Burning Oil

I had a 97 ST1100 I currently ride a 2005 1300. Change oil at between 4500 and 6000 km. Use what is typically recommended by shops in my area, http://emotorcycles.ie/?cars=motul-oil-5100-10w40-4ltr

Last summer I did an oil change on my bike as well as a buddies 2003 1300. We embarked on a trip to Nova Scotia and one morning on the return trip to Ontario we discovered we were both down about 1/2 to 3/4 of a litre of oil.

I didn't thing much of it at first, although I was a little concerned as I had never encountered this before. A couple weeks ago a friend of mine also with a 2005 was on a trip from Ontario, Canada to Florida and he too found at some point in the trip that he was down about 3/4 of litre.

None of the bikes exhibited any visual signs of burning oil while riding. Both there bikes are stock mine has a Two Brothers Pipe. Can't imagine what difference that would mKe but thought I would.d mention it.

We all have between 40,000 and 65,000 km on our bikes.

Is anyone else experiencing this?

I'm wondering if the quality of Motul's oil has changed. It may be time to try something different.

T-6..........just sayin'..............ff

Were you checking the oil on the trip? I bet you were not down that much. I have over 115,000 miles on my ST with no oil added between oil changes, you will see it look like it is low one time and then look at it again and it will be fine.

I normally fill my oil filter up before I install them, but found it just made to much of a mess when I did this on the ST1300. Did you go with a longer than normal filter.?
Today I did an oil change and the Mobil filter that I used stated that it had twice the capacity. So what I did was just filled the oil over the add mark and then took it out of the garage to run it for 5 minutes. Now the oil is slowly creeping up to the upper fill line.
What's your procedure when you do your oil change. Did something change.?
Just came in and the oil after 5 minutes has creeped up to the middle of the sight glass. Going to top it up now to the upper line.
The first few times I did an oil change, I filled it to the upper line and then found out I grossly overfilled it. Then loosened off the oil filter to drain some out. Yes I learned though pain.

My 07 never loses a drop between changes ......never give it a second thought. 23k on it presently

All good points. I will have to pay particular attention to a couple things on the next change. It may very well be I started out with less oil in it than I thought, although I put the prescribed amount in after the change.
I've been using Motul for years with excellent results so this had me a bit stumped.
I suspect it is something I'm overlooking.
Cheers

Aust88 said:

...we discovered we were both down about 1/2 to 3/4 of a litre of oil.

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Sounds a lot... my '92 with 120Tkm on the clock had no noticeable oil consumption (like 3~4mm in the viewglass @ the 12.000km between services/changes... and it always ran on 5W60 full-synth...)

Have you switched oil brands or types at that last change?
Over the years/miles oils create build-ups that help to "seal" within the engine (rings, guidances, etc...), if you now suddenly change to a significantly different oil (like from dino to full synth or vice versa...), it could happen that the new oil 'disintegrates' those build-ups, thus leading to a temporarily oil consumption until the new oil had chance to create its own deposits...

Aust88 said:

All good points. I will have to pay particular attention to a couple things on the next change. It may very well be I started out with less oil in it than I thought, although I put the prescribed amount in after the change.
I've been using Motul for years with excellent results so this had me a bit stumped.
I suspect it is something I'm overlooking.
Cheers

Click to expand...

What weight Motul are you using ??

Jim Van said:

What weight Motul are you using ??

Click to expand...

That info is in his first post.

Just coming up to 160k km on my 99. Uses less than 1/4 litre per season. Your consumption seems high to me. Like others have said, it may not be consumption, just that you may have not checked the level correctly or not filled her up right. Visual indicators are always subject to some error too. I use GTX 20W50, btw.

Ross