Aha! Just as I ranted off about the 6 negatives of Duke 390, which primarily contained my disdain for KTM ECU maps being fucked up, Autocar reports that soon official KTM ECU maps will be available for purchase in the market.
This is great news for all Duke 200 and 390 owners, who were sick and tired of trying to tame good hardware with bad software. I for one am looking forward to this with great interest, since I would like to keep my 390 under warranty as long as possible.
Official KTM ECU maps
KTM India is developing two maps for the Duke brothers, a performance map and a city map. These maps will be certified by KTM Austria, to make sure the reliability and life of the bikes stays unaffected. The new maps will be made available for installation at KTM service centres at a price not disclosed yet. One map can be installed at a time, with switching between maps needing another trip to the service centre.
The best part is that your warranty will stay unaffected! This, for me, is the biggest advantage of going the official way. KTM Duke bikes come with 2 years, unlimited mileage warranty, and voiding that by going for an aftermarket ECU map doesn’t make a lot of sense to me. I know a lot of guys who were fed up with their Duke’s handling and power delivery, so they went in for ECU upgrades via KIIRUS or some other brand. They have reported a significant improvement in the bike, but the 12,000 cost of the remap and the consequential voiding of warranty is too much a price to pay for me.
KTM Roadside Assistance
KTM is also planning to roll out a comprehensive roadside assistance program, called Orange Assist. This will also be a paid service and will provide the following options:
- Flatbed van in case of a breakdown
- Fuel delivery in case you run out of gas
- Medical help in case of an untoward incident
The KTM Roadside Assistance will be provided within 100 kms of each service center, so that would cover a lot of India, since they have an extensive network of around 60 service centers, which is expected to go up to 90 soon.
Both of these moves by KTM are welcome ones. KTM has shown, time and again, that they are the pioneers in the Indian biking industry. They are the ones that brought us performance biking at a budget. They are the ones that gave us standard ABS in a bike. And they are the ones that gave us high performance tires like the Metzelers. With initivates like these, they are only going to get more respect from us than ever! Good work guys.
I have read something else. http://overdrive.in/news/ktm-not-bringing-alternate-engine-maps-to-india/
Orange Assist might be true though. Lets hope for the best.
Yeah man, looks like it was just a false rumors.
With Hero’s 31PS HX250R preparing for launch this year with switchable maps at the touch of a button, it ain’t gonna be easy for Bajaj-KTM to counter that threat. Also Bajaj-KTM don’t have any 250cc option in their portfolio, a Pulsar 250 would have been ideal to counter Hero’s threat.
HX250R is still in concept stage Reeto, there is no telling what would make it to production and what will be axed.
Good news for Duke owners. The only hitch I witness is the fact that only one map can be installed at a time, why can’t KTM develop switchable maps. Its not gonna be possible for many riders to keep going to the service center time and again to switch maps as per requirement.
Yeah, that would be pain. At least it’s a step in the right direction!