Do I have a leg to stand on?

[davereid]

Your engine only has a capacity of a bit over two litres. Its likely that in 4000km, half of this could have burned off, and the engine was still using oil at an acceptable rate, albiet at the high end. If the service company had not checked or changed the oil, your bike would have seized ages ago.

Its SO EASY to check oil level before you start the engine, it takes much less time than doing up your helmet, so just get in the habit.

A hopefully not too expensive lesson learned !

[R1madness]

Ahh so easy to blaim the shop... but for once its nice to see that people are not jumpiing on the "shoot a shop" wagon.
VTR250s generally use oil at the rate of 200mls per 1500km so if its down about 700mls (just showing on the bottom of the window) its actually a quite a good one.
OILs - yep car oil is better than nothing but not as good as proper bike oil. Yes i know lots of people run car oil in their bikes but just because some do it doesnt make it right. Car oils do not cope long term with gearbox stresses (thats why cars run specialist oils for gearboxes rather than just plain old repco 20/50). Look at it this way, you would not put 20wt fork oil in your engine eh? But its still oil tho.... and 20 wt is ok eh? look how many people run 20/50....

[YellowDog]

I suspect you were very lucky to get away with the engine not seizing up.

I'd be checking the oil daily if I were you.

[Owl]

I suspect you were very lucky to get away with the engine not seizing up.

I'd be checking the oil daily if I were you.

Yep, I agree with YellowDog!

Now I'm going to check my oil level before going for a ride, as I haven't since its last service a few weeks ago. In saying that, it hasn't used a drop since I've had it.

[dipshit]

OILs - yep car oil is better than nothing but not as good as proper bike oil. Yes i know lots of people run car oil in their bikes but just because some do it doesnt make it right. Car oils do not cope long term with gearbox stresses.

That is a pretty misleading generalisations. A lot of bike specific oils don't do well either. I have seen a lot of motorcycle oil tests of a 10w40 turning into a 10w20 within a thousand ks or so. Equally there are many good quality car specific oils that will hold up well in a motorcycle. The difference is the quality of the oil... not the picture on the bottle and its marketing.

I would rather run Mobil 1 car oil for example, than a lot of the very average "motorcycle oils" that are on the market.

[Pixie]

You know when you get that feeling that something's wrong or there is something juuust not quite right with the bike when you get on?
Yea I had that last night when the bike bogged down through the gears then cut out......

Well it wasn't me, it was a friend of mine taking my bike to run some errands.
What happened was he was riding along when the bike started "bogging" through the gears like there wasn't enough fuel or something in the engine was sticking.
LUCKILY he was about 20metres from the Fanshawe street Caltex when this happened. After putting $10 of fuel in we tried to start the motor but the starter motor was spinning and spinning but not actually starting the engine.

Now, before I continue to what was wrong it is worth noting that about 4000k's / 3 months ago it had a service done where I paid for a general check over, new brake pads oil change oil filter etc etc.

As time was running on we decided to check the possibility of things going wrong that shouldn't be causing the problem, just to put our minds at rest. Leads were checked, I tried to start it on reserve instead of normal, tried to bump start it. Nothing.

So we checked the oil. The oil was horrendously low, literally maybe 1-2mm of it was showing on the dip stick and that was on a warm engine. And it was dirty as a pig in mud.

Topped up with the most expensive oil I could find in the station, and I'll replace it asap obviously but at least it's running fine now.




Stupid me has lost the receipts from the service, and didn't take photos of the oil residue or anything like that. (At the point I was stressing!)
I'm not going to name the workshop cops that'll just drag, what I hope to be a good discussion, through the shit.


It looks like the oil change and filter weren't actually done!
I plan on going back there and telling them what I believe has happened so that it hopefully doesn't happen to other people and maybe I'll have a nice chat with the people there.
But do I have any right to go back and see if I can get a bit of store credit or a free oil change? I guess the only proof I would have of this is a spooged up oil filter?
Surely they would have some record of me on their computers??

Thanks in advance!

Some Bloor Triumphs will use all their oil in 4000 km

[R1madness]

That is a pretty misleading generalisations. A lot of bike specific oils don't do well either. I have seen a lot of motorcycle oil tests of a 10w40 turning into a 10w20 within a thousand ks or so. Equally there are many good quality car specific oils that will hold up well in a motorcycle. The difference is the quality of the oil... not the picture on the bottle and its marketing.

I would rather run Mobil 1 car oil for example, than a lot of the very average "motorcycle oils" that are on the market.

The difference is in the addatives not just the picture on the bottle. Mobil 1 (the car stuff) is not the same as mobil 4T (the bike stuff). If the bottle has MA2 as a rating it is designed spacificly for bikes, if not its not designed for running a gearbox. Sure it will provide lubrication for a while but it just does not hold up long term.

[R6_kid:Me]

I doubt a 250 hornet would eat oil that fast would it?

It would if you haven't been checking it.

My bike burns oil religiously so I tend to check it every few hundred kilometres, it's not like it's hard to do.

[blackdog]

shit i must be one of the lucky ones, the old beast barely burns 250ml over 4-5000km.

[R-Soul]

If you ran teh engine to almost siezing without oil, there will prtobably be a lot of little pieces of worn metal scarpins in your oil.
You could do worse than to do a decent flush of the oil in your system now as well. When those little metal pieces get picked up by oil pump and recycled through the engine/gearbox, then they can wear your engine even more.

[Jonno.]

Firstly, are you checking your oil correctly?

Stupid question but I've seen a few who over filled their oil as it wasn't level.
I remember when I got my first bike I nearly shat myself until I realised you're supposed to check the oil with the bike level.

[dipshit]

The difference is in the addatives not just the picture on the bottle. Mobil 1 (the car stuff) is not the same as mobil 4T (the bike stuff).

Some notes...

" All major motor oils (motorcycle motor oils included), contain some degree of additives designed to help reduce (primarily) viscosity breakdown, by reducing or eliminating as many possible causes as is cost-effectively feasible. The major additives include Zinc, Phosphorus, Magnesium, Calcium, Boron"...

... "Magnesium, Calcium and Boron -- these are used as anti-corrosives, to prevent the formation of various chemicals which break down viscosity, including sulfuric acid."

Now, a comparison of Mobil 1 15w-50 automotive car oil against its V-Twin 20w-50 motorcycle oil doesn't show increased levels of these additives...

http://www.ibmwr.org/otech/oilreport.html

Mobil 1 SJ (automotive)
1,058
1,348
163
521
1,717

Mobil 1 SH (automotive)
1,095
1,427
169
553
1,714

Mobil V-Twin (motorcycle)
1,084
1,377
176
499
1,561

Mobil 1 EC
835
955
100
1,497
820


They summarise...

"So what about the Mobil 1 oils? Are they all the same? Graph G compares only the four Mobil oils for each of the five additives. Note that the first three oils, the higher viscosity ones, are all closely grouped. It is the opinion of the author that the additive packages in the old Mobil 1 SH, the current SJ, and the new motorcycle-specific SG/SH are all the same. The Energy Conserving Mobil 1 SJ has lower levels of all additives with the exception of magnesium"... ..."Mobil 1 motorcycle oil: is it worth buying? The viscosity of this bike oil has been changed from Mobil 1's standard 15W-50 to 20W-50. This just happens to be what Harley specs for their bikes. If you smell a marketing ploy here, you may want to trust your nose. The additive package appears the same amongst all the 50 weight Mobil 1 oils"

Only its Energy Conserving 10w-30 oil shows different additive levels. And that is an oil most motorcyclists know to stay well away from. The main difference between the automotive Mobil 1 and V-Twin is the price jumps from $3.99 USD per qt to $7.99..!!

If you have some darter to show that Mobil 4T does have increased levels of additives over the automotive Mobil 1 then please share it with us here.

[Robert Taylor]

If it has worn carburetor metering needles and nozzles / worn float needles ( very possible given its age and if it has done high ks ) then it will have an issue called ''borewash'' That enthins the oil, contaminates it and burns it faster. Only surmising as the information you have provided is minimal.
I do think its amazing how people always think the worst of the automotive trades if they have an issue, there are some conmen out there but I doubt any regular bike shop would charge for oil and filter on a service bill and not actually do it.

[Hiflyer]

If it has worn carburetor metering needles and nozzles / worn float needles ( very possible given its age and if it has done high ks ) then it will have an issue called ''borewash'' That enthins the oil, contaminates it and burns it faster. Only surmising as the information you have provided is minimal.
I do think its amazing how people always think the worst of the automotive trades if they have an issue, there are some conmen out there but I doubt any regular bike shop would charge for oil and filter on a service bill and not actually do it.

It just clocked over 9000km's, I've had it since it had 2500. I think it's my own fault for not checking the oil regularly, Owell, shat my pants for nothing!! At least I'm never going to do it again!!!!!!!!!

[MarkH]

Na not blaming anyone I was just shocked to see that there was no oil left haha.

Damn oil gremlins! If the bike was burning oil at an unseemly rate would it smell like burning oil at times or just smell as normal?

If it was burning oil at higher revs while under a load then there is no way you would notice it - it is definitely possible to burn oil without realising it.

I would rather run Mobil 1 car oil for example, than a lot of the very average "motorcycle oils" that are on the market.

I don't have a wet clutch so I have been thinking about using Mobil 1 in future.