i think in some cases there are just weak points. i was reasearching the water pump rebuild and KTMtwins.com they say this:
"Heading to Tierra del Fuego? Take along a spare. KTMTwins recommends replacing the waterpump every 10,000 miles." that sounds like a small amount of milage for a rebuild but better to do it then have it fail somewhere.
KTMs seem to be kind of high maintinence, ive had a lot of stupid problems with mine some would have cost me big, but to be fair KTM stepped up to the plate on those, and others just a pain in the ass to deal with. its never totally failed on me though just pissed me off mostly.
the brake issue has been detailed to death in other threads but that seems to be due to whatever evil stuff they put on their roads in Europe (for winter) corroding the pads to the discs.
havent heard of any clutch/transmition issues. ive had 3 KTMs and they all needed to be maintained well to stay running but they dont seem to self destruct. the RC8s had hard shifting transmissions but i believe KTM offered an upgrade for that and the problem was gone the following year.
every company has problems, look at the poor dudes that have to wait for new engines for their RSV4s that they have just taken delivery on!
