Superduke and oil problems?

Hey guys,

It's been forever since the last time I visited the forum, must say that the past year has been pretty insane and hectic !!

Anyway. So I ride my SDuke on a daily basis plus the week-ends, I've had it for about a year now, it's an '08 model year that I bought with 300 miles from 3 Brothers in Costa Mesa. The bike has been nothing but a blast so far and I've put just about 9500 miles on it over the past 14 months I've had it I think.

It's always been serviced at GP in San Diego since they became (finally) an official KTM dealership, no problem there either. And always serviced on time.

Today I was about to leave my place and noticed that both the oil and coolant levels were ... bad. Oil was not even visible in the sight tube anymore and coolant way down close to the lower limit.

I added some Mobil1 10W30 that I could find at a local gas station and for the coolant, well, it's still ok, I'll wait for Tuesday to take it to GP since the bike, I think, is almost due for a service anyway.

I wanted to have your feedback regarding your personal experience and oil/coolant consumption from the bike? Is this normal? Not?

Give me your thoughts and ... HAPPY NEW YEAR EVERYONE !!! Have not been able to ride with anybody from the forum around San Diego just yet, so it's part of my new year resolutions ! Contact me !

Cheers,
JuL

if your coolant bottle becomes empty and you can't find an external leak.....it's probably time for a new WP seal, shaft, impeller and bearings.

it's normal for an SDR to consume some oil between changes.

Thanks for the reply Alan. Well it's not empty empty, it's getting low, but I have NEVER topped it by myself before in between services though... ? (And I have not this time either, it's still above the lower limit).
I was more concern for the oil but it seems to be fine.

Was should be the normal mileage for the "WP seal, shaft, etc..." and cost that comes with this just to know?

Sorry, mistyped, I meant "WHAT should be ..."

thanks for the feedback. I wanted to have some other users opinion just to learn a little bit more about the bike from others' experience. Jesse's the best! Quite honestly I NEVER worry about the bike or do anything on it myself since these guys take care of it...

Cheers

I bought mine with 200 miles so it was pretty new after my first service I started riding with some fast friends. We live in AZ and did some 200 miles rides at some high speed top end runs on the back roads.We were doing 100 mph+ for miles.I checked my oil and it was low I was worried so I called my friends at a KTM dealer.They told me oil loss is normal since I use KTM oil full synthetic In fact oil loss is built in the engingering.I was told that oil loss will be normal until the rings seat.That takes a while since we use a synthetic when the motor is new,The more you flog it the more oil you will use.This was crazy for me I am not used to motors that are good and use oil.So you just have to keep a eye on it .I use wet wetter since I track my bike I have not seen any loss.I flushed the whole system when I switched. The old stuff was black which i thought was weird.Now I know it's all good in there.

The other thing to remember is that high to low on the oil sight tube is only a 300ml difference - so it may seem bad but its not really.

Also due to the dry sump system the oil level can be a little tricky to establish - unlike a normal bike where the oil will drain back to the sump and give a consistent reading.

On my bike I've found the coolant doesn't like to be topped up to the max mark but prefers to sit just above the half way mark when cold.

I would just top up both fluids and just keep an eye on.

wait..you bought it with 200 miles and you're going over 100?
from what i've been told at the dealers is that the bike isn't broken in until 600 miles.
within break in period you're not suppose to go over 6k rpms.
is this true?

Hey Guys,

Thanks so much everyone for adding comments, very cool of you. The bike is at the shop, GP's giving it some TLC, I'll let you know when I hear back from them.
I also had another problem last week-end: It cut off on my twice during my last ride, micro-cuts, like a split second, only power loss but violent enough to almost throw me off the bike! Everything was still on, dash, electrical, etc... but power cut off twice... Once at 75mph in 6th gear, riding steady and another time taking off at a red light, full throttle on the 1st gear...???

they're looking into it.

"It will bash your balls into the tank and try to chuck you over the bars" = AH AH AH !! Awesome.

No it was not though, it cut off at around 5000rpm in first... ??

the level in the coolant bottle will lower a little between coolant changes because there is some air trapped even with bleeding. it will get displaced to the coolant reservior eventually.

as far as evap the cooling system is CLOSED on my SD so where can an ENTIRE reservior bottle of coolant go?

as far as making 'hard and fast' judgement I wasn't insisting to the OP his WP is leaking. it's easy enough to inspect for oil/water mix inside the engine.