Oil change??

[MrT]

I recently bought a 2008 R1200 GS with less than 200 miles on the clock,should I change the oil?
The previous owner never managed to ride it much,so I got a great bargain.

[kurt1305]

600 miles is the interval for the first service. Several important things happen then including re-torquing the heads and changing the final drive gear oil.

[t6pilot]

i would change it to be safe, its been in their 3 years, then change it again at 600 miles with the break-in service

[MrT]

Which oil is used from the factory?
I have seen a few offers for oil and filter Modul 15w50 and Ravenol 15w50,can I use any oil?
I am thinking of changing it myself to safe money.

[marc]

BMW recommends Castrol. Says so right in the riders manual. Does that mean that is what they actually use? No idea.

[ca1ic0cat]

Spectro, Amsoil, Royal Purple. Anything specifically made for a motorcycle of the proper weight and synthetic will do nicely. If you can get the Castrol that would be fine too. You'll probably want to buy the special oil filter tool though, makes the job a lot easier.

[MotoGP]

Originally Posted by MrT

I recently bought a 2008 R1200 GS with less than 200 miles on the clock,should I change the oil?
The previous owner never managed to ride it much,so I got a great bargain.

Yuck, get rid of the old oil before you ride. Many agree that synthetic should not be used for the first 6000mi or so and any quality automobile oil of the proper weight is just fine. The "Castrol" recommendation from BMW is a marketing agreement but they do make some quality motor oils.

[Lupusz]

You should not change the first oil until you reach 600miles! It's true, that parts of the oil are vaporised and lost over the time, but this is not as critical as many of us think!
The first oil has special characteristics which are important for your new bike.

A run-in oil should have a good ability of binding swarf which is still in the motor from the production. This is unavoidable and has to be removed with the first oil. Additionally the first miles produce the biggest amout of swarf, so the oil should seal it (oil = dispersion medium).

Additionally there are additives in the oil, which change their chemical characteristics in case of high pressure. In combination with high pressure they change also the surfaces in the motor.

Synthetic motor oils are "composed" with different oils from different destillation stages and they use cracked molecules as well. Therefore each part has it's own function and the key performance indicators are impressive. Anyhow the longer carbon chains (e.g. Paraffin) in organic oils reduce the KPIs of the oil, but they are useful for sealing joints and gaskets, reduced oil consumption and minimizing vaporisation. In combination with good additives these oils have more advantages than disadvantages for our bikes and I would recommend semi synthtic motor oils at least for the first 12.000 miles (for the R1x00x series).
Later on you can use synthtic oils as well, but be aware, that sealings, which have lost material over the time, might become leaky because the paraffin is washed out with the use of synthetic oil.

It's not true, that you should only use oils which are made for motorcycles!
These oils just don't use drag reducers because the wet clutch wouldn't work properly. In your bike the clutch is between the motor and the gearbox,, so oil must never reach the clutch. The requirements of your bike are more comparable to the ones of a high performance car rather than bikes with wet clutches.
You do nothing wrong when you use an oil which are "just for motorcycles", but it is not necesary for your bike.

So I would recommend the usage of high performance semi synthetic motor oil after the 600 miles range rather than the so called "motorcycle oils".


Cheers,
Lupusz


PS: Sorry for my bad English - I hope you can understand it.

PPS: BMW recommends Castrol, but I neer saw a dealer in Germany/Austria using Castrol motoroil. Most of them use the standard 10W-40 from Liqui Moly, which are used for their cars as well.

[Lupusz]

Be aware that you need a special tool for the oil filter. It'S rather deep in the motor block, so that generic tools do not work for me.

Please be aware, that it's not just the change of motor oil which has to be done at 600 miles.
I created a list of the tasks for the 600 miles service of a fully equiped bike. So you could be able to see what has to be done and how it is done:
http://1afotos.at/temp/BMW_R1200GS_2..._Check_v01.pdf


Cheers,
Lupusz

[Chiba]

I'm with those that say change the oil. 3 years with the oil in there... that's excessive, especially with such low mileage. I'd be pretty tempted to have a dealer check that bike out BEFORE I made the deal for it.

--chiba