Hey guys, curious if anyone else has had any issues with their 1290 dumping coolant from their reservoir?
First time it happened on mine was after following a school bus doing several stops through my neighborhood. It was on a 109f degree day and dumped coolant after being shut off for a few minutes. I thought maybe I put to much coolant in the reservoir even though it was between the min and full mark as it states to do in the manual. So the next day I just road it through the neighborhood at slower speeds in 107 degrees and then let the bike idle for 5 minutes or so with 213 degree oil temp. It did not spit coolant so I thought everything was probably OK, that I must have had to much in the reservoir. Now the whole time my temperature guage never went above 4 bars, as it's always on 4 bars whether highway speed on a cooler day or sitting in traffic on a hot day with fans blowing.
But the next short ride, when returning home, after shut down minutes later, it dumped more coolant out of the reservoir. Temp gauge reading its 4 bars. Now when the bike cools it will suck the reservoir back down to just above the minimum mark. When looking in the radiator and reservoir at the coolant, it seems to have small particals floating (not a lot) around in it. The bike has had the coolant replaced twice since new because of two clutch covers that were replaced under warranty for leaking oil through the cover itself.
I used to have the Duke 690 that 1 month into ownership had to have the water pump impeller replaced since it chipped itself rubbing against the cover. Inside the radiator and reservoir, it looked to have the same particals floating around. Now my bike has gone 8 or 9 thousand miles since the last clutch cover and coolant change with no issues.
Before getting my first Ktm,I always heard they had water pump issues. But the dealer of course told me that was no longer an issue with Ktm. I'm waiting to have my fuel tank replaced under warranty (which ends Nov. 6) which they will look at why it's dumping coolant and why my "cold" 105f degree starts are stumbly.
So anyone else experience water pump issues on their 1290? And does Ktm just have the water pump issues as their default?

Don't think the 1290 has the water pump issues similar as the 990.
What might be similar is that they are hard to bleed the last bit of air out of it.
On the 990 you needed to raise the front to do it, looking at the cooling circuit on the 1290 it might be similar but I'm not familiar with it.
I need to have a look in the manual to confirm.
Anyway from what you describe on your bike this seems to be the issue. It will probably go away after the air pocket is burped out.
Maybe if you have the opportunity to do it yourself easily, with the engine cold raise the front and with the cap off start it to burp the system.

I was going to also suggest that you need to make sure there was no air in the system.
As ktmguy suggested the 990 was prone to this problem, when ever I done a coolant change I would get the bike on my driveway (very steep) and run the bike with no radiator cap then keep topping up the coolant. Give it a while as you need to get the thermostat to cycle. It also had a bleed screw on the opposite tank which needed bleeding.
If this doesn`t fix the problem I would replace the cap as a last resort before getting into anything else.


viewtopic.php?f=28&t=25227&p=312251&hilit=coolant#p312251

My '15 was having issues spitting coolant out of the overflow. I took it to the dealership, and they said a valve in the tube was damaged. Fixed under warranty. Doesn't spit anymore

Guy, quick question. Would an unburped cooling system be able to ride for about 8,000 miles before showing any symptoms?