NHTSA Complaint #11437948 — 2021 KTM 790 ADVENTURE R

When running the motorcycle on the manufacturer-recommended 91+ (premium) octane fuel, the engine can take up to 5 or 6 tries (over the course of a few minutes) to start when it's sat overnight. When the engine eventually does start it runs very rough on only one (of two) cylinder. During this rough starting there is an overpowering smell of raw/un-ignighted fuel coming from the exhaust pipe. There seems to be some kind of issue with the fueling or ignition timing that prevents the engine from running properly on 91+ octane fuel. Switching to a slightly lower 89 (mid-grade) octane fuel mostly, but not completely, seems to fix the issue. However this fuel is not rocommended by the manufacturer due to the high compression ratio and I'm worried that it might cause damage in the long term. The bike was taken to the KTM dealer who performed a reset of the factory ECU; however, this did not help the issue at all. Reading online, I've found dozens of people with other 2021 KTM 890 Adventure motorcycles experiencing the same issues e.g. no start, hard starting, running on one cylinder, etc. Running on only one cylinder and sometimes dying is a major safety issue.