It's weird, they have that reputation... yet many people still swear by them. I was at the Big Suzuki dealer 3 years back that sells ktm also, lots of them. I spoke with a dude outside beside one of those big 1290 ADV bikes. It was all farkled up, looked nice. I asked him about the reliability stuff, assuming he'd say his had been fine, but it had recently spent 2 months in the dealership over some weird electronic fault. They'd replaced a few components, then the ECU, then the whole wiring harness. I was dumbfounded! It wasn't the first issue he'd had with it either. "That must have Pi$$ed you off" I said. Oh no he replied, I have two of these so I wasn't off the road.
The story only got weirder when I spoke to one of the salesman about their reliability and he went into a sales pitch about how KTM is 120% behind every bike they sell and any issue is fully sorted out fast. Great I thought, but I just want a bike that rarely if ever has any issues. That's when I went off and bought the Yamaha T7 as my first AVD bike. You go to the T7 problem thread on ADVrider and you'll read about issues like. "It's snowing outside, I can ride" "I can't find one for sale"