| Author | Message | ||
     Okc99 |
Just a thought, but given that I recently saw a tv show where they put vegetable oil in a 1985 Honda Passport scooter with 20k miles and most likely never had a oil change and it still ran...I'm wondering if just maintaining the oil level after the first 5k oil change is good enough. After all, has anyone ever heard a story of how an engine seized because of "old oil" being in the engine? I've never even heard that claim in cars. Just stories of low oil levels. Separately, I'm thinking of skipping the 10k service all together because I'm not convinced they really spend hours "inspecting" things. I'll just replace both sets of bearings and have them put on a new belt as preventative measures and call it my own personal 10k service. I'm prompted to do this because of all the 1980s bikes I see on the road and bump into in parking lots. The people I talk to seem to be putting on big miles on bikes that receive no where near the service attention that today's bikes "require". I guess I'm somewhat convinced a lot of these things are just money scams to put FEAR into the heart of the rider that he needs to "protect" his investment. Fear is a hell of a motivator. What do you guys think? Is there a service rebellion movement worth starting? | ||
| Prowler |
I'm thinkin' that the oil/filter change is probably the most important piece of service work you can do for your bike. Does the oil need to be changed every 3K? In my personal opinion, probably not. I'm usually letting it run to 5K (bike and car) if I'm too busy to get at it, but wouldn't think of just leaving the same oil in there forever. I personally won't let anyone else look at any of my vehicles unless I just can't find and fix the problem myself. I also have no plans on replacing the lube in my forks at 10K as I'll probably do it at 30K or so. I've seen oil in forks that have been on a bike for 30K and it's still perfectly clean and I can't believe that fork oil is "worked" hard enough to break down in that environment after 10K. Also, it's one of those services that the dealer "supposedly does" that you can't verify one way or the other. Based on past experience, if you can't verify the work's been done, there's a good chance it probably hasn't....... | ||
| Electraglider_1997 |
Change the oil at least to what the manual suggests. The oil may not wear out but certainly the additives will and it will eventually collect enough dirt, metal, etc that the engine will hate you. My first motorcycle back in 69' was a Honda S90 and all I ever did was top off the oil. Didn't know any better. Eventually the bike started blowing blue smoke and I'm sure it was because all I did was add oil and never change it. I also am one to put off fork oil changes just because it is such a pain in the butt. Eventually I do it though but probably after 20K at least. (Message edited by electraglider_1997 on April 27, 2009) | ||
| Pso |
I like to change it on a rainy day when I just need time alone in the garage/club house, away from mundaine chores. it is also so easy to do versus the old BMW F650gs. | ||
| Etennuly |
I had an Uncle many years back who believed the same thing. He had a 1950 Pontiac that he bought used in about 1955. He and my dad used to argue this same point back then. Uncle H was a cheap old bstrd, as such he couldn't see wasting oil. I recall riding in the car when I was about six so that would have been in about 1963. Old three on the tree straight six. He had about sixty thousand miles on it and swore by changing the oil filter once a year and adding a quart of oil, and of course adding oil when needed. This car never got over 35 mph, never left town, and likely never hit 2500 rpms. It smoked as much as he did at three packs a day. I recall him telling my dad that in winter when he started it would rattle a little so he would just run it slower until it smoothed out. My dad changed his oils and run the daylights out of his cars. His siblings called him "Speed". IMHO I guess it matters what camp you are in as to how you feel about saving money and labor on oil changes. | ||
| Chadhargis |
Changing oil is cheap insurance. Even running full synthetic at $10 a quart, the Ulysses holds less than 3 quarts. That, plus the cost of a filter will set you back $35 two or three times a year depending on how many miles you pile up. I typically change my oil pretty frequently due to my "severe duty" riding. I've never had an engine problem on any vehicle I've ever owned and I run the holy heck out of all of them. Two of the worst things you can do to your engine is to lug it and not change the oil. Spin that baby up, let the big dog eat, and change the oil on a regular basis. | ||
| Johnboy777 |
I change my oil when it gets dirty, and the filter every other time. I'm not concerned about the oil breaking down, especially the new syn stuff - I don't think that's an issue, but I just don't want all of those particulates (the ones the too small for the filter to catch) floating around in my oil. .. | ||
| Hmartin |
I can't believe, on something as easy to do as change the oil and filter on the Buell XB, there'd even be a debate over this. I frankly don't know Buell could've made it any easier. Same goes for primary oil and brake fluid. I agree the 10k service can be kind of steep, either in time or money spent. If you shop around, though, you can find someone to do it for less than $500 easy. Skipping the 10k service is perhaps a more debatable topic. That's the old maintenance vs. replacement argument, and you'll get 1,000 different opinions on that one. Basically, how much is the characteristic Buell handling, resale value and peace of mind at 75 mph worth to you? | ||
| Tginnh |
I like that. Is lugging it relative or are we talking anything below 4k rpm? | ||
| Arcticktm |
If my Buell made the same power as a Honda scooter, maybe veg oil would be a good choice. But since it makes a bit more, I'll leave the veg oil for my french fries. the reason we don't hear about oil related failures, is probably that cheap oil changes are so easy to get in cars now. Cars must be a lot easier on oil than high perf bikes. Kids I knew growing up had the same Honda 200 ATC that I had. they never changed the oil, since their dad bought the machines, and they didn't care. I paid for mine, so I went by the book. I was amazed that they never had troubles for a couple years or so. then, I noticed that their trikes eventually were getting slower than mine, and were starting to smoke, especially when cold. Hmmm, maybe some $1 quart walmart oil would have been a good investment? | ||
| Tstone |
I did my own 10,000 mile fork oil change over the winter, and I have to say it was NOT time well spent. The used oil coming out of the forks looked virgin. If you have a bike that's working well it's hard for me to understand how the risk of causing damage or screwing up an adjustment is worth the benefit of fresh oil at 10,000. | ||
| Etennuly |
Tstone, I believe the oil in the forks is a whole different issue. It does not suffer from gasoline contamination, cold to hot to cold condensation, burnt carbon particles from extreme heat like the engine does. From what I have seen the fork oil is used up depending upon how much it is used. The forks do have moving parts inside, however they do not have the extremes of heat. They can get hot under extreme circumstances, but not so much daily riding. I totally agree with you on the benefits of changing the fork oil at 10,000 miles unless you would be changing springs or having a blown seal to repair. I can tell you that with 37,000 miles on mine without changing it, I can notice it is not controlled as well as it would be with fresh oil. I have made a change on other bikes in the past and if it has been in there too long, there is a discernible difference. If you need to keep it sharp, and use it hard like racers do, fresh oil in them is essential. If you cruise down the slab for 10,000 miles, it is likely the oil hasn't even circulated yet. | ||
| Reepicheep |
No need to speculate, Blackstone will perform a chemical analysis on used oil and tell you how it was performing when it was removed. I think its like $20 or so, which means that if you did want to try and stretch change intervals for your oil, machine, riding style, and environment... it could pay back pretty quickly. Based on real studies I have seen that others have done, I would never take conventional oil more then 3500 or full synthetic more then 5000 miles in an air cooled large displacement motorcycle. At those distances, both types of oil are measurably "damaged". | ||
| Mark_weiss |
I used to work in a bike shop. I have disassembled a LOT of motorcycle engines. Singles, twins, triples, fours, sixes. CHANGE THE OIL. A lot of crud can get into the system and it's hell on bearings and rings. Mark in Arizona | ||
| Froggy |
My mother had a 99 Tracker we got for free. Previous owner never did any maintenance, so of course the motor blew at about 95k miles. | ||
| Electraglider_1997 |
Troy, Lugging means to run it in too high a gear at too low a speed. If you were doing 25 mph in 5 gear you would be lugging it. | ||
| Tootal |
A friend received a VW beetle when he got his drivers license. Now this car had been handed down from his eldest brother to his sister and now to him. Now he and I are tinkerers so the first thing we did was check the oil. Well I don't think his brother or sister even knew where the dipstick was let alone what to do with it. We got a pan and drained the oil. A half cup came out in lumps. We pulled the screen out as VW's don't have a filter, and found it covered in black goo. Clumps of oil started to let go from inside and Blop into the pan. We let it sit awhile and cleaned the screen and installed it. Put in some cheap oil and drove around for an hour, cruising town of course! We drained it again and pulled the screen and more blopping occurred. After the third oil change we put some good old Castrol GTX in and I swear that VW was faster than my well maintained motor!! Sometimes you just get lucky! He drove that car for two years and never had any problems BUT if we had not interceded I don't think it would have lasted much longer. | ||
| Choyashi |
Yeah, Tootal it would have broke a rod like my '65 did. Didn't have a clue about the screen thing. Just put oil in when it got low. Then one day it just went "BAM"! Guess the screen was a little clogged! I finally cut back on the "POT" smoking, and learned to take better care of my stuff. (Message edited by choyashi on April 27, 2009) | ||
| 99savage |
Old enough to remember when an oil filter was an xtra cost option & detergent oil went for a premium. Blew a engine when out in the boonies & needing oil added 1qt. detergent to a car w/ ~65K miles that had never had detergent oil in it. - Made it maybe 25 mi when the detergent loosened all the crud & plugged everything. Fortunately was a "winter beater" & I hated the car But since that experience have never been keen on "engine flushes" (whatever they are). Change oil & filters regularly & leave sleeping crud lie. | ||
| Natexlh1000 |
When I first bought my '79 sporty, I knew it had most likely been treated poorly most of its life. The book I had said to drain the oil and put in half a quart of kerosene and slosh out the crud. I did what it said til the kerosene came out looking good. I think three times. I assumed that this was just part of the 3000 mile oil change but the oil never looked like that again. I have to wonder how long that poor old dog had that oil in there before I got it! | ||
| Ronmold |
Why are there 40 year-old 2-stroke outboards around still running great? Those old motors ran on a mix of 30w non-detergent oil, nothing like the formulations we have now. I believe their longevity is attributed to the fact that the oil they got, even though it was the equivalent of a spritz of WD-40, was always clean, fresh and devoid of soot & acids. Oil is your engine's life-blood. | ||
| Jlnance |
No need to speculate, Blackstone will perform a chemical analysis on used oil Reep, I'm planning on having them do just that. I'm waiting till I get 2k on the oil I just changed, and I'm going to send them a sample every 1000 miles. I'll start a thread here when that happens. At those distances, both types of oil are measurably "damaged". Careful. The oil starts deteriorating as soon as you start using it. The question is at what point has it deteriorated such that it isn't doing it's job any longer. If you start with better oil, you can accumulate more deterioration before you need to change it. The problem is we don't really know how much it can deteriorate before it isn't working anymore. We also don't know if it can deteriorate to a certain point before it has any effect on the engine, or if any deterioration damages the engine. | ||
| Jlnance |
Separately, I'm thinking of skipping the 10k service all together because I'm not convinced they really spend hours "inspecting" things. You've got an 08, so you have no timing, idle, or TPS to adjust. In this case, the 10k service is basically an oil change for the engine, primary, and forks, as well as inspecting a bunch of stuff. I don't think the forks need their oil changed at 10k, I can't figure out how it could possibly be worn out at that mileage from a spring bouncing up and down inside it. The transmission oil also goes 10k and it's got gears and a clutch spinning in it. So anyway, there isn't much to the 10k service, particularly if you aren't going to do the forks. I wouldn't skip it, but it is certainly something you can do yourself. My personal policy is to do the 5k services myself, and have the dealer do the 10k ones, sometimes minus the fork oil. I did not grow up working on things, and I like the idea that someone who knows what they are doing looks at my bike occasionally. People with more mechanical aptitude than I often take the opposite view of dealer service. I do have an 06 Uly though, so there is actually more to adjust at the 10k service than there is on an 08. | ||
| Natexlh1000 |
My local shop charges the same price for an old labor-intensive buell as it does for the new 2008 and up bikes. I'll wait until 20,000 and have them do the fork and plugs. | ||
| Froggy |
The difference between the 07 and 08 service is about 10 minutes worth of work, and pressing a button. (Quick run around the block to warm up the bike, and then press the button to check the TPS setting.) | ||
| Reepicheep |
Cool JLance, that will be valuable data for us. The change I saw documented was a breakdown in viscosity, FWIW. | ||
| Froggy |
http://jalopnik.com/5235675/saturn-rental-car-neve r-gets-oil-change-engine-carnage-ensues-after-3000 0-miles |
