title: Kendo UI DropDownListFor selected value
body: <p>I have an ASP.NET MVC application and I use Kendo UI for a dropdown list with HTML Helpers. When I want to set a default value for a View that is for editing the data .Value() doesn't work. Here's my code for the View:</p>
  
  <pre><code>@(Html.Kendo().DropDownListFor(m =&gt; m.UserName)
           .Name("userName")
           .DataTextField("UserName")
           .DataValueField("UserId")
           .BindTo(Model.Mechanics)
           .Value(Model.UserName)
           )
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>And this is the code for the Action that gets the data:</p>
  
  <pre><code>public ActionResult EditServiceCart(int id)
          {
          var servCart = db.ServiceCarts.Where(x =&gt; x.CarId == id).SingleOrDefault();
  
          var mechanics = db.UserProfiles.Select(m =&gt; new MechanicsViewModel
          {
  
              UserId = m.UserId,
              UserName = m.UserName
  
          }).ToList();
  
          var model = new EditServiceCartViewModel
          {
  
              ServiceCartId = servCart.ServiceCartId,
              Mechanics = mechanics,
              UserName = servCart.UserName
  
          };
  
          return View(model);
      }
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>If I use a hardcoded binding (e.g .BindTo(new string[] {"Mechanic 1", "Mechanic 2", "Mechanic 3"})) .Value() works fine, but with my it's not. I saw that in the HTML the value that is displayed for the dropdown is in  and .Value method doesn't change it. It changed the value for the , which really is what I want but it's no matter because it's not displayed. </p>