My oil light. Nightmare.

[caesius]

OK, riding back to HB from Rotorua earlier today and I had the most scary ride in the world.

About 30k's out of Taupo MY OIL LIGHT CAME ON. Holy hell I thought

Before I could react it turned off again. You know that feeling when you know somethings wrong with your bike but you're in the middle of nowhere? Yep that one.

I kept riding and it came on again! I pulled over and it turned off. I didn't know what to do next, there's no service stations until Bay View. I worked out that I must have an oil LEVEL indicator because it was only when I went uphill that it came on.

I decided to keep riding. Got back to Bayview BP, toped up the oil and everything was sweet again.

Am I stupid for not stopping the instant that bloody light came on? Just lucky?

FZR600 btw. [EDIT] Oops. I've spelt nightmare wrong. Can't change it now

[Headbanger]

Well, Your taking a hell of a risk when you ignore an idiot light, But its your wallet that's going to get hurt, So, its call your call whether to take a punt

Personally I would have stopped and checked the oil level, If it were low I'd knock on someone's door, any oil is better then no oil.

[caesius]

Well, Your taking a hell of a risk when you ignore an idiot light, But its your wallet that's going to get hurt, So, its your take a punt

Personally I would have stopped and checked the oil level, If it were low I'd knock on someone's door, any oil is better then no oil.

I did check it. It was clear I needed more. Since it only briefly turned on up steep hills I assumed everything would be getting lubricated often enough. Pretty big call, yeah maybe it wasn't smart.

[McDuck]

Normally it is a case of when the light flashes the kill switch gets pushed.

[Ixion]

It depends on whether it is an oil PRESSURE light (like a car) or an oil LEVEL light (like many two strokes).

If the former, STOP. FAST. It's very improbable you will save the engine , but you may reduce the damage

And oil level light, though, is another matter, It's just like a fuel level light, it means "things are getting low, top up at the next servo"

[caesius]

Normally it is a case of when the light flashes the kill switch gets pushed.

I did at first.

I've just read on another post, the FZR's oil light doesn't mean big business unless you ignore it for a while.

[Headbanger]

I did check it. It was clear I needed more. Since it only briefly turned on up steep hills I assumed everything would be getting lubricated often enough. Pretty big call, yeah maybe it wasn't smart.

If you checked and decided you had enough oil to make it home then I think you made the right call.

My oil light was staying on for a minute or so when I started my bike, and flashing every so often when hit idle, I checked her, was happy she had enough in her to be lubricated, and made the ride home.

[caesius]

It depends on whether it is an oil PRESSURE light (like a car) or an oil LEVEL light (like many two strokes).

If the former, STOP. FAST. It's very improbable you will save the engine , but you may reduce the damage

And oil level light, though, is another matter, It's just like a fuel level light, it means "things are getting low, top up at the next servo"

Awesome, thanks. Yes I've found out its a level light. Bloody good idea.

Shit that was an unnerving ride though.

[Max Preload]

I can't understand why oil pressure (or in your case, oil level) and coolant temperature warnings are only visual. Wouldn't the OEM addition of a bloody loud buzzer make sense?

[slopster]

I'd say it'd be an oil pressure light and your oil level was real low. When you went up a hill the oil pickup came out of the oil and went dry for a few seconds. When back on level ground and pumping the oil through. Thats pretty bad for it but I'm sure a couple of seconds won't have a major effect. Also note that its pretty bad to run the oil that low because the oil does a lot of the engines cooling and less oil = less cooling

[Max Preload]

I'd say it'd be an oil pressure light...

No - they're a level light - lots of Yamaha's have that instead of a pressure light. R6's, FZ1's etc. and dating back quite a way. On this particular bike, it's item #6 on the attached image.

[Soul.Trader]

I'm inexperienced with bikes, but if they're anything like cars the oil light, whether pressure or level, is nothing to panic about. There's massive safety margins built into the pressure light, so it rarely means catastrophic failure. The fact is there are VERY few things that can happen which can cause sudden loss of oil pressure - and if it did happen, your engine would be poked before you could react anyway.

Oil pressure lights tend to start to intermittently turn on and off when your oil level is a little low - again, nothing to panic about, just ensure you get it topped up at the next stop.

[Renegade]

you made the right call, not a biggy unless it stays on solid, it was just letting you know she was getting low and obviosly on the flat it was getting all the oil it needed.

probly time for a full service though, treat her for getting you home safe, bummer though cos that last 30 minutes is the best part of the napier-taupo, nothing like coming over that hill and seeing the bay and knowing your home.

[PrincessBandit]

I'm inexperienced with bikes, but if they're anything like cars the oil light, whether pressure or level, is nothing to panic about. There's massive safety margins built into the pressure light, so it rarely means catastrophic failure. The fact is there are VERY few things that can happen which can cause sudden loss of oil pressure - and if it did happen, your engine would be poked before you could react anyway.

Oil pressure lights tend to start to intermittently turn on and off when your oil level is a little low - again, nothing to panic about, just ensure you get it topped up at the next stop.

I'd check that out because when it happened to me in my car (light came on and stayed on, me stuck in middle of nowhere at the time and panicking) I did continue on to the next township. Thankfully it turned out to be faulty electrics - I've since been told that in a car when the oil light comes on like that it's too late - you're already screwed. (Well the engine is...)

[Soul.Trader]

Thankfully it turned out to be faulty electrics - I've since been told that in a car when the oil light comes on like that it's too late - you're already screwed. (Well the engine is...)

That's almost true. If you lose oil pressure suddenly, you have about 3 nanoseconds to fix it. Unless you're the six million dollar man, consider your engine dead. But as I said, these engines have big safety margins built in. When the oil light comes on, it's time to be concerned, and make sure you remedy whatever the issue is. But the oil light turning on very rarely means a sudden loss of oil pressure. Like I mentioned about, there's not that many things that can go wrong to cause sudden oil pressure loss. Oil delivery systems are pretty bullet proof.