3 year old oil

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Long time listener, first time caller.
I'm picking up a new 2014 old stock motorcycle today (Suzuki V-Strom 1000). The dealer tells me that the oil is serviced by the factory with nothing more than regular dyno non-synthetic oil (no special break in oil). I'm thinking about draining it after about 20 miles of riding and following the motoman break in. Thoughts?
 
I don't have a knowledgeable opinion.

The oil has been oxidizing and evaporating for 3 years. Is it damaged thereby?

Maybe warming up the engine and draining the oil would be a good idea?

Is there a super motorcycle oil available now which wasn't available in 2014? Kira
 
In 2014 I bought a stock honda cbr600f pc41 2011 model.I used the factory filled oil as per manual instructions for 1000km. Now I have 17000km with zero oil consumption and zero problems.
 
I'd take it for a 1/2 hour ride, get it good and hot and change it out. You don't know how many test rides, cold starts, or long idles it has had.
 
Originally Posted By: Kira

The oil has been oxidizing and evaporating for 3 years. Is it damaged thereby?


No, the oil inside is fine. How many miles on the bike?
 
It has Less than a mile on the clock....they tell me. Will know for sure in a few. It was still in the crate and they had to put it together. They said the mechanic will only ride it around the parking lot to check basic functions.
 
Originally Posted By: Oilnoobintrainin
Long time listener, first time caller.
I'm picking up a new 2014 old stock motorcycle today (Suzuki V-Strom 1000). The dealer tells me that the oil is serviced by the factory with nothing more than regular dyno non-synthetic oil (no special break in oil). I'm thinking about draining it after about 20 miles of riding and following the motoman break in. Thoughts?
Yes change it. Break in oil really? You want to gradually increase the hard use periods. The first few hundred miles drive it easy untill the engine and fluids are at operating temps then gradually increase the loading for short periods at first then a little bit longer as the miles increase. After maybe 300 miles start hammering for increasing periods. Most people will not understand that engines break in with out any special Voodoo rituals.
 
Leave it for the recommended manufacturer interval. Oil with low mileage doesn't oxidize very fast at all. Especially if it was inside a dealership that's climate controlled. They probably want you to change it early anyway, if not 500 miles.

Motorcycles sit a long time sometimes, you can get a really good deal on a brand new old stock bike, I totally understand that
 
It's fine, factory fill until 500 miles, then switch to whichever HDEO 15w40 you think is in the prettiest bottle. Change the stub for the oil filter to a Bales Tecnical Service stub, switch to a Honda filter (ST7317, 6607) and change every 4k or so for the next 100k miles.
http://balestech.com/filter.htm
 
I'm a believer of the motoman hard break in method, get it up to temp and then hammer it, then change the oil. Makes complete sense to me once you think about it. Chances are what you do won't make a ton of difference unfortunately since they run it at the factory, then the dealer guy does a soft cycle around the parking lot, so by the time you even get it it's got some time on it but at least you can do what you can.

I bought a new CRF450R and had to wait a couple weeks before I could get to a track, it was killing me but I wouldn't even start it at home and waited until I finally got to the track where I could open it up under load. I didn't want to just let it idle in my garage and that's it. My buddies at the track gave me all their expert soft break in instructions, which I promptly ignored because I knew I wanted a hard break in. They thought I was an uninformed idiot but whatever.
 
Been riding bikes for 50 some years and have never had a problem with taking it easy at first.
Minimizing heat is absolutely essential to successful break-in, and excessive heat will damage your pistons and forever condemn your motor to be a mediocre performer. The reason for this is that neither your rings nor your cylinder bores are perfectly round on initial assembly. Therefore, the rings are actually only making contact with the cylinder walls in a few places. The tension of the rings is concentrated in these places, increasing friction and heat. This condition exists until the rings have a chance to carve the cylinders into their shape. While that process is taking place, however, the rings and the pistons are very vulnerable to damage from excess heat. You can learn more about this phenomena by researching "ring microwelding
 
Wow, that engine sounds more like grand granpa Ford Model T ovehaul shop made in 1930... the guys literally had to drag the car around block just to unsize the movables, tuging the thing out engaged.
 
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Holy metal flake, Batman! Took it out for its first 25 miles and drained the oil. You would not believe the metal in the oil! I don't know why you'd want to leave that in there for 500 miles. Searching around and taking to the dealer, they do not use any special break in oil.
 
Quote:
The reason for this is that neither your rings nor your cylinder bores are perfectly round on initial assembly. Therefore, the rings are actually only making contact with the cylinder walls in a few places.


That hasn't been true for many years, especially with water cooled engines. I do recall some Harley mechanics getting more power out of those cast iron cylinders by doing a careful honing or re-bore, but modern manufacturing methods and machining practices has solved that problem.
easy to check, do a compression check on a fresh out of the box engine; I'm betting that it will read exactly what is is supposed to read.

My 2¢
 
Originally Posted By: Oilnoobintrainin
Holy metal flake, Batman! Took it out for its first 25 miles and drained the oil. You would not believe the metal in the oil! I don't know why you'd want to leave that in there for 500 miles. Searching around and taking to the dealer, they do not use any special break in oil.


That sounds like a win-win to me, you got some serious break in work done AND aren't riding around for 475 more miles circulating metal flakes through the engine. Did you get it revving at max throttle and load?
 
Originally Posted By: Oilnoobintrainin
Holy metal flake, Batman! Took it out for its first 25 miles and drained the oil. You would not believe the metal in the oil! I don't know why you'd want to leave that in there for 500 miles. Searching around and taking to the dealer, they do not use any special break in oil.


Have you run thosec25 miles hard, factory breakin (as granny) regime or normal?
 
in a few weeks I take possession of a leftover 2013 Genuine Buddy 125 scooter; this shop chooses to change out factory fill oil and replace with conventional 10w-40 pcmo; they say the scoots coming out of China have very poor oil (smells like fish) and the scoots coming out of Taiwan have slightly better oil...they change all of them out regardless;

they keep Castrol GTX 10w-40 & 20w-50 in stock for doing oil changes on bikes whose owners don't want synthetic oil (Amsoil is what this shop sells); most likely my Buddy 125 will be broken in with GTX and a small amount of OEM oil remaining in the screw on filter and in the oil galleries...3+ year old Castrol in a scoot with 0.2 miles on the odometer (never fired up since the factory test run); first service is done 300-400 miles so the oil won't be in there long...
 
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