I left the bobistheoilguy forum years ago. No more UOAs for me, I just throw lots of fresh dino oil at my motors. I never keep them long enough to care. I only keep them for 150k and dump them before the motor blows.

 

This bike only uses 1.5 quarts of relatively low grade oil. You should use oil that meets the spec. I like synthetic myself.

So change early and change it often. What about the oil filter? It is very easy, cheap, and clean to just change the oil but changing the filter is much more money and mess.

Does anybody just change the oil and leave the filter alone?

 

Yep, I do a 2-to-1 oil to filter change regimen. Since my trip scenarios usually involve well over 1000 miles at a whack, I usually change it when I get home, so I'm probably averaging about 1200-1400 miles on the oil and about 2400-2800 miles on a filter. I inspect the old filter, and I've never seen any degrading of the paper element or any collapsing of the paper folds...always looks good. I use 10-40 synthetic oil. This bike uses absolutely no oil between changes. I'm impressed as I've never had another bike that gets flogged this hard that didn't use at least a little bit of oil in the same conditions.

 

I do a two to one also on both bikes and car. no reason to toss a perfectly good oil filter (assuming just a regular oil change, bike wasn't dumped into a creek or something) and make a bigger mess.

 

Where did you find your info? In the same owner manual that suggest you to shift in 6th gear at 34 mph?

You may draw your own conclusions...

 

I think manufacturers do this for two reasons. A:lowest maintenance so they can brag and B:by the time maintenance matters the bike, car or equipment is out of warranty.

 

I'm also wondering about the valve check being so high. I know some motors don't move much, but I'm planning on doing the first few checks early to see what's really going on in there.