Oil consumption Why!

[Civey.D]

My 05 1150 GSA has got a taste for oil, i've heard all the O'h they all drink a bit of oil and all that sort of thing, having only recently woke up to the GS ownership, befor that i had only Jap bikes and they dont drink at all.
please shed some light on the subject, Cheers

 

[Mr K]

Coz it's a big old-fashioned engine......

They tend to stop using oil after 15-30k miles....

Enjoy..

 

[Ming]

when i had my Adventure it went past 15k while on the tosser tour in eastern europe .

it was just like a tap had been turned off!!

dont worry about it .

 

[Pukmeister]

Its for a couple of reasons:

An air-cooled big capacity engine needs to run with bigger clearances between the piston rings and bores to allow for expansion, when compared to a water-cooled engine which has a smaller amount of expansion to cope with. This lets more oil past when cold, especially when the sidestand is used for parking. Leave it a few hours then fire it up again and watch for the tell-tale puff of blue smoke. Better to use the centrestand whenever possible unless a brief stop.

Due to being horizontally opposed rather than vertical, the bottom of the cylinder bores are very well lubricated, perhaps excessively so. The oil film means that the piston rings take much longer to bed in to the cylinder walls at their lowest point for a perfect gas seal than you would find on a vertically built engine, which probably beds in very quickly.

The engines are based on pretty agricultural principles that have been around since about 1932, so they are very robust and capable of high mileages. When a jap four is a worn out pile of junk, the GS twin engine is just beginning to reach its best.

As ming says, at the 15k mark they dramatically reduce in oil consumption. My R1200GS has now completed 20,000 miles and I haven't had to top the sump up in months despite frequent use.

 

[Civey.D]

Cheeeeeeers

Thanks chaps I wasn't worried about it, its just nice to know whats going on, nice one Adam well explained

 

[Paul Young]

Nice explanation, Adam.....

There's also another reason & that's because the boxer engine has much more "churning" within the crankcase. The pistons move towards the crank together & towards the cylinder heads together, so the crankcase volume increases/decreases by 1130cc's every stroke & this oil saturated air gets pumped into the airbox then into the engine. Try taking the oil filler cap off with the engine running...... It's like you've got a blown head gasket. A parallel twin, in-line four/triple, etc all have pistons which balance out most or all of the swept volume within the crank case.

 

[Mzokk]

Its for a couple of reasons:

When a jap four is a worn out pile of junk, the GS twin engine is just beginning to reach its best.

What a load of Bo**ox. What you mean is the BM engine is easier to work on so you can replace all the bits that wear or fall off!!. Evidently you haven't done any high mileage on jap fours. Dispatch riders regularly clock getting on for half a million miles on Vfrs, blackbirds fj1200's zzr1100's and the like. Newer bm's tend not to be used as they are too much trouble. Old air heads tend to truck on.

 

[VAL. H.]

What a load of Bo**ox. What you mean is the BM engine is easier to work on so you can replace all the bits that wear or fall off!!. Evidently you haven't done any high mileage on jap fours. Dispatch riders regularly clock getting on for half a million miles on Vfrs, blackbirds fj1200's zzr1100's and the like. Newer bm's tend not to be used as they are too much trouble. Old air heads tend to truck on.

Quite write Mzokk You tell him

I put 138'000 mls on an 84 Yam XJ900f and 120'000 on an 84 kwak 1750 GT

I wore out the coils and the carbs on the yam, but it never used much oil even from new. It always gave me 200 mls on a tank full too. Great bike
The Kwak didn't fair so well I wore out the piston rings. It did 1000 mls to the gallon of oil, at the time I was averaging 3'500 mls per week Still got 220 from a tank though.
I stopped over at a freinds house and in the morning it wouldn't start no compresion left

Jap bikes Who'd have em Ehh