner(s) feeling bad or simply doesn't want to get his burnt ego fanned more.

Anecdotally, Bajaj did post about KTM's legacy..

As someone who has covered over 2,00,000 km riding a motorcycle across the globe, Paolo Cattaneo knows a thing or two about adventure bikes.

Now, with another 30,000 km clocked up on his KTM 890 ADVENTURE, the renowned world traveler talks about his experiences riding through Greece, Italy, and even Australia.

"Over the last six years, I’ve ridden over 2,00,000 km with my good-old KTM. We really had all sorts of adventures together across more than 45 countries and I never thought I would find a valuable substitute for such a reliable machine.

A little bit over a year ago, I got asked to attend the international launch of the all-new KTM 890 ADVENTURE and that was the start of a cool adventure. Picking up a brand-new bike from the home of KTM in Austria, I got to ride it across Italy and over to Greece. On that same bike, I got to spend the months to come testing it in all kinds of conditions.

In my opinion, the parallel-twin of the KTM 890 ADVENTURE is probably the best available engine out there, in the mid-sized category. Strong, torquey, and smooth at low revs.

If this bike was available back in 2015 when I started traveling around the world, I would have certainly chosen it for my adventures. It’s lighter, better at low revs, easier to maneuver, and way more efficient on fuel consumption. 105 hp are plenty to enjoy the pleasure of riding, even when fully loaded.

All in all, it’s easier to handle this machine while exploring the mountain roads or cruising on offroad trails."

Please do keep your chronology updated.

Good luck to you.

Cheers!
VJ

[rvrmvaishnavi]

Apologies for the lack of updates. But essentially its been 2 months of trying to convince ktm india and austria to do something beyond just rebuilding the engine. Let me quickly summarise

The amazing

-All parts including bearings, cam shaft, all 8 valves, damaged rocker arms, all gaskets, seals etc were in stock and brought to the dealership within a 1-2 weeks. I found it amazing that they had such parts in stock in the country for a bike where theyve just sold a 100! And i keep hearing my other imported big bike owner friends complain about silly things like sprocket and radiators not being in stock despite several 100s of those models being sold here (and premium branding!) And the updated gaskets parts were used too, not the older ones.

The good

-The KTM India CEO is a special dude! Shout out to him for taking the time to even think about such outlier cases and even responding to me etc. After he got into the loop, responses from KTM india were far swifter

-Unrelated to this, earlier, as a group of owners we had requested for extended warranty (2 yrs included as baseline). KTM India graciously agreed to offer extended warranty for 2 extra years (total 4) for a ridiculously low price that was a fraction of the price of bmw/ducati/triumph extended warranties.

-The engine was dismantled and stored in fantastic condition by the ktm kasturba road svc center folks. No craziness with parts left dirty/rusted/missing , mixed up etc etc. Super organised, super clean. A+!

- While rebuilding the engine, KTM got the south zone trainer to come in and supervise. THey had all the special tools, manuals, insturction videos etc and actually used/followed them. The rebuild was completed in 1 day flat! While they made 1-2 mistakes that we caught (just by reading the manual and watching closely too), overall , it was waaaay better than i had feared. The engine started on first crank and there have been 0 issues so far.

-Valve clearance check was also done and shims replaced as needed.

-They had promised a compression/leakdown test, but that hasnt happened yet. I ve been promised it will happen soon. If thats done, it would be the ulitimate confidence booster that the rebuild has been done well.

The bad

-They didnt relent at all in either my request for an extended warranty (i have 2 years left, was asking for 2 more years beyond that) or for a new engine. I am only hoping that any issues from the rebuild manifests within the next 2 yrs.


The ugly

-0 effective responses to FB posts on KTM india/Austria. Extremely delayed email responses (expedited only after KTM India CEO was looped in). I hate to imagine what happens if lower bike models have rare issues that need escalation


Long post. But at the end of it, i am cautiously optimistic that the issue is behind me. i guess time will tell....

[VijayAnand1]

That's a solace. Extremely chuffed to see see you've gotten the top brass in loop and gotten a satisfactory result. I would have liked to see KTM, as a goodwill gesture included a pro rata warranty on the engine rebuild carried. Being cautiously optimistic is the only course of action one is left, after all that redtape. A leakdown test would be a perfect gauge for the job carried, but do let us know if and when that transpires.

Good luck and hope you enjoy the machine for a long time to come.

Cheers!
VJ

[rvrmvaishnavi]

Quick update. I've ridden about 600kms since the rebuild and not faced any issues so far. Also got a leakdown test done at the svc center. SOP was to have inlet pressure of 5 bar and both cylinders showed pretty much 0 leakage! I guess thats a huge relief and a huge confidence booster on the quality of the rebuild. While this doesn't confirm that there are no bolt torquing errors, at least it shows that the head gasket, piston rings and valves are in good shape.

Time to celebrate :-)