Oil recommendation?

[Freza]

What oil do you recommend for a 35k+ miles machine ?
Last time, they put in this oil:  CASTROL Power 1GPS 4T 15W-50
It's part synthetic. I thought these machines need fully synthetic oil ?
Did they screw me over ?

[darrsi]

What oil do you recommend for a 35k+ miles machine ?
Last time, they put in this oil:  CASTROL Power 1GPS 4T 15W-50
It's part synthetic. I thought these machines need fully synthetic oil ?
Did they screw me over ?

 
Should be 10w/40 semi synthetic, motorcycle oil.
 
This seems to be popular at a reasonable price on here:  http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Motul-5000-4T-Semi-Synthetic-4-Stroke-Motorcycle-Bike-Engine-Oil-10w-40-/141250866261?pt=UK_Motorcycle_Parts&hash=item20e3352c55#ht_1470wt_1190

[Freza]

These oils are available locally, which one should I choose ?
I know that differences are small and any of these will work, but still I wanted to check with you:




   






Bear in mind that we have mild/warm temperatures here, during summer they often hit 40 degrees Celsius in shade.
Some advise I go with 15-50, since it's more suitable for warmer climates, some say 10-40 will do just fine.
Also, replacement oil filter is £7 and original Yamaha is £15, should I spend more and go for Yamaha's ?

[darrsi]

STILL 10w/40 semi-synthetic


Not sure why you are still contemplating it?

[Freza]

Just wanted to make sure, thanks

[darrsi]

.

[darrsi]

8 months after you first asked? 

[Freza]

Yeah, we take it slowly here
Nice graph 

[Freza]

I'm a bit embarrassed to say that today I changed my Fazer's oil for the first time.
Until now, only the mechanics did that for me, but since there's not much you can screw up, I decided to take further responsibility of changing oil.


It all went OK, except that removing of oil filter was a pain in the arse, because there wasn't much space to move the wrench.







About 2.7L went inside when settled.


And for good people on this forum a little bonus from me...
Yesterday when I went to buy the oil filter, they just received a brand new 2015 R1.
They allowed me to sit on it, fire it up and rev it.
It's definitely a technological and mechanical gem of a motorcycle, but I'm not really a fan of the sound (crossplane engine).
Also, it's not as comfortable as Fazer.
The riding position is a spine killer, especially for taller people, but I guess that's the compromise you agree with when purchasing bikes like this:

[darrsi]

Well done, it's a piece of piss once you've first done it yourself, and kind of satisfying in the process too.


I was always a fan of using the K&N oil filter with the handy nut on the end for "easy" removal, but last time i tried to remove one i found that the coating on the nut made it an unusual ill fitting socket size and also seemed to be a very soft material, so it was actually quite useless.
So i sat there swearing at it a lot then dug out my trusty chain wrench which sorted it straight away.


Make a note of your oil change date for future reference, and also you'll find it much cheaper to buy oil in 4 litre containers rather than 4 x 1 litre.
You only need to change the oil filter every 2 oil changes, and there's really no need to wrench it up too tightly, just smear oil on the rubber gasket and nip it up as much as you can by hand and that will be enough, if it ever does leak then simply nip it up some more but it shouldn't do. 

[kebab19]

Personally, I've never understood why the filter change is every other oil change, as there's roughly 200ml of old oil left in the filter. As Hi-Flo filters are fairly cheap I usually change mine along with the oil.
Increased expense, yes, but surely it makes sense to get rid of as much oil as possible? Roughly 700ml of old oil left inside even with an oil & filter drain.
I suppose you could even take off the oil filter, drain most of the old oil out of it & reattach.... best of both worlds?
 

[darrsi]

Personally, I've never understood why the filter change is every other oil change, as there's roughly 200ml of old oil left in the filter. As Hi-Flo filters are fairly cheap I usually change mine along with the oil.
Increased expense, yes, but surely it makes sense to get rid of as much oil as possible? Roughly 700ml of old oil left inside even with an oil & filter drain.
I suppose you could even take off the oil filter, drain most of the old oil out of it & reattach.... best of both worlds?

Never caused any issues ever before.

[Freza]

Well done, it's a piece of piss once you've first done it yourself, and kind of satisfying in the process too.


I was always a fan of using the K&N oil filter with the handy nut on the end for "easy" removal, but last time i tried to remove one i found that the coating on the nut made it an unusual ill fitting socket size and also seemed to be a very soft material, so it was actually quite useless.
So i sat there swearing at it a lot then dug out my trusty chain wrench which sorted it straight away.


Make a note of your oil change date for future reference, and also you'll find it much cheaper to buy oil in 4 litre containers rather than 4 x 1 litre.
You only need to change the oil filter every 2 oil changes, and there's really no need to wrench it up too tightly, just smear oil on the rubber gasket and nip it up as much as you can by hand and that will be enough, if it ever does leak then simply nip it up some more but it shouldn't do. 

Thanks.
Yeah, they didn't have 4L package, so I had to buy 4x1.


How often do you recommend to change oil?
Every 10.000km ? (~6000 miles)

[darrsi]

I've always done it around 4-5000 miles, the recommendation is 6000 miles.

[fazersharp]

I do mine every other year = 2-3k miles depending on the weather ! filter each time to.
I think my oil must be good enough to sell on
Castrol act evo for me --- nice red colour, like giving the bike a blood transfusion 

[darrsi]

I do mine every other year = 2-3k miles depending on the weather ! filter each time to.
I think my oil must be good enough to sell on
Castrol act evo for me --- nice red colour, like giving the bike a blood transfusion

Money to burn!

[fazersharp]

The thing is I dont do football, golf ------ anything, my bike is all I have in that respect, I dont spend any money on the bike other than fuel, do all the work myself, so £15 a year isnt much, I would say that £130 on a fuel cap is money to burn. swapping an exhaust for a different sound is money to burn, swapping leavers for stubby ones is money to burn having more than one bike is money to burn, smoking is money to burn. So there you go, blah blah blah.
Who wants to buy my old oil - only done 3000 miles. From a smoke free pet free home will send well packed in a jiffy bag.   

[Slaninar]

The thing is I dont do football, golf ------ anything, my bike is all I have in that respect, I dont spend any money on the bike other than fuel, do all the work myself, so £15 a year isnt much, I would say that £130 on a fuel cap is money to burn. swapping an exhaust for a different sound is money to burn, swapping leavers for stubby ones is money to burn having more than one bike is money to burn, smoking is money to burn. So there you go, blah blah blah.
Who wants to buy my old oil - only done 3000 miles. From a smoke free pet free home will send well packed in a jiffy bag.

Changing too often is more bad than good. But if that's your annual mileage, than OK.

[fazersharp]

The thing is I dont do football, golf ------ anything, my bike is all I have in that respect, I dont spend any money on the bike other than fuel, do all the work myself, so £15 a year isnt much, I would say that £130 on a fuel cap is money to burn. swapping an exhaust for a different sound is money to burn, swapping leavers for stubby ones is money to burn having more than one bike is money to burn, smoking is money to burn. So there you go, blah blah blah.
Who wants to buy my old oil - only done 3000 miles. From a smoke free pet free home will send well packed in a jiffy bag.

Changing too often is more bad than good. But if that's your annual mileage, than OK.

How so ---bad and why if low mileage good

[Slaninar]

Oil takes some time for additives to work. Brand new oil is not perfect. So changing more often than reasonable is not better. At best it is a waste of money and oil.


I use fully synthetic oil in all my motorcycles and change at factory intervals. Around 8 k kilometers, or once a year on Fazer.

[fazersharp]

So at 3000 miles - not klm and every two years im not far off am I

[Slaninar]

Yup. My bad - didn't get much sleep today. Somehow I understood you change in 2-3k mile interval. So I guessed if that's annual mileage than OK, but no need to change so often if riding 4-5 k miles per year.  Your policy is quite reasonable.

[fazersharp]

Just to clear up, my average is 1000 to 1500 miles per year and I have been changing oil and filter every two years. 

[Freza]

Time interval isn't important, mileage is?

[sinto]

The thing is I dont do football, golf ------ anything, my bike is all I have in that respect, I dont spend any money on the bike other than fuel, do all the work myself, so £15 a year isnt much, I would say that £130 on a fuel cap is money to burn. swapping an exhaust for a different sound is money to burn, swapping leavers for stubby ones is money to burn having more than one bike is money to burn, smoking is money to burn. So there you go, blah blah blah.
Who wants to buy my old oil - only done 3000 miles. From a smoke free pet free home will send well packed in a jiffy bag.

Absolutely fantastic post :-D :-D :-D