Jump to content

How Often Do You Change Your Oil?


trapezeartist
 Share

Recommended Posts

Judging by the comments on numerous posts in this forum, there are widely varying ideas of how often gearbox oil should be changed. That's also reflected in many adverts for secondhand bikes. So I thought I would try to get a better handle on the subject:

How often do you change your gearbox oil?
What is the reason for choosing that interval?
Which oil do you use?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

 

 

+ - 10 hour with Motul Trans Oil 10 W 40 in my ST 250. I'm a very ordinary rider but I like to have a fine tune bike. I don't see any degradation in the oil when I change it, the clutch for me is just right, meaning not too grabby oy slippery. Beleave it or not, I can find the neutral easily anytime.

Guy

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

 

How often do you change your gearbox oil?
Twice a year on a bike used every 2 or 3 weekends. I don't have an hour meter but the running time per change is probably under 25 hours.

Clutch feel and oil colour indicate when a change is required. Very slight clutch drag creeps in and the oil darkens.

What is the reason for choosing that interval?

A general environmental personal consumption based avoidance of excessive waste.

The oil has a very easy life compared to the other applications that it's used in, and it's used in them for tens of thousands of miles. On a 2 stroke it's not contaminated by combustion byproducts, and forces are lower.

Which oil do you use?

The above is based on 300v.

Now using nanotrans and the change interval may differ.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

 

I don't know the usage but about the same as al_orange - 10 hours - at a guess.  Three or four weekends of practice and a trial - ish.  The same as him the oil looks as if it has had some wear and noticeably smells a bit different.  I am sure it would last longer but it is not a big or expensive job.

Oils - Nano trans in the Beta (it is really noticeably better for cold stick) and light gear oil (Putoline) in the TRS.  In the Beta I use half a tin (500ml) so you get two changes per tin.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

 
 

Everey two years for the gear box oil, I use mosly ELF HTX 740 have never seen any discoloring too no "items" or metal residue, but I am not a rider that uses the clutch often.

To the suspension depending of type and travel between 4 to 6 years,

Disk brakes and their reservoir and brake lines every second year, together with a very good spooling.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

 
 
 
 

Being Scottish it would be bad form to over do the oil changes. If you're light on the clutch  which I am I think every few months would be sufficient on one of these horrible modern plastic toys.

I've done 4 out of the last 5 SSDTs and the oil  has always been fine for the week and you can imagine how hard it's working compared to your average trial.

I run synthetic atf which is cheap and cheerful as the dealers a pal but I feel "real" oil gives the transmission a better feel though I'm probably imagining things.

 

  • Like 2
Link to comment
Share on other sites

 
 
  • 1 month later...
 
2 hours ago, haggetty said:

Any brave souls care to declare their laziness re oil changes and the effects thereof?

I mean, what happens at 30/50/100/oh Christ I’ve never changed it, real life scenarios?

I changed the "sealed for life" gear box oil in a vw at 100k miles, and it looked fine ..... 

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

 
4 hours ago, b40rt said:

I changed the "sealed for life" gear box oil in a vw at 100k miles, and it looked fine ..... 

Ford (IIRC) produced an engine that had 100k service intervals.  it never took off as the service is a revenue generator for garages.  Modern oil technology is amazing, as shown by your VW gear oil.  I often wonder about axle diffs - they do the whole life of the vehicle and are totally forgotten about.  The difference between the old oil and the Nano Tech in the missus' Beta is quite something.  I have experienced the change for real but it is hard to get your head round.  On really big kit (like earthmovers) the service engineers test the oil to see how much wear it has had rather than just change it at an arbitrary interval.  The half litre in a trials bike is so cheap and so easy to do it probably makes sense to overdo it.

  • Like 2
Link to comment
Share on other sites

 

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

Loading...
 Share

×
  • Create New...