Re: KTM Duke 390 - Ownership Reviews and Experiences

Which service center did you go to?
The color of the smoke is important to note. White smoke is usually coolant mixing with oil and being burnt.. And 390s are known for their head gasket or water pump gaskets failing.
Blue smoke is associated with oil burning, and reason could be a worn block/piston or bad valve guides/seals.

And 30k is too much for a block piston replacement. iirc the valve kit costs 1200max and the block and piston 10k.. Labor assume 5k(higher side).

Kindly get it checked at another service center.. First thing to do is to drain and inspect the engine oil and coolant. Greyish/milky colored oil indicates a coolant leak and can be fixed for much cheaper.

Re: KTM Duke 390 - Ownership Reviews and Experiences

The smoke was thick white. Coolant level is stable for quite sometime now. It was engine oil that kept disappearing. I went to Banjara hills KTM and another twist was that Srikanth left his job at Banjara hills KTM.

The issue with changing service centre at this point is that the engine is not cranking. I have to tow it to another service centre again.

Re: KTM Duke 390 - Ownership Reviews and Experiences

Aah.. Srikanth left eh? I suspect he was poached.. maybe by kawasaki I haven't been to the banjara svc in a few months since i haven't been using my bike the past couple of months.
Your best bet would then be the begumpet or gachibowli svc.
And if the block/piston is the problem i am not sure why the bike would not start ? Did they run a diagnostics using their tool? Did you see any error code ?
If smoke is white (no tinge of blue ?) if you are sure it was only the oil disappearing, then it could mean a leak from the valve or worse as you said a block/piston replacement.
Again better to drain the oil and coolant and inspect it before starting to replace parts.

Re: KTM Duke 390 - Ownership Reviews and Experiences

There is a SVC in Gachibowli? Where?

Ah, I completely forgot to ask them to check for error codes.
Also, the battery was swapped in between, so the error codes will be erased?

Re: KTM Duke 390 - Ownership Reviews and Experiences

sorry my bad.. not gachibowli.. kondapur.
these guys (varun motors) have their main dealership at kondapur.
i went there for the recent free camp.. looking at their mechanics work, they seemed pretty professional in their work.

man.. the first thing to do was to check for error codes using the diag tool. anytime your bike goes to the svc, the first and last step should be to connect diag tool and check. even if its just regular services.
swapping battery will not erase the codes.. they are stored in the ecu. and unless the fault is fixed, the code will reappear. it can be erased using the diag tool, but will reappear if the underlying issue is not fixed.

And only a top end rebuild (block/piston and maybe valve kit) should not cost you 25k. It will probably be around 15k.
IIRC srikanth once told me that the block/piston kit of a duke 390 costs approx 8k. And i have personally seen the valves pricing and a set of them should set you back up around 1200~1600.
If possible check on the prices of the spares.. Labor for a top end rebuild shouldn't be more than 3k.

Re: KTM Duke 390 - Ownership Reviews and Experiences

Harsha. Any update? Did you take to begumpet?

Re: KTM Duke 390 - Ownership Reviews and Experiences

Got a call from them that they've opened the engine block and awaiting my go ahead for replacements. Will inspect in detail tomorrow.
No, Bike was towed to Banjara Hills.
It was difficult again to take it to Begumpet as I might have to tow it again.

Re: KTM Duke 390 - Ownership Reviews and Experiences

Get your battery terminals checked for any loose contact. If your starter is spinning fine, the engine starts and then coughs to a stop, check your fuel level, low fuel level too can cause stuttering and stalling. If the terminals are fine and this issue still repeats, then we can look at fueling itself.

ABS light on can indicate either one of the ABS sensor on the front and back wheel has failed or we have a blown ABS fuse(s). Start with checking the ABS fuse below the seat, the 15 and 25 AMP fuse, to the left of the bike when you open the seat. If the fuses are fine, check your ABS wheel speed sensor. You can take your bike to the SVC, get it connected to the diag tool and it will throw up an error if your sensors are at fault.

Hi, sriharsha. Perhaps your bike didn't crank was because it didn't have enough compression, at least that's what I can speculate when we are talking about white smoke or a sudden failure or oil rings which let oil past the piston or stem seal leak which then gets burned. First, I'd recommend you to do a compression check, if your compression is fine I don't think we have a problem with the rings and piston. When you have a valve stem seal leak, the same white smoke comes out of the exhaust. A valve steam leak can be fixed using new seals in less than an hour or two and isn't as expensive as the cylinder kit.

29k is very less for complete cylinder kit overhaul, I hope the bike isn't dismantled, status quo. If yes, now it's better to look towards the new kit and to your question of reliability, the longevity of the new kit and reliability is directly proportional to the job done by the mechanics at the SVC. For complete peace of mind, I'd suggest you stay there at the SVC, during the installation and check the bike thoroughly after the job has been done for any noise from the engine, smoke, how easily the bike cranks et cetera. There have been cases of botched up cylinder jobs for the 200s and 390s when replaced with new kit due to a poor quality installation job from the mechanics side.

Cheers!
VJ

Re: KTM Duke 390 - Ownership Reviews and Experiences

Current situation of the dismantled engine.

Re: KTM Duke 390 - Ownership Reviews and Experiences

from the pic does look like the bike was drinking some oil (since the exhaust valves seem to have some carbon deposit, normally they would look like a dark shade of copper)
on the bore i can still see the cross hatch pattern and the piston skirts seem to be fine. the the top of the piston (just above the topmost piston ring), there is something that looks like a piece of piston has chipped off or is that the piston design itself (sorry have never bothered to look at a 390's piston up close in detail). it's difficult to say if the cause of the leak is the bore/piston or the valves from just the pics. one needs to check the bore using a bore gauge(dial gauge) to see if it's out of spec.
anyway since you've come this far, make sure the valves/valve guide and seals are also replaced. also check prices of the parts on the box and do let us know the cost of spares.
and after u fit the new valve kit turn the head upside down (instlle spark plugvalve facing you) pour some diesel/petrol/water and see if it leaks down. a good install should prevent the fluid leaking down.
maybe you can do this with the existing valves in also (just to check..)

Re: KTM Duke 390 - Ownership Reviews and Experiences

In similar situation here. Frustrated with terrible troubleshooting skills of KTM Trivandrum. Tomorrow it will become 1 month since bike sitting at SVC and yesterday bike handed over to new mech since the guy working on fell ill. Till date they were adamant that it was electrical issues. New mech in 1 day confirmed compression loss (which first guy said to have tested and was okay). Now confirmed issue with cylinder kit. Work began. Promised delivery in a week. Estimate 26k.

Re: KTM Duke 390 - Ownership Reviews and Experiences

Appreciate the pictures, Harsha. From what I can see, the cylinder kit seems fine, visually and the piston, too seems good though with quite a bit of carbon deposits. I honestly hope they did a compression check which would almost 100% give us a sense of what's at fault. Make sure, the entire valve train components, are replaced especially valve stem oil seals, and properly seated and the head properly de-carboninzed. I'd recommend a throttle body clean, considering the deposits we have on the piston, the blowby fumes would have definitely gummed up the throttle body venturi. Do get your TB cleaned.

Unfortunately some mechanics aren't trained to look for basic things, wherein smoke usually almost always is either a rings or piston fault for these chaps. Also, compression check is a must before when it comes to replacing the piston and rings. A white smoke can be caused by n number of reasons, and unfortunately this is fine line, some mechanics are good at finding it, some don't take chance and change the entire cylinder and valve kit, and some screw it up altogether.

Cheers!
VJ

Re: KTM Duke 390 - Ownership Reviews and Experiences

They say that the piston and cylinder block needs to be replaced along with camshafts and valves.
I don't see any physical damage on piston or block, but the service manager claims they need to be replaced.
I'm not sure how to handle this situation, the head mechanic over there resigned and the workmanship of other mechanics is doubtful.

I've asked him to document everything so that I can take it up with KTM and ask them for a proper reason for failure.
By this time his tone changes and asked me to confirm If I want to take it up with KTM or get the work done as paid service.
I specifically asked him if they did a proper diagnosis for which there is no reply, he insists on parts change.

Re: KTM Duke 390 - Ownership Reviews and Experiences

write to ktm that they did not:
1. connect diag tool and run tests
2. did not do a compression test.
3. and you do not know on what basis they recommended changing the entire block/piston , valve kit and camshaft. -- this is essentially replacing everything, but without finding what actually needs to be replaced.

if you want to keep proof, then call these guys and record the call as you ask questions. forward the recording to ktm, because guys will play around and say they did the tests and try to shift the blame to you.

Re: KTM Duke 390 - Ownership Reviews and Experiences

Sudden change in events - involved the zonal service manager and now it needs only piston ring change after inspection and bike is promised for tomorrow.