The when of switching to synthetic engine oil

[websterize]

What's the harm in switching to synthetic at the 6,000-mile service, as opposed to 12,000 or 18,000, if I am still topping up the oil level? I'm at 5,000 miles today. I purchased the bike new, followed run-in guidelines and commute daily in stop-and-go traffic for about 20 miles roundtrip. I also take weekend day trips to Maryland horse country and have been twice to the motoring nirvana that is West Virginia.

It's interesting that BMW ships autos from the factory with synthetic but not motorcycles. Why that is I'm not sure. And I realize that engine oil is a religious issue for many, so please advise knowing that for me, switching to synthetic is a when, not if, question.

[deilenberger]

Bill,

I switched at 6k.. the bike had almost stopped using oil (mebbe 1/2 quart between 6k changes). It has continued to decrease the oil use - and at 33k miles - oil use is a few oz between changes now (top of window to about the bottom.)

If synthetic is what you want I think you can safely change it at 6K.

BTW - two oil analysis' done by Blackstone have made note of the VERY good wear measurements on the engine. They said they rarely see engines that are as good as these ones seem to be.

YMMV - but bet it won't.

[zei220]

Mine was switched at the 600miles service, when I questioned the reason why the dealer said BMW recommend the change at the first service now.

[tobes]

The opinions are all over the board for this one. BMW Ventura switches the boxers to synth at 12K. Seems the main indicator is how much oil your motor is burning.

[ka5ysy]

In actual fact the only consideration is the cost increment of the synthetic oil over dinosaur juice. The engine does not care what is in it as long as the API Oil specifications by BMW are met, and the stuff is changed appropriately.

Synthetic exhibits much better specifics with high temperature operations, and is not prone to coking when overheated. This is the reason that all jet engines use only synthetics, and BMW cars, and others now come with full synthetic from the start.

I have been running Amsoil gear lube in the final drive and transmission and motorcycle oil since my 6K service and use no oil at all between changes.

[Kieran R1200R]

Mine was switched at the 600miles service, when I questioned the reason why the dealer said BMW recommend the change at the first service now.

I just bought a 2009 R12R and the hand book says not to use synthetic until 10,000km.
I think this is due to the running in process.
As one has explained dinasor oil has microsopic abbrasion in it where full synthetic doesn't.
Why would the hand book say this, because using non synthetic must aid the running in process.
So 6,000 miles in your case should be ok.

Here in Adelaide South Australia our Police bikes are BMW R1200RT.
I have spoken to a few of the bike guys and they have all said that there bikes perform better and have all gotten better fuel acconamy after 40,000 km on the clock. That with the hex head and the oil head.
This tells me that the engine has a very long wear in process.
Oil is a very personal thing such is the ride you choose.
There's all sort of debate over Syn vs Non and in the end it is up to you what you go ahead with.
Personally I wont be putting any Synthetic in mine until after 10,000 km are up.

[ka5ysy]

FWIW: long before the "motoman" break-in process generated such huge flame wars on the internet (actually long before the internet!) I was doing a run-in on new engines a lot like the motoman suggestions. I have never had an engine use any oil after that routine, and on my diesel vehicles, I routinely get over 500K miles without any problem.

The general routine for me is to warm up the engine (like my aircraft engines!) and then go run the bike hard throttle , use engine braking and go all over the speed range during the first 100 miles, then pull an oil change (petroleum oil). I run that oil to 500 miles, again running hard throttle accelerations and all over the cruise speed range, not at a constant speed for any length of time., then another oil change. Run to 1000 miles and pull a third oil change.

By this time Blackstone oil analysis shows most of the initial metal particles in the oil sample to be greatly reduced and falling rapidly compared to the first two.

Run to 2000 miles and do another change, then at 5000 another, then do the regular 6000 mile service and change to synthetic everything (transmission and final drive).

Live happily ever after !

The boxer shows a noticeable increase of gas mileage somewhere around 10K miles for me, and gets better and better until stable around 15K miles. A great machine !!

An engine designer recently did a seminar that I attended. He told the group that modern engines are much easier to properly run in initially because the CNC machine tools used to machine and hone the cylinders are much more precise than even 10-15 years ago and are really not too far out of the final run-in dimensions. In actual fact most motorcycle engine manufacturers have run up the engines in test cells and accomplish a lot of the initial beak-in before we ever see them.

CAUTION: YMMV !

[Remow2112]

From an engine building perspective. Synthetic is to slick for engine burn in. The rings on the piston have to seat and (for lack of a better term) wear into the bore. Synthetic does not allow this to happen. Most of the early oil use you see is from oil getting by the piston rings and blowby in the valves.

Once the rings have seated switch to synthetic. Chevy at one point switched new Vettes to synthetic straight from the factory with no run time. Ended up bringing in a bunch of engines and re-ringing them due to excessive oil use caused by the rings not seating.

If you buy a new Porsche they tell you up front that the engine was TEST run at the factory. They got the rings to seat at the factory and then sell them new with synthetic in the crankcase.

HTH,
Dan...

[deilenberger]

From an engine building perspective. Synthetic is to slick for engine burn in. The rings on the piston have to seat and (for lack of a better term) wear into the bore. Synthetic does not allow this to happen. Most of the early oil use you see is from oil getting by the piston rings and blowby in the valves.

What exactly is "blowby in the valves"? I've never heard that term before...

Once the rings have seated switch to synthetic. Chevy at one point switched new Vettes to synthetic straight from the factory with no run time. Ended up bringing in a bunch of engines and re-ringing them due to excessive oil use caused by the rings not seating.

Did they change? AFAIK - they are still using Mobil1 from the factory.
http://blogs.vetteweb.com/6233801/corve ... index.html

If you buy a new Porsche they tell you up front that the engine was TEST run at the factory. They got the rings to seat at the factory and then sell them new with synthetic in the crankcase.

HTH,
Dan...

As are all BMW bike engines - run at the factory - from the videos I've seen, for about 10 minutes in a test bed before being installed in the bike. Oil is then drained for shipping.

[hjsbmw]

If you buy a new Porsche they tell you up front that the engine was TEST run at the factory. They got the rings to seat at the factory and then sell them new with synthetic in the crankcase.

HTH,
Dan...

You don't need to go as fancy as Porsche. Every engine was test run and modern car engines are well run in right after assembly, still suspended in the assembly frame, not even in the car yet. That's how it was when I worked for Audi, and I doubt this is any different for other regular makes. It's the reason for why you can push a modern car straight out of the lot.

[Remow2112]

Sorry if I was not clear enough. 10 minutes of test run time is not enough to get the rings to seat. In normal driving it is between 500 and 5000 miles. (Almost never 5000 miles.)

Yes Vette's still come with mobile 1 but they now seat or burn in the engine before sending them out the doors. Molly rings have done wonders for piston sealing.

Blow-by definition: http://www.bobistheoilguy.com/blowby.html

All engines use a little oil since all engines (to the best of my knowledge) have blowby.
But as soon as the "big" oil loss ends I would feel comfortable switching to synthethic. Which is how we do it when we build engines for cars.

Hope that explains it a little better.

Dan...

[ShinySideUp]

This is really irrelevant but it caught my attention on the oilguy website:

Diesel locomotives use between 200 and 400 quarts of oil.

Man, that would totally mess up my garage floor!

[NakedRider]

This is really irrelevant but it caught my attention on the oilguy website:

Diesel locomotives use between 200 and 400 quarts of oil.

Man, that would totally mess up my garage floor!

You'd need a swimming pool to drain it.

[PhilSB]

Speaking to a guy at my local dealer, Rainbow Mcs at Rotherham, he said in future they would be using synthetic at oil changes. At which service wasn't mentioned.
The dealer I bought mine at , Barry Robson at York, said it wasn't really necessary to use synthetic, it was used on cars with big mileages between services. My BMW 330d counts down from 17,000 to the next service! He said you could use it but it was expensive so he didn't think it worthwhile.

Phil

[deilenberger]

The dealer I bought mine at , Barry Robson at York, said it wasn't really necessary to use synthetic, it was used on cars with big mileages between services. My BMW 330d counts down from 17,000 to the next service! He said you could use it but it was expensive so he didn't think it worthwhile.

Phil

Thats a rather narrow view. The advantages of synthetic over standard dino oil are more than the long-life properties..

Things like sheer-strength (breakdown under pressure), cling (how well it sticks to the metal bits when they're not turning and it's not being pumped) and resistance to coking (burning up when it gets too hot) are all superior on good quality synthetics when compared to dino oil.

You might never need the improved properties, but on a bike you are more likely to than on a car: which has a well regulated engine temp, has an oil system that never goes on it's side still running and not pumping any oil, and typically doesn't sometimes sit for months without running.

On a bike, all of these scenarios are possible. You can get stuck in traffic - in hot weather - and watch the engine temp bars creep up - that's where a high ash-point number is a good thing (think oil burning when it gets hot enough.) You could drop the bike running, or as I had - have an oil filter failure - leaving your engine running with no oil circulating. Sheer strength and high levels of extreme pressure lubricant are all that stand between your engine and a lump of worthless alloy. You might live in an area where the bike doesn't get ridden for a few months in the winter - and all the oil drains down off the camshafts, bearings, etc - leaving metal to metal contact for 10 seconds or so when you start it up in the spring.

I'll pay the extra for synthetic. The oil tests I have had done by Blackstone Labs (both before and after the oil-filter problem) show outstanding low levels of the wear related trace metals they analyze for. Would the numbers be as good with a standard dino oil? Dunno - but I'm not gonna find out on my bike.

[websterize]

On a bike, all of these scenarios are possible. You can get stuck in traffic - in hot weather - and watch the engine temp bars creep up - that's where a high ash-point number is a good thing (think oil burning when it gets hot enough.)

This is high on the list of reasons I'm switching to synthetic. D.C. summers can be brutal.

Thanks for the feedback.

[gersh10]

I'm @ about 9000 miles and still using dino oil, thinking about changing over since I'm not using much oil.
My concern is I am noticing what I think is more vibration and noise than I'm use to from a bike (my first boxer motor). I can really hear my valves and above 3500-4000 I get (again what I perceive to be) a lot of vibration. I had the 6000 mile tune up done and remember my valves sounding quite noisy before bringing it in and they said they where out of adjustment by quite a bit.
A gal who works in the shop at one of the BMW dealerships here in town was telling my buddy to run his bike hard running high rpm's, accelerating hard from the start, this will help with the break-in process... I had a short pipe on my bike for a while sounded good and looked great but a bit too loud for my taste. Point is that I had a tenancy to run higher rpm's and push the bike harder and was afraid I was hurting my bike since I was having quite a bit of popping as I let off the throttle, as well as a death rattle on a cold start up... So once I put the stock exhaust back on my paranoia kicked in telling me that now my engine is noisier and I may have damaged something or just threw my valves out of adjustment... And of course the week I drop my bike off to have things checked out they are slammed and down 2 mechanics to the flu, so again paranoia weighing in I'm afraid it didn't get the best check-up.
Ok, so opinions here.

[deilenberger]

Dunno what opinion you want - but if it's stopped using oil and you want to use synthetic, no reason not to. As far as the valves sounding noisy - probably you couldn't hear them with the other pipe on it. If you do your own service - next valve adjust you could do the rocker-arm-endplay adjustment (which I've yet to see any shop do right), and with a good valve adjustment the bike should be just fine, and quite vibration free.

[gersh10]

Dunno what opinion you want - but if it's stopped using oil and you want to use synthetic, no reason not to. As far as the valves sounding noisy - probably you couldn't hear them with the other pipe on it. If you do your own service - next valve adjust you could do the rocker-arm-endplay adjustment (which I've yet to see any shop do right), and with a good valve adjustment the bike should be just fine, and quite vibration free.

Sound great! So what would be the best maintenance manual to show me this???

[hjsbmw]

Sound great! So what would be the best maintenance manual to show me this???

If you're a member of the BMWOA you can find most anything here: http://www.bmwmoa.org/forum/forumdisplay.php?f=44.
The BMW factory manual DVD also explains these tasks. You can find the DVD on eBay for between $5-$15 for a bootleg copy. It took me a while to find things on the DVD though. I'd still recommend looking at the BMWOA pages.
There are also the Jim Von Baden DVDs about which I can't say anything since I don't own any. (http://www.jimvonbaden.com/JVB_Productions.html)