RC 390's first service, pita

[Arahant]

So I took my RC 390 into the dealer today for its 1000km first service. Guy one the phone when I booked it(bike had about 950km then) said it would take about 1.5 hours.

So fast forward 5-6 days, the bike has 1600km now(not completely relevant to the thread title, but just wanted to say I'v been piling on the mileage) and I bring it in to the dealer... dealer is like an hour's ride away so I have to wait at the dealership until its done.

When I get there guy who is there says it will take a couple hours..

So the time is going by slowly... an hour.... then two... then three..... then four... by the time it was done it was over 5 hours, holy F***! They said it took longer because they had to check the valves..., also... they couldn't figure out how to reset the service indicator... that took them awhile trying to figure it out, as its different then any of the other KTM bikes they have worked on.... they were on the phone with KTM for like 30-40 minutes... KTM couldn't figure it out either, seriously they didn't know... and the dealer called both the canadian and USA lines.... nobody knew anything... finally the KTM guys say the procedure is in the book that comes with the bike... which they didn't elaborate on. So after getting off the phone they look in the book and couldn't find it, I looked to I couldn't find it, it might be in there but we couldn't find it. What they told me is with all the other bikes they plug in the diagnostic tool and there is a way to reset the service indicator using that, but it wasn't working with the RC 390.

Finally I had enough and they had enough and they finished up with the bike and parked it outside for me, I decide I'm just going to look it up online, I should have done this from the beginning but I wasn't privy to everything that was going on back there untill a fair amount of time had passed.... sure enough I find a post on this very forum of a guy who made a youtube video on how to change the oil and reset the indicator.... you just have to hold down the button for 10 seconds..... lol..... we both thought that was pretty funny. I'm not suppose to know these things though so.

What a shitty day though, I thought 1.5 hours would suck... I literally walked circles in their showroom for hours apon hours... I took a few naps... was a beautiful day to for a ride but by the time I got out it was hot and I wore leather there in the morning when it was cold... I seriously don't really want to ever go back there again, although I can't honestly say how much of it is there fault maby this is how long it takes... they said they've never been trained on working on the RC 390, that only training facilities are in california or something... I dunno.

Sorry if this is in wrong forum, I didn't see a maintenance subforum.

Oh yeah they didn't charge me for all the extra time, price came to about 450$ cnd with tax... which is about 350 USD.

 

[Bagwell]

Its not the easiest to get to the valves on this bike. When I check/adjust valves I usually let the bike sit overnight to cool thoroughly. Im surprised they did the valve check then. Did they have to adjust the valves at all? If so, which ones? Did they note how much stuff was in the screens and oil filter and oil?
Glad you got it done, took me a while to find the correct size shims on mine.

 

[RobbiRob76]

I owned a Honda Dealership 11 years anytime we checked valves, if the bike was ridden in, it sat overnight before we checked valves. No exceptions

 

[Treachery]

Yeah, my dealer wouldn't let me ride in for that reason. They wanted the engine stone cold.

Arahant-the "nowhere close to book time" experience on the first service seems to be universal. It appears to be a combination of dealer inexperience/unfamiliarity with the RC and an incorrect time estimate by KTM. The downside is the a**-sitting, the upside is that we're getting the service done before they change the time charged for.

 

[Arahant]

Yeah it could have been worse, I wouldn't have minded it if I lived close and just dropped the bike off... I don't really blame them as they havn't been trained on the bike, and its good to hear from other's that this is fairly normal.

The bike was definately not cold when I dropped it off, I had been out riding it around for like a couple hours atleast. I didn't even know they were doing the valves, all I asked for was the 1000km service... they must have thought for whateve reason it was good to do at same time... hopefully there won't be any problems with it being done while it was warm. Perhaps this explains it taking longer if they did other stuff on the bike while waiting for it to cool down.

I'm not very technically minded(yet) so they didn't share anything about the valves with me, I'm hoping to learn all this stuff as I go.

The bike does seem to run smoother, I had almost 1700km's on it so it was due for the service who knows what was in the oil/filter.... I noticed it seemed to start to have abit of extra vibration the day before taking it in, and seemed to be fine when it was done the service. It could have been in my head, who knows, bike is already pretty vibey.

 

[Treachery]

Checking and adjusting the valves if necessary is a part of the 1000km service. I had to trailer the bike in and sit on my a** for around seven hours while I was their test subject. Two other RCs had been sold at the dealer and a couple of Duke 390s as well, but mine was the first one back for service. I had lunch and a nap...

 

[Arahant]

Yeah I had lunch and a nap to... then walked in circles looking at the bikes in the floor for the other 4 hours... I'm assuming that mine was also the first bike back for service at this dealer considering they didn't know how to reset the service indicator which took a huge chunk of time and which I had to ultimately show them how to do it, thanks to another user on this board... I think its awesome that the answer I needed was on here and even KTM themselves couldn't give us an answer.

I looked at some of the other bikes while I was there, they had 2 RC8's.... one was track only I believe... called RC8 RS? in anycase they were pretty nice... And there was a bunch of the adventure bikes... 1190's or something, dirtbikes... what struck me was how most of the bikes are really meant for tall people especially the dirtbikes which I want to bike one up, kinda sucks for us vertically challenged people. Now that I got my RC 390, which I love btw... I realize I probably would have been better off getting a bike with a more upright seating position for comfort.... like a duke 390.... problem is for my next bike I don't think I want to get a bike that has same CC's... I'd obviously go something abit bigger.... but while a duke 390 is great because its actually shorter seat height then the RC, the duke 690 is taller then the RC... 34 inches I think? But I like the seating position by the looks of it although I havn't sat on any, I really should have done that while waiting at the dealer.

Anyways I'm getting offtopic, thanks for the comments and perspective.