Oil information
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I'm not convinced that the high fuel levels are "normal" regardelss of what the Harley dealer is saying, though I'll have to get feedback from others who are doing oil analysis before i pass judgement. Either way, it's cutting back on the viscosity and lowering your film strength. Again, those others of you out there doing analysis, I'd be interested in how your results fare.
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Sam here is the link with the full pdf of details attached on both of his test.
http://www.v-rodforums.com/forum/showthread.php?s=&threadid=1755
http://www.v-rodforums.com/forum/showthread.php?s=&threadid=1755
I wouldn't make any changes regarding the type of oil until you know for sure why the fuel dilution is occuring. A good synthetic will have better film strength (typically) and will offer better protection in the presence of contaminants. Again, I think you guys need to get to somebody at "the Company" who can answer your questions. I'm talking way above the district level, but somebody in their engineering team. I would watch the Discovery Channel video and start pulling names from the interviewees who were involved with the project, call the factory, and ask for contact numbers and emails, then start bugging the hello out of them.
Sam
Sam
I'm not sure that randomly telephoning Harley engineers and demanding an explanation of why a particular Revolution engine might produce an oil sample with "high" fuel levels is a real good idea.
For starters, engineering department employees are routinely cautioned against making speculative or "off-the-cuff" comments, either to reporters, or the members of the public. This is just plain good business sense - you never know if the person you are talking to is really working for some lawyer trying to squeeze money out of the company through some B/S product lawsuit. All engineering department statements (and especially written ones) go through both the Communications Department as well as the Legal Department for approval and to check that they aren't saying something that could be harmful to the company, or make it look foolish.
Secondly, the posting of the "oil analysis" *.pdf files is interesting - but not necessarily significant. If you look closely, the one with the highest fuel content occured when a) the bike was relatively new and b) when it had approximately 4000 miles on the oil. When the bike was a little more "broken in" and the oil was considerably fresher - the fuel level dropped. I guess my "take away" from reading the oil analyses is that I'm doing the right thing by changing my oil every 1000 - 1500 miles; and by sticking to the factory recommendations as to viscosity and type of oil. Sure - in both cases the fuel percentage in the oil was higher than "normal" - but there are probably hundreds of possible causes for that, other than "Harley-Davidson sold me a defective engine."
For starters, engineering department employees are routinely cautioned against making speculative or "off-the-cuff" comments, either to reporters, or the members of the public. This is just plain good business sense - you never know if the person you are talking to is really working for some lawyer trying to squeeze money out of the company through some B/S product lawsuit. All engineering department statements (and especially written ones) go through both the Communications Department as well as the Legal Department for approval and to check that they aren't saying something that could be harmful to the company, or make it look foolish.
Secondly, the posting of the "oil analysis" *.pdf files is interesting - but not necessarily significant. If you look closely, the one with the highest fuel content occured when a) the bike was relatively new and b) when it had approximately 4000 miles on the oil. When the bike was a little more "broken in" and the oil was considerably fresher - the fuel level dropped. I guess my "take away" from reading the oil analyses is that I'm doing the right thing by changing my oil every 1000 - 1500 miles; and by sticking to the factory recommendations as to viscosity and type of oil. Sure - in both cases the fuel percentage in the oil was higher than "normal" - but there are probably hundreds of possible causes for that, other than "Harley-Davidson sold me a defective engine."
I don't recall accusing anybody of building a "defective" engine. I realize that HD went to a lot of effort including a technical JV with Porsche to insure a good engine. That's not to say it is perfect. As you have seen in other threads the bike has "known" some design growing pains. I just feel that in my experience (yes, I'm a senior as well) both as an automotive technician and fuel and lube researcher that there is no damn way that an engine should take such a long time for rings to seal unless there is some problem with the geometry of the rings and liners. Even the goofiest engines I've seen whether automotive, aircraft, or marine, usually have the rings seated within an hour or two on the dyno, a few days or so on the road or other medium. The fuel dilution numbers, in my experience, are completely UNACCEPTABLE, unless you like running the engine with a 25-30 viscosity engine oil. Sure, changing oil regularly makes perfect sense, but changing it to symptomatically deal with excessive break in time is ridiculous. As far as bugging the manufacturer, I've done it successfully both as a mechanic (Buick and Chevrolet) and as a researcher/field engineer. Matter of fact, I've got an engineer at one of the big three automotive engine design labs working on an oil consumption problem as we speak. Keep in mind that you guys have paid a lot of money for these machines. You as consumers have much more power at your command than any position I represented to these manufacturers. The fuel dilution issue is not a freak incident, but seems to be common to many of you. The manufacturer is obliged to find an answer.
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Vroddrew,
I have to disagree with you. I have routinely been able to put far more miles on oil on other bikes with a hint of fuel in the oil. Your suggestion is exactly what HD recommended. Ride harder, change more. Changing the oil every 1000 1500 miles is unrealistic I ride year round and put 1600 miles a month on my bike. This isn't;t rocket science. It's oil, and oil should be free of fuel. I have been corresponding with other Vrodders who also had their oil changed and had fewer miles on their engine and had no noticeable fuel in the oil. The engineers at HD via Customer support said it should drop after 10k miles of riding. I bought off on the rings seating explanation for now. But when you see a 19k$ high rev engine w/ 20w oil after only 4k miles make me nervous. I have used Mobil 1 on my Valkyrie for 3 years and would put 8k miles between changes, again w/ no fuel in it and all the other specs well within tolerance.
I am suggesting that I do have a problem that perhaps only time and or a good dealer will tell.
I have to disagree with you. I have routinely been able to put far more miles on oil on other bikes with a hint of fuel in the oil. Your suggestion is exactly what HD recommended. Ride harder, change more. Changing the oil every 1000 1500 miles is unrealistic I ride year round and put 1600 miles a month on my bike. This isn't;t rocket science. It's oil, and oil should be free of fuel. I have been corresponding with other Vrodders who also had their oil changed and had fewer miles on their engine and had no noticeable fuel in the oil. The engineers at HD via Customer support said it should drop after 10k miles of riding. I bought off on the rings seating explanation for now. But when you see a 19k$ high rev engine w/ 20w oil after only 4k miles make me nervous. I have used Mobil 1 on my Valkyrie for 3 years and would put 8k miles between changes, again w/ no fuel in it and all the other specs well within tolerance.
I am suggesting that I do have a problem that perhaps only time and or a good dealer will tell.
Sorry: But that sounds pretty much like an accusation of a defective engine to me.Sam V said:
As I am sure you are aware, virtually every major automaker (GM, Ford, Toyota, VW) has at least one ongoing complaint against it, claiming "excessive oil consumption" - do a Google search on those keywords and see what pops up. I'm not saying that there isn't a problem there - but I tend to question how this sort of scenario came about. Are engines today somehow vastly inferior to those of prior decades? Of course not - but I believe that two things have combined to make this sort of "problem" more apparent: 1) Piston ring placement much closer to top of the piston and 2) the virtual disappearance of "full service" gas stations - where a helpful pump jockey would check (and fill) your oil at every fill-up. Now the only time most people get their oil checked is every 5000 (or 7500, or more..) miles when they take it in for service.
In the case of the V-Rod I believe we have created a self-fulfilling prophecy. Somebody claimed that the oil "smelled like gas." I remember the first person who had this experience and sent an oil sample in - and discovered that the fuel level was fine - but that for some reason the zinc level (or some such mineral) was slightly high. Now we have a case where another owner has oil analyses that DO show an elevated fuel level. But are there any other symptoms, or problems? Not that I can tell - but you can be absolutely certain that if ever anything ever goes wrong with his engine that oil analysis will "prove" that defective design or assembly was at fault.
There was an episode of "King of the Hill" a few weeks ago, where Hank made the mistake of allowing an "expert" to test his walls for "mold." Of course, tests proved that there was mold, and as a result he got his house torn apart - to correct a "problem" that wasn't doing any harm to anybody. The point is, if you look hard enough, and do enough tests on it, I'm sure you can find a fault with pretty much anything.
I don't think that we are doing ourselves, or anybody else, a favor by creating an environment of unreasonable fear, where people are sniffing their oil, and mailing samples of it across the country. I'll keep changing my oil on schedule, and worry about defective engines when a whole bunch of V-Rod's start breaking down.
Low miles, Lots o gas.
If you look at my sample listed above you can see that I only had 2147 mi on my SYN3 plus 1 qt make up in that time and still had 6% fuel.
Keep in mind that my last few rides were rather short due to 30* temps and we know that the V-Rod runs a little rich when cold this may be part of the cause. I am just providing a personal example of how riding style may effect testing. Next summer after some good crankin on it I am going to send in another to see if there is any change.
By the way my oil did stink of gas, BAD.
Ken
If you look at my sample listed above you can see that I only had 2147 mi on my SYN3 plus 1 qt make up in that time and still had 6% fuel.
Keep in mind that my last few rides were rather short due to 30* temps and we know that the V-Rod runs a little rich when cold this may be part of the cause. I am just providing a personal example of how riding style may effect testing. Next summer after some good crankin on it I am going to send in another to see if there is any change.
By the way my oil did stink of gas, BAD.
Ken
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o2man98 I think your dead on with the riding style. When the engine is cold the amount of fuel being run through the injectors is almost twice as much under some conditions and remember that all the parts, cylinders, pistons and rings have not all reached the desired size and won't seal as well. So if your one that makes very short trips I would suggest to change oil often. I plan to get my next change tested to see how mine compares. I ride about 30 miles a day in two trips and that should be pretty typical in town driving.
Max
Max
I don't know whether or not this whole topic is a real concern or not yet but it has been some damn good reading so far...
However, I think my analogy here will apply to the oil tests that ya'll are doing.
In my field (the software world), when we run tests, we don't speculate anything without a minimum 5-10 test iterations. This starts to show a trend. Then we start from scratch and do it again and compare trend results. Then we change the conditions and do it all again to find derivatives of that particular problem.
My point is...
Once you have a trend for a particular V-Rod, in a particular climate, then you find another V-Rod in a similar climate, etc., and capture its trend and start comparing trend results. Unfortunately, I think we're looking at more than 1 or 2 oil changes...
Leon
However, I think my analogy here will apply to the oil tests that ya'll are doing.
In my field (the software world), when we run tests, we don't speculate anything without a minimum 5-10 test iterations. This starts to show a trend. Then we start from scratch and do it again and compare trend results. Then we change the conditions and do it all again to find derivatives of that particular problem.
My point is...
Once you have a trend for a particular V-Rod, in a particular climate, then you find another V-Rod in a similar climate, etc., and capture its trend and start comparing trend results. Unfortunately, I think we're looking at more than 1 or 2 oil changes...
Leon
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Vroddrew,
I agree withthe self fullfilling prophecy notion. I also have to protect my investment. I do the oil analysis to confirm my suspicions. The bike has shown signs of hard starting and the smell of fuel on occation and a cloud or two of smoke when starting. These symptoms, while not definitive are part of a trend of excess fuel in the system for some reason. When I took it to the dealer and issited they call HD dealer support, the answer they got surprised me a bit. "This is a high revving engione they said" and it needs 10k miles of breakin to level off many oil/fuel issues like this" They even went as far as to say "this engine loves to be run hard" and that by running it hard (higer RPMs) many of these issues don't show themselves. This sentiment is echo'd above.
I ride year round. Like Max I ride a dailey total of about 80 miles. Thats 60 hwy and 20 city stop and go. The climate here is cold right now and I do warm the bike up for 5-10 min beofre taking off.
I guess what I am saying is "trust but verify" I trust that much of this may be driving habit and conditions, but to protect the investement verification by analysis and independent review (Lubeguy) not to mention other experiencies on boards like this.
I just want someone to take an interest at the dealership/mfg level to say "let's all just keep an eye on this" but till we prove something is wrong, ride it !!!!!
So thats what I am doing.
I agree withthe self fullfilling prophecy notion. I also have to protect my investment. I do the oil analysis to confirm my suspicions. The bike has shown signs of hard starting and the smell of fuel on occation and a cloud or two of smoke when starting. These symptoms, while not definitive are part of a trend of excess fuel in the system for some reason. When I took it to the dealer and issited they call HD dealer support, the answer they got surprised me a bit. "This is a high revving engione they said" and it needs 10k miles of breakin to level off many oil/fuel issues like this" They even went as far as to say "this engine loves to be run hard" and that by running it hard (higer RPMs) many of these issues don't show themselves. This sentiment is echo'd above.
I ride year round. Like Max I ride a dailey total of about 80 miles. Thats 60 hwy and 20 city stop and go. The climate here is cold right now and I do warm the bike up for 5-10 min beofre taking off.
I guess what I am saying is "trust but verify" I trust that much of this may be driving habit and conditions, but to protect the investement verification by analysis and independent review (Lubeguy) not to mention other experiencies on boards like this.
I just want someone to take an interest at the dealership/mfg level to say "let's all just keep an eye on this" but till we prove something is wrong, ride it !!!!!
So thats what I am doing.
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