| Author | Message | ||
     Hangetsu |
In the old days when running petroleum based oil, I always changed my more frequently than what was recommended, cars every 2K and bikes somewhere between between and 2K. When running synthetic (AmsOil 20-50), do any of you feel there's any need to change the oil any more frequent than the factory recommended 5000? Or would I just be wasting lots of perfectly good oil and $$$? Any comments appreciated. Thanks. A- | ||
| Froggy |
This is debated, I change every 5k with the Harley Synth. Some change oil every thousand miles. This ain't the 1920s, oil isn't garbage like it was back then, I feel you are wasting your money and only raising the price of oil for the rest of us. | ||
| Hangetsu |
Good perspective Froggy, thanks. | ||
| Cyclonedon |
I use to change mine every 2500 miles but lately I go more and tend to agree with Froggy that 5000 isn't all that bad. | ||
| Florida_lime |
If it is good enough for Erik..... | ||
| Hangetsu |
Points well taken and that's more or less what I expected. I think I'll save a little time, money, and oil and ride a little more. Thanks all. | ||
| Thetable |
If I was putting 2000 miles a year on the bike, then 2000 would be a good number. In the meantime, I'll stick to 5k. Modern oil is good, and the numbers from manufacturers are typically very conservative. | ||
| Hughlysses |
I'm leaning towards the 5k interval with synthetic myself. If 5k is the factory recommendation with dino, that ought to be more than conservative with synth. Of course, if we want to be scientific about it, the best way to determine the oil change interval is to have a Used Oil Analysis (UOA) done on the oil. You send in a sample of your oil and a lab analyzes it for wear products, pH, viscosity, etc. Some guys REALLY get into this stuff; see http://www.bobistheoilguy.com for info. | ||
| Etennuly |
I changed the Dino stuff at 3,000. I switched to synthetic at 30,000 and now changing at 5,000. | ||
| Jphish |
The US consumer has been artfully brainwashed by the oil interests over decades - "change your oil every 3K miles or die". They have made Billions of $ & wasted billions of barrels off this very successful campaign strategy. Todays Oils are way beyond what they were even in the 90's. AMS oil puts out a 35,000 mi (or 1 year) oil that analysis reveals, after 15,000 mi in my Escape, its still doing it's job well. I change the filter every 6 mos - oil once a year. Hell, my ST1300 has a bigger a crankcase than my car. I run it to 10,000 between changes - AMS oil of course. 5K changes on the Uly is plenty soon enough. | ||
| Electraglider_1997 |
If you ride gravel or dirt where your air cleaner is sucking in abrasive dust then you'd better change more often. If not then go syn and 5000 intervals. I personally go about 3000 between and use syn. | ||
| Reepicheep |
I recycle my oil, so energy may be wasted in the recycling, but the oil isn't. Somewhere there were real live studies in real live motorcycles. My "take home" conclusion was that non synthetic shows significant degredation in 2500 miles, and full synthetic holds up well through 5000 miles, in normal use. I start to think about changing my full synthetic oil in the bike at 3500 miles. If it takes another 1000 miles before I get to it, I don't loose sleep. If it's convenient to do it at 3400 miles, I do it and don't loose sleep over that either. I don't think changing my synthetic oil at 5000 would have cost me any engine damage because the oil was worn out. There have been a few times though when changing my oil at 3500 miles may have prevented damage to my motor by getting me to check and refill oil that was running low, before it got low enough to hurt anything. Obviously, the right fix for that is just for me to check my oil level more often. And I do... for a while... and when I think about it... to see nothing remarkable. Then I do it less... and less... and less. Three years later, something really does go wrong, and I get the expensive smoke out the exhaust. Though now that I think about it, I trashed two motors in my 24 years of driving because I ran them out of oil. Both had extenuating circumstances. The first was a previous repair on an 81 prelude where a mechanic broke my my low oil pressure light and I didn't fix it. The second was on an 85 KLR-250 where a bike suddenly went from consuming no oil over 3000 miles to consuming 2 quarts in 300 miles. The only thing that could prevent this would be checking the oil with each refuling. Which I should really do... but don't.  There's my opinion. Worth exactly what you paid for it | ||
| Ratbuell |
I go 5k on everything we have that runs synthetic - all the Buells, and our Cummins (OK, so the Rotella T is a *blend*...but the damned engine holds in the neighborhood of *14* quarts!!). My 'recycling' plan is to Army regs - for every tankful of diesel we run in our M35A2 Deuce, I add one gallon of UMO. Or, if I have some quarts littering up the garage...it gets a little extra UMO That little bit of smoke keeps the bugs away while we're working in the woods. LOL. | ||
| Fubar |
5K with Synth for both Uly and truck. A few years ago I have a new Mercedes that came with Mobile 1. The indicator never said to change it, but I freaked out and did it at 18K. The dealer said it was unusual, but not surprising as they were mostly clean freeway miles. Never burned a drop of oil - but was totaled at 55K miles, will never know the long term impact. | ||
| Jcbikes |
I have been using rotella t 15w40 in my bike since new and have 25,000 on it with no problems. I do change the oil more often at around 1,500 miles because i have heard that non-syntetic oils break down quicker in these hot running air cooled engines. | ||
| Thetable |
My mother had a 98 C class, with the oil minder, usually hit around every 10k. 230k on the clock, and everything else started to fail, but the motor was still strong. | ||
| Dentfixer |
Using synthetics, I think we should be paying more attention to how often we change the oil FILTER. The new oils do their job, not so sure about any of the filters we can get. I think oil change at 5K is fine, but I also change the filter to a new one at 2.5K and top up with a tiny bit of fresh Syn3. | ||
| Jcbikes |
+1 on oil filter change at 2.5K with sny | ||
| Johnnylunchbox |
I had a friend who stress tested an old VW rabbit (already with considerable miles on it) by not changing or adding oil for 60,000 miles. Motor blew after 60,000 miles what a piece of crap. | ||
| Jlnance |
Or would I just be wasting lots of perfectly good oil and $$$? No one here knows. If they did, no one would believe them. If you want to know, change your oil at 3k miles, or however long you feel comfortable with. Send some of the used oil to Blackstone Labs and for $22.50, they will run an analysis on it and tell you what state it's in. If 3k comes up good (and I'm sure it will) go to 5k and repeat. You can keep extending it until the oil starts to show signs of breakdown. Then you will know the answer. | ||
| Johnboy777 |
""If 3k comes up good (and I'm sure it will) go to 5k and repeat. You can keep extending it until the oil starts to show signs of breakdown"" Is it the breakdown of the oil alone, that we are to be concerned with. Or the suspended particles, as well? . | ||
| Thunderbox |
If the oil filter is doing it's job there won't be any particles of a large enough size to cause any concern. A good filter to use is the new Amsoil Ea filters. But any good name brand filter will do the trick. | ||
| Thetable |
Oil analysis knows all. Blackstone gives great reports that basically say change more, change less, or keep on keepin' on, as well as the general status of things. | ||
| Dynasport |
I used to change my oil every 2500 miles. Now I go to 5000. I have a bit over 40,000 miles on my Dyna so far. No engine issues yet. I do run the expensive HD Syn 3. I used to run Mobil 1. It did get the Dino oil early on, but has been on syn oil for most of the miles. Maybe I will send the oil in to a lab, but probably not. I was actually hoping for some engine issues recently as I wanted an excuse for some upgrades. | ||
| Snakebreak |
Just to cover the obvious, that I didn't catch by going through the thread. Oil changes are related exponentially (as in decay) to how many miles you have on your engine. The newer your engine the more often you should change your oil. You don't need oil analysis you can see it. I always change my oil often with a new engine until I see it looking good, then I step back. I use cheap oil until I see improvement, then I switch to synthetic. In my dirt bikes which get huge stress, I change oil every time I ride for the first 10 or so times, and I use reusable filters. These are small volumes of oil and I do not think it is making OPEC rich. After that I do not have to worry. | ||
| Thunderbox |
What is wrong with following the manufacturers recommendations. Sounds pretty simple to me. They should know whats going on, why second guess them on what kind of oil and how long to leave it in the engine. Quit worrying about the oil and enjoy the dang ride. | ||
| Snakebreak |
"The further below freezing the shorter the oil change interval should be." Thunder, they don't really tell you how often you should change your oil. | ||
| Paul56 |
3k on synthetic. It's cheap insurance. On the other hand I regularly work on Cummins B5.9 diesel engines that are supposed to be serviced every 300 hrs, rarely get it at less than a thousand and most have gone over 20k hrs with no maintenance (not even valve adjustments!). I've never seen a major failure in a fleet of 200 vehicles. Modern oil is miraculous stuff. | ||
| Thunderbox |
Snakebreak, I don't think the important thing is the temp outside but more importantly to what temp you get the oil to come up to. If your ride is on the longer side cold weather doesn't have any effect on oil longevity. But your owners manual does have a guideline to change oil. I run the police fleet here and on occasion a vehicle may go 3 times the regular change interval. I used to do oil analysis when that happened but every time I did the oil came back good, so I stopped. I think the lubrication industry has, in general done a good job of ensuring we buy lots of lubricants by preying on our beliefs, expectations, habits and attitudes. I can totally believe Paul56 in reference to seeing no engine problems because in our 175 vehicle fleet we see 0 engine problems either and we drive our vehicles in some of the coldest weather imaginable. On average we drive our vehicles 137000 miles 90% city driving (220000 kms) before retiring them. The internals are exceptionally clean and they don't use much oil either. If you get peace of mind changing more often that's ok. But understand peace of mind is costing you money you really don't need to spend. I use synthetic in the bike and I go no less than 5000 miles (8000kms) between changes. I did a cross Canada ride 2 years ago 2 up and put over 8000 miles before changing it. My Uly uses no oil between changes. | ||
| Snakebreak |
You are absolutely correct about the temp. I was quoting from the service manual to make my point that they do not really tell you when to change your oil. They give you a general recommendation and temper it qualifiers. |
