RCinNC
Well-Known Member
I haven’t posted in quite a while, but I thought this might be interesting to some members here.
I’m approaching 100,000 miles on my 2014 S10, and thought it would be a good time to send an oil sample to Blackstone Labs and see if anything weird was going on inside the engine. For a historical perspective on the bike, I do a lot of two up loaded touring, but not a lot of interstate riding. The bike is ridden year round, in temperatures that have ranged from the 20’s (F) to the 100’s (F). It’s been ridden in 33 states, on all types of road conditions from pavement to sand. I do quite a bit of riding on gravel and dirt surfaces.
The bike gets regular maintenance (by me), and has had valve checks done by the shop at each specified interval. I don’t use any oil additives. The bike has never been in the shop for any major repairs. I did have the cam chain tensioner replaced with a newer model at 84,146 miles during the last valve check. In almost eight years of ownership, I’ve had several headlights burn out, I’ve had to replace the OEM battery once, I had to have the rear wheel re-trued once, and I had one fuse (the original 10 amp headlight fuse) burn out. That’s pretty much it.
I pulled a sample on 05/07/22 at 88,965 miles during a regular oil change. This is the Blackstone Labs report on that sample:
The oil had been changed 26 times on the bike up to the point the sample was taken. Out of those 26 oil changes, I skipped changing the oil filter four times. This is the breakdown of the oil and filters used on the bike during its lifetime:
The "unknown" entry is because I forgot to record the type of oil I used.
By far, I’ve used the Mobil M1 108 filter most often, because it’s a common brand stocked in places like O’Reilly’s. Using the other brands like Wix or Bosch has usually been because the Mobil wasn’t available. The Mahle makes an occasional appearance because they were on sale on Amazon.
There you have it. Approximately 67% of the miles on the engine have been accrued using standard automotive oil, and approximately 31% has been accrued using motorcycle specific oil. None of the oil has been synthetic; I only switched to synthetic oil at the most recent oil change (after the sample was taken) because the auto parts stores were out of Castrol Go 4T.
I found the Blackstone Labs report to be very encouraging. I don’t baby the bike; it’s basically my car, and gets ridden almost daily. It gets regular maintenance, but not of the obsessive compulsive variety. I found that I do change my oil at a greater interval than is recommended: on average, I change it every 3421 miles, rather than the recommended 4000.
I’m approaching 100,000 miles on my 2014 S10, and thought it would be a good time to send an oil sample to Blackstone Labs and see if anything weird was going on inside the engine. For a historical perspective on the bike, I do a lot of two up loaded touring, but not a lot of interstate riding. The bike is ridden year round, in temperatures that have ranged from the 20’s (F) to the 100’s (F). It’s been ridden in 33 states, on all types of road conditions from pavement to sand. I do quite a bit of riding on gravel and dirt surfaces.
The bike gets regular maintenance (by me), and has had valve checks done by the shop at each specified interval. I don’t use any oil additives. The bike has never been in the shop for any major repairs. I did have the cam chain tensioner replaced with a newer model at 84,146 miles during the last valve check. In almost eight years of ownership, I’ve had several headlights burn out, I’ve had to replace the OEM battery once, I had to have the rear wheel re-trued once, and I had one fuse (the original 10 amp headlight fuse) burn out. That’s pretty much it.
I pulled a sample on 05/07/22 at 88,965 miles during a regular oil change. This is the Blackstone Labs report on that sample:
The oil had been changed 26 times on the bike up to the point the sample was taken. Out of those 26 oil changes, I skipped changing the oil filter four times. This is the breakdown of the oil and filters used on the bike during its lifetime:
The "unknown" entry is because I forgot to record the type of oil I used.
By far, I’ve used the Mobil M1 108 filter most often, because it’s a common brand stocked in places like O’Reilly’s. Using the other brands like Wix or Bosch has usually been because the Mobil wasn’t available. The Mahle makes an occasional appearance because they were on sale on Amazon.
There you have it. Approximately 67% of the miles on the engine have been accrued using standard automotive oil, and approximately 31% has been accrued using motorcycle specific oil. None of the oil has been synthetic; I only switched to synthetic oil at the most recent oil change (after the sample was taken) because the auto parts stores were out of Castrol Go 4T.
I found the Blackstone Labs report to be very encouraging. I don’t baby the bike; it’s basically my car, and gets ridden almost daily. It gets regular maintenance, but not of the obsessive compulsive variety. I found that I do change my oil at a greater interval than is recommended: on average, I change it every 3421 miles, rather than the recommended 4000.
