For decades, KTM has been the choice of many orange-blooded motorcyclists with a need for speed both on the road and on the dirt. But things haven’t been going so well for the Austrian manufacturer and now, it’s reorganizing in an effort to stave off bankruptcy. Here’s what’s happening with a world-famous builder in the troubled seas that is the powersports industry right now.
Sales of motorcycles in the United States have been pretty limp since the Great Recession. In 2006, 1.2 million new motorcycles found a home in the United States. Another 1.1 million units rode home the year later. Then the nation’s economy spiraled out of control. Motorcycle sales fell into a trough, where just 439,700 units were sold in 2010. But here’s the kicker, while other recreational products like RVs shot up in demand, motorcycles stayed flat, hanging around roughly 500,000 units sold each year ever since. Sales have never rebounded to the levels seen before the Great Recession.
What’s even more impressive is when you find out that motorcycles didn’t even ramp up much for the pandemic. Just 550,000 motorcycles were sold in America in 2021, the same period when the RV industry hit an all-time sales record and people were buying boats and side-by-sides like they were about to go out of style.
Things have been better in Europe, Bloomberg reports, where sales have recovered to about 80 percent of what they were before 2008. But yep, those numbers suggest people aren’t buying new bikes in Europe like they used to.
With that being said, sales get fascinating when you look at them by category. Motorcycles in the various off-road segments have taken off while cruisers have largely stayed their course. This is part of why you see everyone making an off-road bike from the Harley-Davidson Pan America to Honda’s wacky adventure scooters.
Riding High
According to Motorcycle.com, things were great for KTM for a while. The company started in 1934 as a metalworking shop in Austria founded by Hans Trunkenpolz. It was then KTM got its first name: Kraftfahrzeuge Trunkenpolz Mattighofen. KTM didn’t begin production of its first motorcycle, the R100, until 1951. Then, two years later, the company’s name would change to Kronreif, Trunkenpolz, Mattighofen and some 20 people assembled three motorcycles a day.
Over time, KTM grew in size and scope, making everything from bicycles and motorcycles to radiators. But by 1991, the company fell flat and ended up in bankruptcy. The company was split into four separate entities and rescued by Stefan Pierer and other investors. KTM continued to operate and produce some legendary motorcycles including the Duke series, but internally, the company would undergo a series of restructurings and Bajaj Auto of India would take an interest in KTM beginning in 2007.
So, the company’s been through a wild ride, but things were looking good until recently. In 2023, the company reported a record $2.78 billion in revenue and it managed to sell some 381,555 motorcycles plus another 157,358 bicycles and e-bikes globally. KTM’s owner currently claims to be the largest manufacturer of motorcycles in Europe. What was also impressive was the fact that KTM had 6,184 employees, 21 percent of which were in the company’s engineering department. This is why KTM has been able to brag about new advancements like automated-manual transmissions and the the weird X-Bow sports car.
How good were things at KTM? In 2013, it started a joint venture with CFMoto in China where CFMoto would use a facility in China to build both KTMs and CFMotos. Meanwhile, KTM used its resources to distribute CFMotos outside of China. The partnership was seen as a great venture for both companies as it helped KTM penetrate into the important Chinese market while CFMoto got to dig deeper into Europe.
This venture bore fruit for CFMoto in 2020 as it introduced new powerful motorcycles featuring KTM’s technology. Later, both companies were celebrating such great success that Chinese production of CFMotos and KTMs was set to double. Things looked so good that in early 2024, Pierer Mobility AG, the parent company of KTM, bought MV Agusta. Pierer Mobility AG also owns the Husqvarna and the Gas Gas motorcycle brands.
KTM’s plan for 2024 was to continue what worked in 2023. It wanted to increase production in China and India while continuing the cost-cutting it started in 2023. As Motorcycle.com writes, Pierer Mobility did expect some headwinds in 2024, but didn’t expect what actually happened.
Losing Traction
In reality, interest rates and inflation remained higher than projected. Meanwhile, sales began riding off of a cliff in both America and Europe. That would have been bad enough, but remember what I just said about KTM’s plans to build more bikes. This led to a glut of motorcycles sitting at dealerships without people buying enough of them.
In response, Motorcycle.com says, KTM adjusted its sales targets, saying that it would see a 10 to 15 percent decline in sales in 2024. While that would end KTM’s three years of sales growth, it was still higher than pre-pandemic numbers. What changed? The decline is expected to continue on top of the company’s cost-cutting strategies not working, from Motorcycle.com:
KTM reported its results for the first half of 2024 on Aug. 23, reporting € 1.007 billion in revenue, a year-over-year decline of 27%. Earnings before interest, taxes, and depreciation (EBIT) over the first half was negative €195 million, compared to a gain of €97 million in the first half of 2023. That’s a net change of €292 million (US$305 million) in the wrong direction. The bicycle segment accounted for a €117 million decline in EBIT, with 75% caused by special write-offs as KTM restructured the division. The motorcycle division was responsible for EBIT of -€78 million (-$81.7 million) compared to a positive EBIT of €117 in the first half of 2023. KTM attributes the EBIT results to a sales decline (with the U.S. being especially volatile), costs from restructuring its bicycle segment and increased production and personnel costs in Europe.
Reportedly, KTM attempted to stop the bleeding by reducing motorcycle production by 25 percent, cutting R&D costs, laying off workers, and restructuring the bicycle division. While all of this was happening, sales in the United States continued to fall while share prices in Pierer Mobility looked like the plot of a plane coming in for a very short final approach.
Further attempts to right the ship included reducing the executive board from six members to two members while appointing a new co-CEO. Then, just earlier this month, Pierer Mobility announced it was in need of hundreds of millions to make 2025 work.
Restructuring
Finally, as Bloomberg reports, Pierer admitted that KTM won’t be able to pay for a “very high three-digit million euro” financing requirement, leading to the company voluntarily filing for insolvency in Austria. The process is said to officially kick off with the self-administration filing to be completed on November 29.
Of course, we are a U.S.-based site, so some of you are probably wondering what the heck a self-administration is supposed to be. As German outlet Speedweek explains, if a European company is on the ropes, it can get a chance to save itself, from Speedweek and probably poorly translated from German:
The plan requires the approval of the creditors involved in the debtor. The entrepreneur decides who these are. As a rule, he will approach those who are crucial for the continued existence or implementation of the restructuring plan. The claims of the non-involved creditors remain unaffected by the process and must be paid in full. This also includes employee claims. There is no provision for the court to notify the privileged creditors’ protection associations. However, the debtor or a creditor can actively bring an association into the process.
The European restructuring procedure is made public by the courts. At the request of the debtor company, creditors must also register their outstanding claims with the court in this procedure, as in insolvency proceedings. The European restructuring procedure meets the requirements of the EU insolvency regulation and is particularly recommended for those companies that have assets in other EU countries, as it is also recognized there.
Speedweek notes that Pierer Mobility had about 300 million euros in debt in 2022, but that number shot up to 1.5 billion euros during this year’s catastrophe.
In the short term, KTM says customers shouldn’t see any changes on their end. Dealerships will still sell and service motorcycles and the company still has new bikes in the pipeline. Instead, the changes will be behind the scenes. KTM will pause motorcycle production for January and February to help stabilize flooded dealers while also laying off an additional 300 workers.
Pierer also hopes to negotiate with its creditors to extend the maturity of about $262 million of debt and when the production facilities come back online, they’ll be producing fewer machines, too. For now, the company is going to spend the next three months ironing out agreements with its creditors.
So, if you own a KTM, the good news is that everything will be fine for now. However, the next three months are going to be critically important in determining if we’ll see quirky orange motorcycles for years to come.
(Images: KTM)
Definitely not seeing many bikes anymore. The younger guys I talk to are mostly not interested, and with the awful drivers out there I can’t say I blame them. I rode street for about 15 years before giving it up when I became a father. I couldn’t justify the risk anymore. Watching my Ducati being hauled off by its new owner and knowing my street days were done was a sad day, but also a bit of relief considering that I had ridden so long without a major injury or worse. That new owner totalled the bike a few weeks later and was in the hospital BTW.
I stick to dirt trails now. It’s not without risks of course but at least I don’t have to worry about a massive quad cab with a high driver on his phone.
Right with you. I rode for years. Gave it up when my kid was born until about 12 years old started up again. Every time I rode I nearly got hit by an inattentive driver. Gave it up again around 50 y.o. Even Sat night I was behind someone watching youtube videos while driving. I miss motorcycling very much but no again sadly.
No one should ever buy MV, they are a cursed company. The only people having any luck buying it is the Family when (insert previous owner) sells it back to them for 1 Euro.
MV is the Maserati of bikes, haven’t been genuinely good since the 60s, only sell vehicles off that legacy, and are likely to destroy your balance sheet.
I would have liked to buy a KTM, but for the price I really could not justify it and ended up going with a new KLR which has turned out to be an excellent machine.. Couldn’t justify spending decent used car money on a 3 season vehicle .
KTM’s are great bikes, but they’re usually more expensive than all their competitors. Combine this with inflation, and people will search for cheaper options. One thing to note as well is that KTM doesn’t manufacture the hottest item in the powersport industry right now- UTVs. UTVs are selling like hot cakes, and KTM does not make a single one. Polaris can justify selling a $40,000 machine because it’s hot in the market and something the whole family can enjoy. Motorcycle purchases are mainly done by single young males, which is someone who generally doesn’t have a lot of money to cough up right now.
This is slightly mind boggling, it’s been a little over a decade that I’ve been riding and following motorcycling and KTM has been going up that whole time, so to see it coming crashing down on just one year (which I haven’t been following bikes much honestly) is quite a shock for me.
“Pierer Mobility AG also owns the Husqvarna and the Gas Gas motorcycle brands.”
They also owned Husaberg, but sun-set that brand and rebranded the dirt bikes as Husqvarna once they bought it off BMW.
I think they just expanded too much too quickly. What was at one time the obscure fifth brand (against well known Honda, Suzuki, Yamaha & Kawasaki), is now a huge conglomeration of KTM, Husaberg/Husqvarna, GasGas, MV Augusta, XBow cars and Indian/Chinese tie ups.
They definitely did the “grow production fast, ignore QA” mistake that so, SO many companies have done. KTM as a brand always had some quality issues but they increased with the expansion.
I wonder if the terrible driving habits of most car drivers has contributed, i personally stopped riding after 2 good friends were killed by inattentive drivers. I would love to ride on the road again but seeing as people drive so shitty i can’t risk it. Ill stick to the dirt as altimas dont seem to make it too far into the woods to get me.
It certainly contributed to why I no longer have any desire to ride a motorcycle again. When I was almost in a head on collision due to some idiot driving the wrong way on a one way street I was done.
I’m part of this club too. A few years back, I was out on a country ride and I was headed westbound on a 1.5 lane width rural road and some teenager in his overgrown, shrunken penis, daddy bought, diesel truck had his phone in front of his face while driving towards ma and I had to hit the ditch to avoid being a hood ornament for a fluffmobile. When I did, I had been able to slow down to about 30 but that wasn’t enough to keep me out of the field where a corn stalk got shoved through my jeans and about two inches into my shin. Kid never stopped and I had to ride 25-30 miles back home in excruciating pain and with limited mobility in my leg like that. I reported it and the kid turned out to be one of the local wealthy farmer’s d-bag sons and he was never even questioned even though I was able to describe his truck to a t, down to the stickers in the back window. The pigs’ excuse? A lot of people have those stickers. . .
And there it is: We 5 boys in our family of 6 all drove motorcycles. One by one accidents caused by car drivers (tom) and watching how people drive like fuken morons (bill), and cancer death (Fred) and insolvency (John) leaves just Joe with 2 Beemers. He goes out every so often on a Sunday morning along lake drive with a 1 or 2 other riders about 30 miles north of here and they stop for coffee and return home. (Fred had 6 motorcycles when prostate cancer took him out). I love motorcycles Mercedes and every time you post about Royal Enfield I, well I sort of swoon at the idea of that delightful looking nostalgia piece. Then I look at the weight, girth, and height of the SUV’s and say “Nope, not going to do it”
Definitely has made riding less attractive. Between cell phones and the proliferation of quad-cabs and 3 row SUVs it’s pretty scary out there.
While I haven’t had any horrible close calls, I stopped riding a number of years ago as life sort of got in the way plus increasingly bad drivers on the rise. The bad drivers have gotten even worse in recent years, which has been a big reason why I haven’t returned to riding. Add to that the increasingly nasty hot summer weather even in the more northern regions where I live, and it’s getting downright unpleasant to be fully suited-up for safety in the height of riding season.
Maybe I’ll return to smaller motor scooters for easy, more efficient short errand-running and lower-speed urban transportation… But I’m afraid that riding a good, high-powered bike is less appealing in the face of worse and worse conditions.
I’ve often thought that before anyone is allowed to get a license to drive a car, they need to learn to ride a motorcycle, or even just a medium-size motor scooter first. It helps you develop a healthy respect for the road and other drivers and helps forge good safe driving and situational awareness habits. Maybe we wouldn’t be in this predicament if more drivers learned on two wheels first. We can hope that the increasing popularity of E-bikes might instill some better habits in drivers as they realize that without the mass of a car around them, they need to learn important safety habits. But then again, maybe a lot of them are hopeless cases…
I wouldn’t say that’s the primary reason I stopped riding after 20 years, but it was definitely a contributing factor. My Miata does 90% what my two-wheelers did but with weather protection, climate control, some semblance of crash survivability and my wife is willing to join me. I have no desire to own a motorcycle ever again.
My theory about the decline of motorcycle sales is that it corresponds directly to the advent of e-bikes. Most of humanity lives in cities. In cities, e-bikes are better than motorcycles for a variety of reasons (purchase price, insurance, maintenance, licencing, traffic rules, gear, parking…). It can’t account for all the difference but cars outnumber motorcycles in Canada 100:1 and in Toronto there are far more bicycles moving on any given street than motorcycles. For a trip <10km in the city (which is far, in a city!) e-bike wins hands down.
I’m a bit confused about the relationship between Pierer Ag, KTM Motorcycles, and KTM Bicycles. KTM Bicycles has a big splash on their front page saying they’re not affected by the insolvency. https://www.ktm-bikes.at/clarification
I got this bit from Wikipedia and now I’m more confused:
Additionally, further down the page they mention that KTM Fahrrad is the exclusive licensee to manufacture bicycles and bicycle accessories. So if they’re just licensing the name it makes sense they aren’t affected by it.
They should have stayed with the full name : Kraftfahrzeuge Trunkenpolz Mattighofen sounds great for export.
Maybe people just aren’t stupid enough to pay European prices for bikes built in China and India.
I can understand why companies build in these places to save money, but it needs to translate to savings for the customers as well or else its just seen as greedy.
Exactly, KTM is one off the most expensive brands out there and Honestly, the Indian thing has kept me away from them and Jaguar in recent years.
My family owned numerous Jags across different generations, none were good. Ford era was no better than British. The bar was on the floor so I can’t imagine India made it much worse but every year I’m surprised by the lack of quality control / longevity in vehicles.
Motorcycles have sold poorly for a couple of reasons, honestly.
There are hundreds of used bikes in excellent condition for pennies on the dollar. I bought a used BMW off a dealer that had low miles, was in excellent shape and was 1/6 the price of a new one. Why would I buy new. I am an oldster who doesn’t use any of that techno stuff, outside of the power center stand.
Yeah, I think that has a huge part. Americans largely ride for fun and many riders don’t put a ton of miles on their bikes. That’s great for the second owner who could pick up a bike with like 5,000 miles for a fraction of the price of new.
Of course, there are exceptions to the rule. Used Honda Groms don’t seem to be much cheaper than new unless they’ve been crashed a bunch of times.
I think you’re right about that: I also don’t care for the tech crap. I bought a motorcycle because it’s a seat on an engine with wheels. It’s fast and fun and easy to use in cities and on country roads: that’s why I have it. Why should I spend 996 money on a motorcycle?
I honestly think this is the primary reason for declining bike sales in the US. Why would anybody buy a $10k+ new bike when you can get one with identical performance for $2k used? Over the past few years I’ve seen tons of people my age (30) and younger get into bikes, and obviously none of them bought new. We’ve reached a point where there are enough used bikes out there for just about anybody who wants one, and the US’s lack of vehicle inspections mean old bikes stick around much longer than in Europe or Asia.
Here in North Carolina, motorcycles have to get inspected before they will issue a license plate. My 20 year old Suzuki has to get inspected. I forget what the cutoff age is for being inspection exempt. My 40 year old Beemer doesn’t need an inspection. But you don’t see many 40 year old bikes around. Too many crashes by inexperienced riders I guess.
Interesting, didn’t know that. In Ohio you can get a plate on anything so long as the VIN has the right # of digits… Sure that leads to some questionable stuff on the roads, but hey, that’s the price of freedom
In NY everything gets inspected. Obviously if you go old enough there are a lot of things that don’t need to be present (my 73 honda, for example, didn’t have an always-on headlight), but regardless of age it needs to get checked.
I don’t have any data on it, but I reckon small mopeds have been selling perfectly well to delivery drivers.
Too many factors here. Chinese bikes, E bikes and disappearing riding areas are all at play, gutting the motorcycle market. Street bikes have been declining since 2010
Even with new tech and adventure bikes. Toss in rising insurance rates, aggressive drivers and terrible roads and the joy is gone.
The bicycle market is probably even worse than the motorcycle market right now. There continues to be a glut of bicycles and e-bicycles and everyone is sitting on excess inventory. You can still new 2022 bikes and frames from well known brands today. I don’t think I’ve ever seen a KTM bicycle and I’ve seen a lot of brands on the trails. They are newer to the bicycle market so are probably suffering even more than older brands.
KTM bikes have been around for well over a decade in some markets but distribution outside Europe was always incredibly patchy.
The deals available on bicycles don’t seem to match the magnitude of glut. I want a new bicycle, but 5% savings is nothing remarkable, especially for a two year old model
During the pandemic I purchased a Specialized Epic frame and it was at MSRP. 4 Months a go I purchased a new 2021 Specialized Stumpjumper frame for my wife and it was 40% off. It does depend a bit on the type and brand. The biggest bike companies (Trek, Specialized, and Giant) are still sitting on a lot of inventory in certain categories. Brands like Scott have had to seek bailouts by investors: https://www.cyclingweekly.com/news/scott-receives-pound137m-loan-as-industry-overstocking-crisis-bites Shimano, the largest bike parts maker has seen large drops in sales: https://www.bicycleretailer.com/international/2024/10/29/shimanos-bike-product-sales-down-12-so-far-year Overall it is terrible time to be selling bicycles.
Where are you shopping? In the USA every big bike manufacturer had 20%+ off retail at the end of summer. Even the niche high end brands had big discounts. This season was brutal for bike shops, who bought inventory at normal wholesale and got screwed. The industry overcompensated for post-Covid demand and now there’s a glut. It’s a wonderful time to buy a new bike.
I have one! A Revelator Sky I built up in 2020. Been very happy with it
They mainly focus on the German/French speaking markets. B&B hotels pro conti team rides them. I believe they were briefly distributed in North America by Accell, when that company was dying. Pretty sure they only brought over the Revelator as a high end road option though after the DB Podium failure. Which happened to be getting panned in the press at the time. So, more timing. Pretty early company into e-MTB, and I believe that’s kinda their bread and butter currently.
I ride dirt bikes in SoCal and we’re losing multiple MX tracks. Desert is dangerous now due to all the drunks side-by-sides. My dual sport costs the same as a car to renew the registration. I’d never invest in a new bike in this climate, I come closer to selling my dirt bike stuff off and just riding mountain bikes.
Can’t think of any automotive company that went on a purchasing binge for decades and didn’t get in hot water.
Apropos of not much besides “also motorcycles,” I can tell you that literally just having come back from motorcycle shopping with my gf there wasn’t a single KTM she fit on. Her feet weren’t even close to touching the ground, even on a Duke 390.
She’s been very constrained by size concerns, and has basically had to factor in the cost of lowering into every motorcycle. When we walked by some adventure bikes she was said “holy shit, I didn’t even realize they made bikes that big.”
So. 95% irrelevant, but just throwing that out there.
Opposite here.
When I was learning to ride: it felt as though all the small/medium displacement bikes were made for riders under 5’7. When I was younger, I dreamt of getting a Yamaha R6, but there’s no way I could ever fit.
Yeah, that’s how I feel. I sat on a few and it felt like being on a Power Wheels. For her though, the R3 was a two-foot tiptoe. She just got her endorsement this week and isn’t confident on a bike yet, so one-footing is out of the question.
She had a really bad experience trying to do the MSF at a Harley dealership, being made to try to learn on a bike where she couldn’t touch the ground, and every time she tried to put a foot down the bike was so great and had so much momentum she dumped it.
I was pretty pissed at the Harley dealership and she internalized a lot of bad feelings and some admittedly valuable lessons about what will work for her
Oof.
Bikes like the Buell Blast were the bikes we needed but didn’t appreciate. With a high/low seat option, light weight, forgiving plastics when dropped, simple power delivery, and reasonable purchase price.
I still feel like Harley did everyone a disservice by not carrying on with it – to raise that next generation of motorcyclist to get the basic skills and buy more motorcycles.
Seems like a Yamaha TW200 would suit your gf perfectly
She’s dead set on a sport bike and locked in on R3s some months ago. We actually saw what I thought was a very pretty Ninja 500, but she’s been dreaming and daydreaming and researching relentlessly and really wants an R3.
Her initial criterion was that, every time she saw a made that made her think “damn, that’s a cool bike,” it was an R3, and she wanted a bike that cool. Meanwhile, I bought mine literally not even caring what color it was. I have preferences, of course, but when it was clear what was going to fit my body and 1000 year old knees, color was the first consideration to go.
Did you check out the newer Kawasakis? The Z400 has been calling my name for some time now. That whole class of entry level bikes has come so far in the last few years – it’s pretty awesome. I see a lot of the 300-400cc bikes around, and with the Groms and other mini bikes they seem to scratch the itch for most people. I never had much need for a bike that could go any further than my 12 mile commute to work but it was nice having highway capability – and I rarely spend more than an hour riding around on a nice weekend. Who needs a 600cc+ bike? I’d like one, but not a new one given what $5-6k gets you new in the smaller bikes these days.
I’m right there with your girlfriend. Every bike I like I seem to need to one foot it at lights if the road has a garde to it. I’m average hight at 5’8”, but must be all torso.
I’ve heard, motorcycles in general, but Harley Davidson men particular are hard to finance, because they’re hard to repossess. Not sure if that’s true, but would not surprise me.
^men particular is supposed say ‘in particular’
the typo added some flavor
This is what happens when you bypass the particular filter.
Regarding financing, some (all?) of the major motorcycle manufacturers have their own financial divisions offering new bike financing to their customers.
Wow! 20 years ago or so Harleys were very easy to steal. No steering lock. I guess they changed.
Former KTM dealer service manager here. They make some great bikes, typically higher priced, often more complex and more tightly focused that the Japanese competition.
But often, with the extra expense up front comes more expensive and harder to get parts and more complex and expensive maintenance too along with a thinner dealer network. And at least in the US, the bikes they sell are fun and fast discretionary purchases for recreational riding, not used for daily commuting. So people can always buy something cheaper, or hold on to their old bike if the budget is being pinched. Not to mention that motorcycles in general are competing for ever scarcer consumer discretionary time and dollars with things like cheaper huge screen TVs, $1,000 phones, streaming and stratospheric new car and truck pricing.
Not to mention motorcycles require actual effort to learn how to operate and enjoy. Guns are way easier (in the US).
A good perspective thanks.
That kind of goes along with my thinking from back in the day that KTM bikes were faster because they were wound tighter right out of the box.
As an aside on the effect of COVID on things, one has to remember the problems with electronics supplies and the crazy shipping costs and slow deliveries. I ordered a Kawasaki in November 2021 and didn’t get it until June 2022 and that’s from Thailand to BC, Canada. I heard LA container landings were worse. Now that would not effect KTM from Europe, which was its own mess, but one would think the China supplies would be similarly effected, although I remember CFMoto taking advantage of the situation and filling gaps on dealers floors here in Canada. Trying to map sales continuity year to year with a pandemic in the mix is a fools game, it was no good for anybody and if you’d spread yourself thin and tried to look dynamic, you might be panicking about now as things normalize.
I strongly disagree with your KTM sales pitch here^^
I’ve had japanese bikes all my life, but last year I sold my Ninja ZX-6R and bought a brand new KTM made in India by Bajaj, since I finally admitted that using a sportbike for mostly commuting is just dumb and a Duke would suit that use case perfectly.
Well, weeks into my ownership of an indian-made KTM I realized what is very likely the same realization of many first-time KTM owners: I will never buy another KTM, and I wouldn’t want one even for free.
The build quality is atrocious, the gearbox is by far the worst gearbox I’ve ever had the displeasure to use (reminds me of an old russian motorcycle my grandpa used to have, but somehow worse), the controls were falling apart (clutch lever worn out in 1000miles of riding, where it would wobble so much I had to replace it), rusty fasteners everywhere (again, after weeks of ownership, not decades), the chain stretched where I had to adjust it 3 times before 1200 miles, then replace it because it was so worn, the dash would sometimes not start up and was replaced under warranty within a month or two, even changing the oil requires replacing 3 filters for some reason on a pretty slow-revving single-cylinder engine. My actually high-strung japanese 4-cyl sportbikes all worked flawlessly for years and years of hard riding.
Now let’s turn our attention to the chinese CFMoto-made 2-cylinder KTMs and Husqvarnas, which would eat their own camshafts within a few thousand miles, and then KTM would promptly deny warranty claims and leaving owners with expensive repairs on almost brand new bikes. And these were not relatively cheap bikes like my 390, some of them are way over $10k.
All this is to say that in 2020-2023 many people bought KTMs, but due to how garbage they were turned a lot of them off the brand, and because we live in a connected world the entire riding community was made aware of these issues and subsequently sales cratered in 2024.
I bought a leftover 2020 690ER in 2021, knowing that the clutch slave cylinder would likely fail. And it did, after 250 miles. Other than that it’s been rock solid.
3 filters? The 690 has 2 filters you replace and two screens you just clean and reuse. A quick google search shows the 390 has one filter and 2 screens. You don’t actually have to replace the screens, you just blast them with brake cleaner.
A riding buddy bought an Adventure 390 this year, and although he only has about 900 miles on it he has had none of the issues you mention. Also the rev limit is 10,000rpm so I wouldn’t really call that slow-revving.
If you come from an old Ural, then a KTM is great, but if you’ve owned modern japanes bikes for any length of time, then maybe not so much.
Screens, filters, either way you have to take them out and replace or clean them and then put them back in. Any other bikes I’ve had, there was only one filter to deal with.
My 390’s rev limit is 9k, but it’s a ’23, they changed the engine in ’24 so maybe it revs higher now. Anyway it’s not 16k RPM like an inline-4 sportbike, which is what I call ‘high’revving’. Again, compared to the Ural, yes, the KTM is high-revving.
That above^^ was my take on KTM, based on my experiences.
Yes, and I’m sharing my experiences with KTM. I have another buddy with a ’23 Husky 701 and the only issue he’s had so far was a battery drain caused by a USB port he installed.
Of course maintenance will differ according to the manufacturer. My Z1000 has a single can style oil filter. My Tuono V2 has a pump inlet screen, cartridge filter and two drain plugs to deal with, plus filling it with oil almost takes more time than draining and replacing filters due to it being a dry sump setup.
Of course the 390 isn’t going to rev as high as a 600cc sportbike, why would you think that in the first place?
I never handled or dealt with India and China made KTMs. Believe me, the european made ones were enough of a pain in the ass at the time. We sold Bajaj india built Genuine Stella scooters and the build quality and manufacturer response to my warranty claims for those was so atrocious on our first shipment that I had to threaten to return the entire shipment to the manufacturer to get them to pay for the defects, before we had delivered the first one to the customer.
KTM CEO Stefan Pierer is a ego/meglomaniac. What a surprise not the he tried to do too much. He was the solution and now he is the problem.