[Guest]

OK,
so my dealer says to warm up the engine for about 15 miles before running her hard. But what about after you do a brief stop? For example, I rode about 25 miles to see a friend and stopped at his place for about 15-20 minutes. Fired up the bike and the temp was 62 degrees celsius (normally runs at 79). Do I still need to warm the bike up when I jump on it? If so, do I still need to ride the same 15 miles? How bad is it for the bike to ignore this advice?

 

[SKINNY]

15 MILES!!! Most of my trips don't even last 15 miles. 4-5 bars on the heat meter and I am rippin'!
I would ask your dealer to clarify and if he sticks to his guns ask him if he has ever ridden a bike.

 

[Devious2xs]

Birdman,
Until oil gets upto about 185 degrees F it tends not to flow well. It doesn't flow ito all the nooks and cranies in the bearing surfaces and will not be able to hold a load well. Many oils are designed to work best around 220 degrees F - this includes 5w-X and 0w-X oils.

The cam and tappet surfaces are extremely vulnerable to low temperature wear due to being oiled much later in the oiling system.

Also, the block temperature (engine water temp) changes the distortion in the cylinders by a fairly large amount when you compare temps at 50* F and 190* F.

I have a car where the ECU prevents the engine from revving very high until the engine gets above 165 degrees. This is for a good reason.

15 miles seems like a good idea, but you should go by the temp indicator on the bike. 4 bars is a good place, but in cooler outside temps, the oil will remain cool for quite a while. When it is really cold, you may evn want to put a cover over the oil cooler.

Use common sense and get as much information as possible.

I hope this helps.

 

[Guest]

Thanks all for your help. Devious, as usual, thanks for your advice! I have heard others talk about bars as well but I am not sure my '03 has any measures in bars. All I see is the temp guage but that is for the coolant I am assuming, not the oil. I guess I can never really know the oil temp on my bike... is this correct? Do the bars measure oil in the later bikes? How can I know if the oil is up to temp?

The reason I asked my original question is because today after rode a ways I stopped at a friend's house for 20 min. Then I jumped on the bike then rode it at freeway speeds for about 6 miles before I got on it hard (air temp is about 65 degrees). I wanted to know if this was too soon. From Skinny's perspective this may be more than enough. I wanted to know if I can assume that the oil will retain some of its heat and therefore make the new warm up shorter? Thanks!

 

[Devious2xs]

Your bike has a real gauge. the later ones have bars - not nearly as good for engine temp.

The oil stays fairly warm for a while. If you feel theoil cooler (carefully), you can get an idea of how warm the oil is, or isn't. But I like to take the outside temps into consideration and use engine temp to gauge when I can get on it hard.