Go by miles or time .. oil change intervals.

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Guys I have a Honda 919 and I really put low miles on it. Im running Honda Full synthetic oil in it with an Honda oil filter. The oil change by the book is every 7,000 miles. It will take 3 years to get that amount of miles. I don't rack up the miles . Weekend fun bike. Thanks WarDawg
 
Yeah, once a year at minimum.

I hear the 919 is one heck of a bike. If I had the garage space and the extra cash, I'd love to have one of those.
 
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I agree with PT1; OCI at year's end.

The real question is whether the oil is needing to be changed, right? Well, a UOA would answer that, including the corrosive issues with a TBN reading.

Unfortunately, the cost of a UOA, along with the difficulty in obtaining one from such a small sump capacity without greatly effecting the makeup volume, kind of makes it easier to just OCI once a year. Regarding taking the sample, to catch the sample mid-stream, you'd dump so much of the sump that you're 95% of the way to an OCI anyway. That being the case, why bother with the UOA; just OCI. Or, you could buy a sampler tube, but with such a small sump, how do you know if you're getting a good representative sample?

The cost of a full UOA test at Blackstone would be $32. What's a OCI cost? If you run an HDEO and a decent aftermarket filter, you could possibly do it for $15? Here it's just cheaper to OCI than to extend the drain interval past the 1 year mark. You'd likely break even at two years (a guestimate?).

I don't believe for a moment that oil goes bad at the 366th day, but if you can change it cheaper, it's peace of mind. Small-sump, low-use equipment is just flat easier to OCI than to sample and try to extend an oil drain intervals.
 
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I personally would change the oil once a year (before the bike is put into storage). My Wing maybe racks about 5000 miles, the Nighthawk about 3000, and the XS400 maybe this year 1500. All will get oil changes before they're parked for the winter.
 
Once year as indicated at the end of the season.
So far this year I have put about 800 miles on my 919 too.
I am planning to do the same thing.
Don,
I agree with you it is a great bike and more.
My VTX takes the back seat in my mind in many area.
Oh and since I got the vtx it has forced me to park one of our cars outside for the bikes.
 
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If the Honda oil is expensive then run a syn HDEO which will give you a strong enough TBN to go all year and probably save you a few bucks. In reality, a dino 15w40 HDEO will do the trick for sure in a low mileage bike.
 
When ready for syn try MC M1(10w-40) syn. Expensive but wortks well with this bike imo. I have tried the auto 15-50 silver cap and it is good but still prefer the MC sys.
 
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