First Oil Change

[John]

Originally Posted by Ove

I wouldn't laugh at 6,000kms. If it gets hot and dusty where you ride, or if it's just enjoyable fiddling with it and getting that peace of mind. Fine by me.

Well it certainly gets hot some days.  We doing consider anything under 40C (104F) to be hot.  That's just a normal summer day in this part of the world.

If I was doing a 4 day race meeting I'd change the oil at the end of every day.

[ve3hzz]

On my other bikes I've changed the oil at about 3000-4000 km. That was dino oil mostly. I might let it go a bit longer when switched to Synthetic oil, but mostly I'd maintain the same...I figure it's cheap insurance and lets me check to see the health of the engine more regularly...but I do my own changes and wrenching on all my vehicles so it's not as expensive as some who have to take it somewhere to have done. Then I get stretching out the service intervals..
I agree with some here the manual is for WORST CASE as in bargin basement oil I bet to help protect them (lawyers..) from any litigation if they tell you too long a period between changes.

I've mostly done it more frequently then they suggest but that's my thing....

I do this now as I did catch a potential lifter complete failure in my old 350. Got to it before a catastophic failure. I found some small metal particles in the oil drain plug and then the slight ticking (over normal). Pulled the cover and found the offending lifter (was a fairly new set) which had a defect. So the fix was a PITA..but was better then a total engine rebuild. Ever since then I check more frequently on all...again your mileage may vary

[peter88]

Originally Posted by John

P.S.  An just something to consider regarding oil change intervals, and its relationship to how hard the engine is worked.  How often do you reckon the pit crew of say Marc Marquez would change the engine oil in his MotoGP bike?  Every 12,000 kilometers, once a season, ever race meeting, or even possibly at the end of every day?  I haven't a clue, but I'd be willing to bet my house it'll be closer to the end of every day than every 12,000 kilometers.

With an endless budget I think Marc Marquez's crew would rebuild his engine after every meet anyway, but there is simply no comparison here.
The Z is built to travel large km's and is a slow revving slug of an engine compared to a gp bike, which is absolute leading edge technology and built specifically for racing and is only expected to last race distance.

As i said earlier, the only time i have done 12000km services is with my Hyundai which i am not passionate about at all, and yet it has done over 100000km's with absolutely no problems including no oil use.
My bikes have always had oil changed at half the service interval.

[John]

Originally Posted by peter88

With an endless budget I think Marc Marquez's crew would rebuild his engine after every meet anyway, but there is simply no comparison here.
The Z is built to travel large km's and is a slow revving slug of an engine compared to a gp bike, which is absolute leading edge technology and built specifically for racing and is only expected to last race distance.

As i said earlier, the only time i have done 12000km services is with my Hyundai which i am not passionate about at all, and yet it has done over 100000km's with absolutely no problems including no oil use.
My bikes have always had oil changed at half the service interval.

Unfortunately not quite correct.  There are strict rules governing the maintenance of MotoGP bikes.  They are allowed 7 engines for a full season, and each is sealed to prevent any modification or internal maintenance.  They only thing they can do is replace the whole engine.  Obviously their quota of seven engines has to last the full season of 19 races, each race meeting comprising 3 days.  So on average each engine has to last untouched for 8 days of punishment. 

How often do they change the oil when pushed to these extremes?  Seems I was wrong thinking it was probably at the end of every day.  Seems its after every session i.e. after 45 minutes riding, or 3 times a day.

So at one extreme some people put the same stress on their motorcycle engine as a Hyundai car (borrowing your benchmark) while other's stress the motor way up the scale not that far off a race bike (for much longer periods) .  The idea that both groups should change their engine oil at exactly the same number of miles/kilometers seems fanciful to me.

[peter88]

You are correct, I rembered the moto gp engine change rule while i was at work today. The difference between riding a bike on the road and riding a race bike is ---- no matter how hard you push a bike on the road it is only for short periods of time and rarely at maximum rpms, whereas a race bike is often at maximum revs and there is no slowing back to the speed limit and cruising until you get to the next set of twisties.  Gp bikes are flogged as hard as you can ride a bike and like i said before, are also cutting edge technology, so dropping the oil so often is a very small outlay for a race team to make sure there is no damage to the bike, which also means safety for the rider. I'm not sure what you meant when you said -- it is fancifull to think all bikes should have their oil changed at the same intervals.  This seems obvious and is up to the individual owner.

[Sath182]

Thats why theres also a warning to change more often if running under high stress conditions. No one is arguing that position. However, the average use case for motorcycles doesn’t fall into the high stress category.

Cruising down the highway at 65mph is not considered high speed. Riding with your average engine speed below 50% of it’s limits probably doesnt fall under that as well. Racing along at full throttle or high rpm for extended period, absolutely change your oil more often. But, typical road users really shouldn’t be worrying so much because the recommendations are meant for typical road use.