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Oil Consumption between Oil Changes


N1K

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So I changed the oil on the XX this weekend. I used synthetic on my last oil change, and I can't remember exactly how many miles are on this oil, but I think its around 10,000 or so. Really don't know.

So I drained the oil, (spilled some on my driveway) etc, replaced filter, put new oil in, and then just for shits and giggles I decided to put the old oil back in the empty quarts the new oil had just come out of.

So I put 4 quarts in the bike, upon re-filling the empties with the waste oil it filled back-up to 3 and 1/2 qt's.

I know I spilled some on the driveway and I know there is oil in the filter, etc.

But it got me thinking, how much oil would an XX typically consume between oil changes?

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mine goes through about a cup every 3000-4000 miles, depending on what kind of riding I'm doing, but mine's carb'd and I get some oil mist from the PCV into the airbox, so I'm pretty sure that's where most of it is going... If I'm running a lot of corners and keeping the rpm very high all the time, I'll go through about a cup in 3,000 miles, but if I do only highway, it won't go through much at all...

Typically, when running a good FULL synthetic, I'll do a filter change at 5k, and an oil and filter change at 10k... Oil analysis showed that the oil was still in great shape, with a TBN of like (6) still (starts at 12, needs to be changed when it's below 1), and viscocity was still very good, but the one that I started at 10,000, I shouldn't have done extended drain intervals yet, because the engine was still breaking in, and there were high "break in metals" in the oil, and actually, this last one, the break in metals were down to "normal" levels, but the Aluminum and Silica were high, so that means that either my K&N let a bunch of dust in (plausible) and it got into the oil, or something (like the cam chain, for instance) wore on the aluminum casting, that had some sand still in it (these are sand casted, so that can happen), and it got into the oil...

Mike

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10,000 miles between oil changes??? Ouch...............what do you have against your engine ???

Have you ever read your owners manual ?

...and did you notice that he said he used synthetic oil ?

Put those to together and if you've done any good research on Oil lately, you'ld find out he loves his bike and is takeing very good care of it.

ps. Did you also know it's actually more harmful to change your oil too often ?

Oil threads have been beat to death around here... so do a search, spend about a week reading and researching and then come back and tell me what you have learned. :icon_wink:

I change mine every 10K or 1 year... whichever comes first.

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So I changed the oil on the XX this weekend. I used synthetic on my last oil change, and I can't remember exactly how many miles are on this oil, but I think its around 10,000 or so. Really don't know.

So I drained the oil, (spilled some on my driveway) etc, replaced filter, put new oil in, and then just for shits and giggles I decided to put the old oil back in the empty quarts the new oil had just come out of.

So I put 4 quarts in the bike, upon re-filling the empties with the waste oil it filled back-up to 3 and 1/2 qt's.

I know I spilled some on the driveway and I know there is oil in the filter, etc.

But it got me thinking, how much oil would an XX typically consume between oil changes?

Nik, I think you probably lost that much in those areas you stated.

To prove that... I would ask, was your oil level low on the dipstip prior to the change ? If not.. you didn't use any oil... which is normal for our low mileage Birds. :icon_biggrin:

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I'm pretty religeous about changing my oil every 4000 miles +/-, and, in that

distance, I see no apreciable use of oil; less than 1/8 of a quart, at the most.

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To prove that... I would ask, was your oil level low on the dipstip prior to the change ? If not.. you didn't use any oil... which is normal for our low mileage Birds.

Actually it was, (not way low, but a little low) but I think the reason why is that last time I did an oil change was the oil-pan episode...

And after having the pan off and sitting for a week with no oil pan on ALLLLLLL the oil was out of the bike. I think I put 4 quarts in after getting it all replaced etc, but didn't check to see where the oil level was on the dipstick... and 4 quarts in a completely empty oil system probably didn't fill the pan as high on the dipstick as the 4 quarts I put in yesterday in a system that had some oil left in it.

Bike runs great, never noticed any smoke or residual in the pipe (except for the bike running a tick rich at low RPM's so I'm not at all worried about it.

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Nik,

Yes, that's probably the reason right there...

Service manual calls for 4.1 quarts with a filter change. Hence the oil level would be just a touch low last go around, if all you did was put in 4 quarts.

It's all good ! :icon_biggrin:

I'm pretty religeous about changing my oil every 4000 miles +/-, and, in that

distance, I see no apreciable use of oil; less than 1/8 of a quart, at the most.

You polluter !

You money wasting slimeball ! So your the reason I'm paying to much for my gasoline. Thanks alot asshole.

Using twice as much as you need to. What a waster.

:icon_razz:

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I'm pretty religeous about changing my oil every 4000 miles +/-, and, in that

distance, I see no apreciable use of oil; less than 1/8 of a quart, at the most.

You polluter !

You money wasting slimeball ! So your the reason I'm paying to much for my gasoline. Thanks alot asshole.

Using twice as much as you need to. What a waster.

:icon_razz:

Just doing my part to destroy the environment and use up all the oil. :icon_nana:

:icon_lol:

But, seriously, I recycle my oil, so it's not wasted.

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Its is very healthy for an engine to burn some oil between changes. This tells you that your rings are getting a good soak.

I wouldn't think twice about 1 qt between changes. Thats not alot of oil. It might be abnormal, but it is nothing i would pull an engine apart for.

Lets not get toooooo anal. :)

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10,000 miles between oil changes??? Ouch...............what do you have against your engine ???

Have you ever read your owners manual ?

...and did you notice that he said he used synthetic oil ?

Put those to together and if you've done any good research on Oil lately, you'ld find out he loves his bike and is takeing very good care of it.

ps. Did you also know it's actually more harmful to change your oil too often ?

Oil threads have been beat to death around here... so do a search, spend about a week reading and researching and then come back and tell me what you have learned. :icon_wink:

I change mine every 10K or 1 year... whichever comes first.

Yes, I've read the owner's manual and I don't agree with it. Most motorcycles never se 50,000 miles so Honda looks to make thier products as maintenence free as possible. You could probably run the whole 50,000 miles on no oil changes...just change the filter every 5000 or so and top off the oil level.

But I use my bikes and put a lot of miles on them. 134,000 on my Vmax and 165,000 on my VFR. I want them to last and run efficiently. Rotella T and a new filter evry 3000 miles.

I've seen the color of drain oil at 10,000 miles and you could pave a road with it. Yes, I could probably send a sample out for analysis, but the time and expense is not worth it. I can change the oil and filter for the same cost and time.

Guess it's just a mattter of personal opinion and experience.................my experience has worked so far. Let me know yours when you get to 165,000 miles.

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the particles that turn the oil color black are smaller than matters in an engine. Even the oil manufacturers say that oil color has nothing to do with how well it is working.

If you're going to change our oil so soon, do yourself a favor and use a regular oil, not a synthetic, so you at least get some run time out of your additive package. Synthetic oil has the additives that last a long ass time, so in order to get them to last as long as possible, even with oil shelf time, they make the additive packages "turn on" by heat and time. As it ends up, with full synthetic oils, the additives don't even really start working before ~2500 miles... That's why it was said above that you can acutally change your oil too much... because if you change it every 2000 miles, you don't ever have any working additive package.

Mike

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Even if you pull your oil pan off the motor, you will never drain out all of you oil. The oil galleries in the crank/rods, the oil cooler/lines, the corners of the cylinder head, oil pump cavity, etc., all retain some measure of oil. Depending on the motor or bike, it could be as much as 10-20% of the total fill.

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Even if you pull your oil pan off the motor, you will never drain out all of you oil. The oil galleries in the crank/rods, the oil cooler/lines, the corners of the cylinder head, oil pump cavity, etc., all retain some measure of oil. Depending on the motor or bike, it could be as much as 10-20% of the total fill.

I'm sorry... up to 10% of your oil has some of its additive package working...

BTW, this isn't just something I made up and reasoned through... it's from the SAE paper on oil change intervals and synthetic oil... It's also known, before the paper came out, that something like 90% of the wear metals in an oil get there in the first 1000 miles of an oil change. You can find this out by sampling oil throughout the cycle and charting the wear metals over time.

Mike

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I'm sorry... up to 10% of your oil has some of its additive package working...

BTW, this isn't just something I made up and reasoned through... it's from the SAE paper on oil change intervals and synthetic oil... It's also known, before the paper came out, that something like 90% of the wear metals in an oil get there in the first 1000 miles of an oil change. You can find this out by sampling oil throughout the cycle and charting the wear metals over time.

Mike

As much as I believe what you are saying, and the proof does support it...

I'll still change my oil more often than I need to, cause daddy don't like a dirty engine. :icon_wink:

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I'm sorry... up to 10% of your oil has some of its additive package working...

BTW, this isn't just something I made up and reasoned through... it's from the SAE paper on oil change intervals and synthetic oil... It's also known, before the paper came out, that something like 90% of the wear metals in an oil get there in the first 1000 miles of an oil change. You can find this out by sampling oil throughout the cycle and charting the wear metals over time.

Mike

As much as I believe what you are saying, and the proof does support it...

I'll still change my oil more often than I need to, cause daddy don't like a dirty engine. :icon_wink:

I completely understand that.

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Stupid question, but how do u change just the filter w/o draining the oil? :icon_wall:

I run Rotella 5w-40 / Purlator Pure 1 14610 changing both every 5k, oil comes out virtually new and i swear to god the oil level is above the high water mark when i check it b4 draining (only time i check oil level).

Should I check oil level more often on this POS Honda?

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BTW, this isn't just something I made up and reasoned through... it's from the SAE paper on oil change intervals and synthetic oil... It's also known, before the paper came out, that something like 90% of the wear metals in an oil get there in the first 1000 miles of an oil change. You can find this out by sampling oil throughout the cycle and charting the wear metals over time.

Mike

Exactly !

So... if one Person A changes his oil every 3000 miles and person B every 9000. Person A is going to put almost 3 times the amount of wear on his motor in the same time frame as person B if person B uses a good fully synthetic oil.

Basically speaking, new oil causes more wear than oil that has been broken in. :icon_wink:

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Stupid question, but how do u change just the filter w/o draining the oil? :icon_wall:

I run Rotella 5w-40 / Purlator Pure 1 14610 changing both every 5k, oil comes out virtually new and i swear to god the oil level is above the high water mark when i check it b4 draining (only time i check oil level).

Should I check oil level more often on this POS Honda?

The filter is after the oil pump. You can change the filter without losing any oil in the pan. The only oil you lose is in the high pressure lines of the engine.

Mike

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Hi from the Uk i do mine every year regardless of mileage mine is a 2001 injection with viper cans and i don't hang around ..don't seem to use any noticable amounts and also do a lot of two up +luggage touring ... But i was recommended to use semi synthetic from the Honda technicians they said that fully synthetic can cause issuse with clutch slip ....

cheers

all the best

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