Hitchcocks Forum

What can be considered a normal oil consumption for a Bullet 500 ?
Mine is from January '99. I never ride fast. I hardly every exceed 75 km/h. My average speed must be something like 65-70, the ideal speed for Norwegian country roads.

Its oil consumption is about 800cc per 1000 km.

That seems excessive to me.

65 - 70... what? Kilometers or miles? (I presume Km in Norway..?)

OK, we need an 'edit' button. Sorry.. you mean Km..


That does seem a little high on oil consumption.

A Bullet in pretty good shape shouldn't really use much, if any oil at all.

Have you any idea where the oil is going? I mean, is there smoke in the exhaust, does the engine leak a lot, do the plugs oil up? The bike is now 18 years old and depending on mileage (sorry, kilometreage!) it may need a rebore or possibly bore glaze busting. You don't travel very fast and it might possibly have glazed up as a result?

REgards, Mark

With Mark M's comments in mind, your bike could just be blowing excessive oil out of the crankcase breather if the piston rings aren't doing their job properly. A.

maybe our friend is filling the engine oil to the max mark on the dipstick rather than midway between the max & min marks

Excellent observation Bry, that would do it. It will be interesting to see what Nico says about where it is/isn't appearing!

REgards, Mark

Backing what Bullet Whisperer said, on a 500 mile round trip from Yorkshire to Wiltshire and back, cruising at mainly 60 mph, my 99 Indian 500 hardly used any oil and wasn't topped up at all.