http://www.garagenight.tv/forum/tags/oil Find out how to fix your bike en-US Thu, 09 Sep 2010 19:12:03 +0000 http://bbpress.org/?v=1.0.1 q http://www.garagenight.tv/forum/search.php http://www.garagenight.tv/forum/topic/a-question-regarding-oil#post-16 Thu, 09 Jul 2009 17:15:05 +0000 Noel 16@http://www.garagenight.tv/forum/ <p>Folks, my BMW F650 GS DAKAR has 24000 miles on the clock, and for the first time I&#39;ve decided to do the servicing myself - I&#39;m planning on riding down to Cape Town later this year and so am trying to learn a few things about my machine before I leave, and here I have a question regarding oil...</p> <p>It seems that if I’d simply gone to BMW and had the stock dealer service they would have used SAE 10W40 and I&#39;d be none the wiser. However, looking at my BMW maintenance booklet it indicates that SAE 10W40 is only suitable for the temperature range -20 deg C to +20 deg C - temperatures above or below these limits being permitted for brief periods only. As I’ll be riding down to Spain next week for the HUMM, and then all being well riding to Africa some weeks later, I bought some Castrol GTX SAE 15W40 as the limits quoted for this oil are -15 deg C to +30 deg C. All sounds good to me so far aside from the fact that temperatures exceeding +30 deg C are to be expected somewhere along the way in Africa and possibly in Spain too - an SAE 15W50 would be good beyond +30 deg C, but Halfords not unsurprisingly didn&#39;t stock that. The nagging doubt which I have in my mind is that my DAKAR has 24000 miles on it and the label on the oil container states that this oil is for &#39;High Mileage&#39;, and then in smaller writing which I hadn&#39;t noticed when in the shop &#39;Superior protection for engines with over 75000 miles&#39;. So am I doing the DAK an awful dis-service using this oil? Should I rather be using the SAE 10W40 (or indeed something else?) for the Spain outing and for the first leg of the trip getting to Africa. I’ll be riding out via Romania/Bulgaria/Turkey, so I guess another oil change will be about due somewhere there where I can hopefully find an SAE 15W50 in time for traveling in hotter climates. </p>