MT-09 lifespan

[My Toy]

I agree with the principle of starting then riding gently til the engine warms up and have always done so in my private vehicles and apart from having to change some leaky valve stem oil seals on a 1990's Vauxhall have never had any significant engine wear issues and a few of my vehicles have gone way over 100,000 miles. Just to clarify the point of how good modern engines are I use the example of the traffic patrol cars I used to drive. [emoji601] On many occasions they were thrashed from cold while responding to some emergency, then left idling for prolonged periods at for instance a serious collision (left idling to power all the lights and ancillaries) then thrashed again to the next job and mileage's regularly clocked near to 200,000 miles with not a rattle or puff of smoke from any of them. At that time they were serviced every 6000 miles but I understand that has now gone out to 10,000 due to cost cutting[emoji19]


A vee four and an inline triple, the two best sounds in motorcycling. [emoji101]

 

[colinlinz]

Manufacturers are also pushing service intervals out as a result of governments starting to push for less environmental impact from servicing. Modern manufacturing techniques and lubrication have allowed them to do this and still produce great products. There are engines coming out shortly that will never have an oil change. They will be sealed units, with specialised high quality oil.

 

[XB12X]

Interesting thread. I have been riding motorbikes from 1971 and driving cars since 1974. I have always warmed the engine at standing for a minute, maybe less, and then kept the revs down to below half for between 5 miles (8 km) and 10 miles (16 km). The only vehicle I've taken to near 100,000 miles/160,000 km was a bike, a BMW R1100GS. I ran it on 20W50 mineral oil. Only occasionally did I do an oil change between services which were every 6,000 miles (10,000 km). The bike was running as well the day I sold it as it was when I bought it at 4,000 miles (c7,000 km). My current bike is a Suzuki B-King. Oil changed every 6,000 miles (10,000 km). I've read about people who have left their oil in for way longer than they should, have had its condition assessed, and it has been fine.

 

[PaulG]

Interesting thread. I have been riding motorbikes from 1971 and driving cars since 1974. I have always warmed the engine at standing for a minute, maybe less, and then kept the revs down to below half for between 5 miles (8 km) and 10 miles (16 km). The only vehicle I've taken to near 100,000 miles/160,000 km was a bike, a BMW R1100GS. I ran it on 20W50 mineral oil. Only occasionally did I do an oil change between services which were every 6,000 miles (10,000 km). The bike was running as well the day I sold it as it was when I bought it at 4,000 miles (c7,000 km). My current bike is a Suzuki B-King. Oil changed every 6,000 miles (10,000 km). I've read about people who have left their oil in for way longer than they should, have had its condition assessed, and it has been fine.

A lot is made of using the latest expensive synthetic oils but in reality for 99% of users mineral oil,changed regularly, is perfectly adequate and using a synthetic in it's place would not show any detectable improvement in engine longevity.
Synthetics' only advantage is in low temperature starting conditions. And ,no Virginia, it isn't "more slippery" than mineral oils.
The wear that occurs on start up is solely due to the oil's cold viscosity being too high to lubricate properly.If you let the engine warm up before loading it ,you reduce that wear.
I prefer to let the engine reach operating temp before I move ,because on the 09, air moving the radiator slows the the time it takes to reach operating temp by quite a large amount.
As for oil change intervals, most motorcycle used oil analyses on the BITOG site show that good quality oils can go much further than the recommended OCI

 

[XB12X]

I've got admit I use fully synthetic oil, though, PaulG. If I had to leave it in longer than 6,000 miles (10,000 km), I wouldn't be concerned.

 

[jezthomas]

It isn't advisable to warm the engine up. You should start and ride off, not let it sit to warm. This way the motor warms faster and wear is less. The same principle hold for thermostat removal. Remove the thermostat, as some people do, and the wear rate goes up.
Regular oil changes are the key. Good oil, mineral based or synthetic; and changed regularly is the key.
This is a picture of my Subaru camshaft. The motor had 320'000klm on it at this stage. 220'000klm were on Castrol Magnatec oil.
View attachment 3012

This is really interesting; where did you read this, I'd be really keen to have a good study of it? It's polar opposites from anything my nuclear physicist scientist father told me about the principles of mechanics. A warm-up period allows oil, and water if you have any, to prime the principle areas of the engine with heat and lubrication. By minimising the load on, and effort of, an engine during this period, you reduce the chance of mechanical failure - short or long-term. Symptomatically, all of my vehicles show signs of a reluctance to run correctly if I omit the warm-up period, until they reach the temperature and oil and water distribution that a warm-up period would have afforded their engines.
All the best now.

 

[Mustangdude]

There's a new Volvo truck available here in OZ with a service interval of 100,000 km. It has no grease nipples.

 

[drumwrecker]

In the past with carburettor engines I found an engine left ticking over when cold would need the choke for far longer than if I drove off immediately.
This meant there was less petrol washing the cylinder of oil.
Providing common sense was used by being gentle with the throttle I think riding off straight away was good practice.
Whether that still applies to engines with an ECU running it I don't know. I would guess after the engine reaches certain revs any choke use would be stopped.

 

[colinlinz]

This is really interesting; where did you read this, I'd be really keen to have a good study of it? It's polar opposites from anything my nuclear physicist scientist father told me about the principles of mechanics. A warm-up period allows oil, and water if you have any, to prime the principle areas of the engine with heat and lubrication. By minimising the load on, and effort of, an engine during this period, you reduce the chance of mechanical failure - short or long-term. Symptomatically, all of my vehicles show signs of a reluctance to run correctly if I omit the warm-up period, until they reach the temperature and oil and water distribution that a warm-up period would have afforded their engines.
All the best now.

You will find this recommendation is widely accepted these days. The warming up idea came from old carby technology, where the engine just wouldn't run well until the choke was off. These days with EFI tech this isn't true. The other factor is the multigrade oils and lower in general viscosities used. We all know that an engine used for long runs lasts longer. This is because most wear happens during the cold period of operation. When running cold, the fuel isn't vaporised, and fuel will not burn in liquid form. This means to get the engine to have enough fuel vapour to ignite, we need to put a lot more in as only a small amount of that fuel will vaporise. The rest remains a liquid and washes the oil from the cylinder. The best (and recommended procedure) is to start the engine and move off within say 30 seconds. This doesn't mean you flog the guts out of it, just drive off in a reasonably normal fashion. This warms the motor faster, reduces emissions, and decreases wear. I'm sure you find this recommendation in some trade type text books.
These are both pretty decent trade level type text books.
Automotive Technology: A Systems Approach, 5th Edition: Jack Erjavec: 9781428311497: Amazon.com: Books
Booktopia - Automotive Mechanics Vol. 1 by Ed May, 9780070271876. Buy this book online.