Would You Change the Oil?

[Brian]

 In order for oil analysis to be any good wouldn't you have to have been doing it for a while starting with a baseline to see a trend develop? We used to have oil analysis done on large commercial chillers to trend bearing wear and moisture. Changing oil at normal intervals would not allow enough wear to show up. In this case, the oil analysis was cheaper than changing the oil at the recommended run hours set up by the chiller manufacture. They wanted to sell oil, filters and service. I am talking chillers that spun a 12" turbine type impeller at 34,000 rpm. If the machine made a terrible noise while you were standing there you couldn't hit the off switch fast enough to save it from a melt down.

[gordonv]

cheap insurance is one of the funniest comments I have ever heard and is based on PURE emotion. No logical thought at all.

like the bearings are going to seize up if u go past 3k miles. too funny  
they're not going to seize up using honda's dino oil at 8k miles. Do u think honda wanted to replace engines during their 3 yr warranty and actually offered to warrant it for an additional 4 yrs all the while recomending the same oil change of 8k miles?
And most of u are using a much much better diesel oil or syn oil than the lower quality honda oil.

how many of u change out the headlight, brake bulbs every 6 months for cheap insurance? u never know when they will burn out.
when the tire tread gets half way worn from new, do u change them out, for cheap insurance in case one rides in the rain? half worn is not as safe in heavy rain downpours.

Frisco and myself have posted oil analysis and these engines do not wear. These are modern Honda engines using modern motor oils. They are not big american V-8s from the '60-70s using the oil from that time period and that were high revving w/lower quality metallurgy which worn out in 100k miles. These bikes are not your fathers oldsmobile.  

Finally.    We refer to such as emotional maintenance requirements - i.e. not based on logic, facts, in-service experience, testing, OEM recommendations, etc.   Replacing something because its easy to replace is not justification to replace it.  
-RP

+1 on both the above.

Could not have said it better if I had a week to think this all up.

I'll even go further to say I used to look at AmsOil back in the days when I first heard of it, synthetic oil, and I'm sure they advertised that it could go 20K miles without changing. Now they rate it for less miles. I look at syn as a once a year oil change, and this allows me to do all the riding I want, and just change it out every spring.

[bigfish_Oh]

If you are really worried about throwing good oil and filter away don't. Drain it and save it in a clean container, wrap the filter in saran wrap and replace both with new. Go on your trip and have fun without taking the time and dealing with the mess of an oil change on the road. You would probably change oil when you got home anyway, just put the old stuff back in. Nothing wasted and peace of mind. Have a safe trip.

I'd keep the good used oil for topping off lawnmowers and tractors and and lesser $$ vehicles, not someone else's used oil, only mine that I knew wasn't "boiled",etc.

[98valk]

here is an example to ponder.

My DR200se is an air cooled thumper and turns 6500 rpms at 60mph. oil change is every 3k miles per manual.
10w30 is allowed up to 80F ambient. I run 15w40 which is good for 100F+ ambient.

The valkyrie runs less than 3k rpms at 60 mph, is water cooled and a flat six boxer engine has almost zero vibration. Anyone that knows about the engineering problems with vibration in machinery knows longevity is greatly increased with low vibration levels. 10w30 is allowed up to 90F ambient.