Oil analysis question

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Tay

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Jan 12, 2011
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i am planning to do my first UOA. just a quick noobie question.

if i wanted to test a brand of oil i just changed to, how many cycle of oil change should i do before sending in the sample to avoid mixing with the previous brand? 2 or 3 cycles enough?
 
Depends on how large your oil capacity is, how well you drain the engine, etc. If you are concerned, then let it drain overnight; I would send in the sample with the first brand of oil as it will only get more and more accurate as you do more changes.
 
thanks for the input. i am trying to do an UOA for my moped this time round. it carry 1150ml of oil.

normal oil change is 800ml. oil with filter change is 900ml.

i think i will be doing the next 2 oil change with filter change as well before testing the sample. will be letting it drain for a few hours. this should pretty much dilute almost all the previous oil.

it be fun for my first UOA
smile.gif
 
I would think this effort is not going to pay for itself. Your sump capacity is so small that it's FAR cheaper to OCI than to UOA. If you're doing a UOA for the "fun" of it, acknowledging that there can be no pay-off, then fine.

If you're doing a UOA to confirm/deny a suspected engine issue, good idea.
 
Originally Posted By: dnewton3
I would think this effort is not going to pay for itself. Your sump capacity is so small that it's FAR cheaper to OCI than to UOA. If you're doing a UOA for the "fun" of it, acknowledging that there can be no pay-off, then fine.

If you're doing a UOA to confirm/deny a suspected engine issue, good idea.



it more for setting the record straight for myself and the fun factor. most motorcycle shop in my country recommended 1,000km for mineral oil and 2,000km for synthetic oil for small bike. for my bike, the manual recommend OCI of 6,000km. posting in local forums of OCI above 2,000km and you are deem crazy and warning of expensive overhaul ahead. seriously i think that is no basic to such short OCI except "it have always be as such". BTW, if you are using HDEO for bike here most guys here will think you are mad for doing so.

as a regular reader of BITOG forums for the pass couple of years, there is always doubt in my mind such short OCI therefore the curiosity side of me wanted to find out more.

engine oil here is generally more expensive then in the state. for example, Motul 300V cost $27, amsoil MCF cost $18 and Redline motorcycle cycle oil is $18 as well just to quote some common oil.
 
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1000km for conventional oil?
2000km for synthetic oil?

Now that is crazy!

I'm going on the presumption that those oils would be of decent quality and OEM approved.

I cannot fathom such short OCIs; that's just nuts! And for the prices you pay, I'd want to stretch out every dollar I could!

Perhaps a couple of UOAs would be a good idea; helps put some common sense perspective back into a market that is just oblivious, in your area. Good for you!
 
Considering how short the lifespan is of motorcycle engines compared to the average automotive engine, I think excessive maintenance would be throwing good money after bad.

Obviously, it might be difficult to get the Amsoil 25,000 mile OCI on a bike. But, is every 1,000 miles going to do a thing for the engine?
 
Originally Posted By: dnewton3
1000km for conventional oil?
2000km for synthetic oil?

Now that is crazy!

I'm going on the presumption that those oils would be of decent quality and OEM approved.

I cannot fathom such short OCIs; that's just nuts! And for the prices you pay, I'd want to stretch out every dollar I could!

Perhaps a couple of UOAs would be a good idea; helps put some common sense perspective back into a market that is just oblivious, in your area. Good for you!


even oil like motul 300V are recommended to change at 2,000km. it not uncommon to read about ridiculous OCI for small bike in my reginal countries. after educate myself a bit at BITOG i just find there is no base for such short OCI. i guess such recommendation origin from motorcycle repair shop. no price for guessing the reason for their recommendation. guess the practice just got passed down and imprint in people mind much like the 3,000miles OCI thingy.
 
I must admit I'm not completely clear what kind of engines we're talking about here.

First, I'd start with the OEM recommendations and look at that for advice. I'm not talking about what some bike or scooter shop tells you; I'm speaking about the actual owner's manual as published by the OEM of the equipment. What does that say about OCIs?

Help me understand the application; what specific manufacturers and models of bikes/scooters/mopeds are we talking about?
 
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this is my bike. the owner's manual state 6,000km OCI.

they are also class under underbone motorcycle

there are many types of such bike here. anything from Yamaha, suzuki, honda for a few well-known manufactures. generally, we use such bike for daily commuting.

In my country, we have this system call certificate of entitlement (COE). Basically you pay for this Certificate for the right to buy and own a vehicle for only 10 years. Upon 10years, either you send the vehicle to scrap yard or renew the COE which is very expensive. therefore, most guys here does take care of their vehical well and willing to spend a bit more on servicing even when it is overkill. For example, the price of COE for this month in USD:

Car below 1,600CC - $63279
Car above 1,600CC - $75737
Motorycle - $1605
 
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That is one nice looking little ride! Congratulations!


With the OEM suggesting 6,000km, I would think that is a very safe starting point. Run out to that limit, take a sample, and send it in. Being that the engine is a liquid-cooled, fuel-injected Yamaha 135cc 4-stroke, I suspect it's very well made and will last a long time with routine service. There is likely no need whatsoever for the uber-excessive oil changes.

The ultra-short OCI practices are likely very unnecessary and wasteful. At 1000km intervals for conventional mineral oil, you are changing oil 6x more often than necessary! You can easily afford a few UOAs to "prove" viability of normal OCIs as defined by the OEM. And every bit of money you save is money in back into your pocket.

Which country are you in? I was unaware of the COE requirement. Sounds like your COE is similar to our "license plate" system here in the US and Canada, except ours is done annually. When looking at your cost for a small bike like this, that $1650 over ten years is averaged to $165/year; that is not a bad price when amoritized out over the life of the certificate.

I would think that the oil savings could help pay for that next COE certificate.

The final piece of the puzzle might be to find out how many kilometers you are riding per year? A synthetic might make sense for you, to extend out your OCIs even further.

The real goal of any decent lubricant program is to fully utilize the lubricant (and not waste it), regardless of what base stocks it has.

Keep us informed; love to hear about these kinds of things in other places around the world!
 
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thanks.

the manual recommend API SF or higher with engine oil grade either 20W40 or 20W50. i have just changed to Schaeffer supreme 7000 15W40 since this oil is very well built and cost almost the same as the cheapest decent low grade only API CH-4 rated HDEO here. i choose the 7000 over 9000 as it might be more shear stable due to viscosity spread. but i am a bit confuse as the data sheet show the 9000 have better HTHS and perform slightly better in the ASTM D7109 shear test? i think schaeffer 5w40 is a rare exception that it perform better then it 15w40 in this 2 areas.

will do a UOA after the 2nd oil cheap as previously i was using some castrol HDEO blend with schaeffer EP moly treatment. Man, that stuff is thick!!!

i am living in Singapore. it happen to have a wiki article on this COE thingy. haha...

thankfully for bike, the COE is still quite affordable. but compare to a couple of years ago, it have raised sharply. as for car, the price of the COE is worth a brand new car itself hence more and more folks here are turning to motorcycle which cause the increase as there is a quota on the number of COE monthly. the government have reduced the number of new car allow on the road to control road congestion causing the sharp raise in price.

such small bike generally is quite lasting and cheap to maintain hence it popularity. in the distance past when their parts are still built in Japan, these litte bugger seem to last forever. we can still see bike of 20-30 plus years on the street especially those 2-stroker.

i ride about 18,000-20,000km per year. i got the bike when i decide to go for part time study. public transfer is a killer during peak hours. so this little bugger is zapping me around for work and study.

thanks for all the advice and help dnewton3. appreciate it. will update you guys when i hit the necessary mileage.
 
In my mind (and I'm being very stereotypical here) I can imagine the great asset these type of bikes can be. Very economical to run. Easy to ride. For their size, very peppy and handle well in very congested traffic. Makes perfect sense for the type application I envision you being in.

I would think that Shaeffers 7000 would be an excellent choice, and could easily go well past the 6ooo km OEM OCI limit. Why not run a few UOA cycles, escalating up in distance, and verify?
 
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the small size make it easy to handle and lane split between cars although not something i will do except in almost stand still traffic due to safety reasons.

in our part of the world, spare parts for such bike is plentiful and that keep the maintenance cost down. road tax and insurance is also cheaper compare to bigger CC bike. not that i have the license to ride any bike bigger then 200cc at the moment but planning to upgrade my licence soon for bigger bike just in case i ever want to although not something wifey is happy about :p

as for fuel consumption, it clock at least 100 miles per gallon. sweet in the era of ever increasing fuel price.

thanks for the advice. guess i will do a 3,000km UOA for the first run? i am also thinking of a VOA together?

it not easy for me to seek out UOA service locally. the only one i found is a local supplier selling UOA test kit where you buy the kit and send the sample to the lab in canada. the lab is called "wear check". link as below. any idea is that lab good enough or is it better that i send to blackstone?

http://www.wearcheck.com/about-oil-analysis/
 
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I am not familar with wearcheck. That does not invalidate their offering; just an acknowledgement that I have no experience with them.

I understand that postage all the way to Blackstone in Indiana is going to be a bit pricey. But I would suggest that you consider running the full 6000 km OCI. Yamaha is a trusted, reliable brand. If they say it's good, it's probably very safe. That is, after all, only about 3.5k miles in a liquid cooled, fuel injected engine.

But do what seems safe to you. I think you'll be pleasantly suprised how well it goes. The one issue you may run into is that there probably isn't a large database to compare your UOA results to. You may have to run a few UOAs back to back, so that you can see the averages of your own data sets and at least get some idea of what is typical, even though it would not be a true statistical set of data. But it will be "good enough" to make some wide-view observations.
 
Hi Tay, It sounds like you have done some reading on the subject. If the manual says 6000 km, use a good quality oil and run it for 6000 km. They have tested the motors for lots of miles at those intervals and the motors have done well. Looks like a nice ride. Enjoy the bike and do not waste money on too frequent an oil change interval.
 
ive got ford 150 supercab v8 5.4triton engine 2003 am running 10w30sythetic moblil ,the book calls for 5w20 its got 105,000miles should i keep running it,ive got 10different people telling me diffrent answers need help
 
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