KTM 350 EXC-F Long Term Review

g'day guys steve with broken sprocket it's been one year since i've purchased this ktm 350 excf and here is my long-term review on the bike the things i don't like what i think could do with improvement and things that i do like let's get started i'll start firstly with the things that i don't like about the bike the first thing that i didn't like about the bike was it has no radiator fan so the first time that i rode this bike the very first time i rode the bike i boiled the bike over it just spilled out of the top of the radiator steam and radiator fluid was just pouring out everywhere and i was only 10 or so minutes into the ride and the bike had boiled over brand new bike it should come with a fan i know most bikes do and so should this one this one here cost me an extra 330 dollars just to stop the bike from boiling over i think it should come with a fan the second thing i noticed when i bought the bike was it was very hard to find the rear brake pedal the brake tip is extremely small and hard to get your foot to reach it and especially when you put these covers on it it makes it even more difficult to find the brake pedal i also think it should come with some kind of an exhaust guard here because i've often burnt my pants on this brand new pants with a big hole in it where the exhaust has burnt straight through the brand new pants so i think there should be some kind of an exhaust guard that just comes here just to protect your pants and also protect your leg from becoming burnt this here is actually a piece of my pants that are now stuck onto the exhaust the next thing i think it should have is some kind of disc brake protection this bike comes with absolutely nothing if it came with some kind of disc protection here it would be much better even my old motocross bikes come with at least a piece of plastic that can protect your disc in some way but this bike here comes with absolutely nothing good set of handguards i got talked into buying these ktm handguards these are proper ktm style handguards and i think they're terrible i'll show you why now the reason why i don't like these hand guards is because where the nut for the bolt is it hits right up on these hydraulic lines the one for the clutch and you can see the marks that are in it where the bolts were digging in and also it also hits the one here for the break and it pushes right up against this section here on the hydraulic line and i was always afraid that i was going to break him also these hand guards flex a lot so when you do drop it it kind of doesn't really do much it can still damage your brake levers and stuff like that which are the things you're trying to protect from when you crash the bike so i didn't like these hand guards at all so i just replaced them with the bike buster style of handguards which i like much better the seat cover i found that the seat cover was a very thin material and would rip extremely easily i had three or four rips in this in no time on very minor accidents even and i had to replace it with an aftermarket one now this one here is a lot thicker material in fact i think it's almost double the thickness to the standard material even though i have damaged this seat cover but it was a much more severe accident that damaged this seat cover but it didn't rip as bad as the original one would have done so i think the seat cover is a fairly thin and poor material the kickstand i find the kickstand isn't all that great on this bike if you're not on perfectly level ground and stable ground this bike will just tip over no matter what a lot of the times now i don't even bother with the kickstand i just leaned it up against a tree or something out in the bush because the amount of times i've come back to the bike after helping a friend or something else or just walking away from the bike and come back and find the bike laying on the ground is pretty much more than 50 of the time so the kickstand i don't know what the problem is with the kickstand but it seems to not support the bike overly well the next thing i didn't like about the bike was the tires it runs these maxis tires these are the worst tyres i've ever ridden on in fact the back tire even at brand new didn't really get that great attraction and the wear was very very bad didn't last very long at all so the tyres on this ktm that the kdm put on them when you get them from factory very poor tyres don't expect much from the tyres because you're not going to get much out of them they really need to look at their uh who they're getting their tires from and probably get something grip metal and then because they're not very good ties at all no kickstarter i think every enduro bike should have a backup kickstarter because if this battery goes flat out in the bush and i'm in a really bad situation where it's very hard to bump start the bike or anything like that i'd rather have a kickstarter that can help me out just to start the bike up again even my old suzuki had a backup kickstart yes it had electric start as well even for a suzuki but i have actually used that kickstarter in the bush when that battery has failed several times and to know that this one doesn't have one's a bit of a scary thing i just hope that it doesn't get a flat battery or some kind of electrical problem where the electric start won't work because it's going to be very hard to start this bike when you're in a really tough spot in the bush radiator protection don't you think it's about time that manufacturers give enduro bikes some kind of radiator protection i have damaged the radiators on this bike even with the aftermarket radiator protection that i have purchased these ones here they're not very good i wouldn't get them i'd get something more that's a full brace next time that i do it but i just think manufacturers should be giving you some kind of decent radiator protection at least on their enduro models of bikes the front sprocket on this bike was a 14-2 i've changed it to a 13-2 so now i've got 1352 i found with the 14-2 front sprocket it was a very tall bike and it flamed out much easier out on the hard single trails and stuff like that as soon as i changed it to a 13-2 i wasn't stalling the bike as much and the bike actually hooked up better and did the gnarlier type trails much better with that lower gearing so i think it should just come standard with a 13-tooth instead of a 14 so 13 2 front sprocket much better improvement the stickers the decals that this bike come with they're very poor quality and fall off from brand new yep from day one these decals were falling off in fact there was one that came up here and it was peeling off brand new out of the showroom this one here used to extend to here but i just cut it with a razor blade because it was peeling off same with the other side this used to come all the way up to here and i just cut it with a razor blade because they just peeled off brand new bike straight out of the showroom and the stickers are falling off it they need to do something about that the next thing of concern is the swin arm it's a very soft aluminium on this swing arm and there's also a problem here with this piece of rubber that protects the mud from the shock is rubbing away on the swin arm and it's making that wear away and damaging the swin arm i've seen on the internet it seems like a common problem actually my bike isn't too bad but you can see this piece of plastic wears away at your swin arm so i'm going to actually do a bit of a repair here i've seen people just uh glue a copper coin or something like that there and it stops it wearing away out of your swin arm because the metal on this one arm is extremely soft and this here will just wear it away so far in this video i've talked about the things that i think could be improved or the things that i don't like about this bike and you might be thinking to yourself i don't actually like this bike but that's not true now i'm going to go through the things that i do like about the bike the thing i like most of all about this bike is this 350 engine it will crawl with very low revs and climb some amazing hills and obstacles and different stuff with very little effort on this engine also it's very angry if you want it to be angry if you twist this thing's throttle it will absolutely launch and it's not a slow bike at all it's actually a very quick bike it's just that i ride it slow because most of the trails that i ride are slow technical enduro trails single trails with rocks logs hills and all these types of things so that's the type of writing that i mainly do and a lot of people will say why didn't you get a two straight because i don't feel as i'm fit enough to ride a two-stroke and i always wanted one of these free fifties and the best thing i've done is purchase this 350 because it is unbelievable on those types of trails i have done riding and things on this bike i could never have dreamed of doing on my old 450 but this bike here seems to do it with a lot of ease and uh stuff like that it's just unbelievable the engine is unbelievable in this bike and i'm very happy with the engine on this bike this bike is a very well balanced bike it's very light for a four stroke and it just goes true on the tracks it doesn't bounce you from side to side when you hit different things so the suspension is very nice and i've done very little to the suspension in fact i haven't touched the rear suspension at all and i've only gone down four clickers on the compression just so it will absorb those larger rocks and bumps and stuff like that when you're on those nasty single trails it just needed to be a little bit softer for those kinds of things other than that i have not touched the suspension and this bike is very nice to ride very well balanced and it actually makes me feel like a better rider than i really am and that's just because of the way the bike handles to me this is one of the best handling bikes that i've ever ever ridden the clutch this is the first time i've ever had a hydraulic clutch on the dirt bike and it's unreal when the engine warms up it doesn't change the characteristics of the clutch at all and it's just a constant you know what you're gonna get it's very light to use and this this bike will just crawl up anything with just feather in the clutch and and it will just take it on and it will just do what you want it to do unbelievable clutch i've never had a clutch like it very happy with the clutch in fact i actually cut my clutch lever in half and a lot of the time i'm on the trail just using one finger on the clutch and holding on for dear life very good clutch very impressed the brakes are unreal on this bike whether you're at high speed and coming on hard on the brakes it will not lock up unless you want it to lock up but it will just come on it will ease on if you want even on slow speeds you can just feather these brakes and they're unreal they won't lock or do anything that you don't want them to do they seem to have really great control so i'm really happy with the brakes on this bike the standard exhaust system on this bike it's very good it actually delivers quite a lot of power and the noise level is quite good you don't want to be roaring through the bush making a heap of noise and disturbing people and just being an absolute nuisance so this bike's actually fairly quiet full for four strokes four strokes normally have that sort of echoing sound through the bush and this one here is actually quite good so i'm pretty happy with the noise level on the exhaust and also the performance of the exhaust is quite good for a standard exhaust and i actually like the standard exhaust and i i wouldn't change it fuel economy on this bike it's actually really good on fuel now most of the single trails that i'll ride are pretty hard and pretty technical so you're only going at low speeds so i've had rides where i've gone for the majority of the day and i've not run the tank dry yet in fact i haven't even turned the low fuel light on on this bike yet so i don't even know how much it takes until you get low fuel but i've done rides that have been pretty difficult out with friends and stuff like that over 130 kilometers and the field light still hasn't turned on so the fuel economy on this bike is really good whereas other friends that have like the yamahas that have a little bit smaller fuel tank this tank's actually eight and a half liters and i think the yamahas are like 7.2 liters or something like that and those guys are often needing to find so another fuel source or carry fuel with them because uh they just can't get those higher kilometers that i can get with this bike here with a standard fuel tank my old 450 was a very small fuel tank from standard it was like 6.2 liters i had to put a 9.8 liter fuel tank on it but even with 9.8 liters on that 450 it wouldn't get the kilometers that i could get on this with eight and a half liters so the fuel economy on this bike is actually very good reliability i was always under the impression that ktms were over priced and unreliable bikes well they probably are overpriced because in australia these bikes are very expensive but besides for that the reliability on this bike this bike has never broken anything except the things that i've broken on it from falling off it but the reliability on this bike has been perfect never had one moment of trouble the oil servicing and stuff like that's very easy to do yourself in fact i've got a video on that if you need to know how to do it but it's also it's also simple to work on this bike even the air filter it's very easy to get to you just grab this fan fan off it goes and you have access to your air filter this is novelty to me because every other bike i've had i've always had to remove the seat to do that sort of thing but on this like here it's so easy to do and the airfield is actually very easy to get off the bike which makes it easier to change and stuff like that too so the uk kdm guys probably know all this already but this is my first ktm so this was quite a good surprise to find how easy it is to remove and replace this air filter no tools required [Applause] [Music] so that's one year's ownership of this bike it's done 1238 kilometers of nasty single trails 56.6 hours of riding and i'm very happy with this bike in fact it's the best bike that i have ridden it's the best bike i've owned and people that know me they know i didn't even want a ktm as i always thought they were overpriced and unreliable and the orange really doesn't do that much for me but over the last year i've grown to love this ktm i've even slightly becoming fond of the orange color so i love this bike i'm going to stick with it it's the best bike i've aimed and the best bike i've ridden would i recommend this bike to anyone else yep if you want a four-stroke engine road bike it's probably one of the best ones you'll find thanks for watching watch this video next or go to the broken sprocket video library and choose another top video if you're not a subscriber hit that subscribe button after all it's for free and guaranteed to make your day 20 better if you're already a subscriber and you're having a bad day just think it could have been 20 worse you can also follow broken sprocket on instagram so i'll see you in the next video

Channel: Broken Sprocket

Views: 20,370

Rating: 4.8777776 out of 5

Keywords: long term review ktm 350, dirt bike review, ktm 350, problems ktm 350

Id: dLPfsk3zjd4

Length: 16min 21sec (981 seconds)

Published: Tue May 04 2021