Long commute - service intervals?

[redeye321]

Over the years I have slowly moved further away from my job in London and deeper into Kent. Now living in Faversham and looking at a 100 mile commute to work everyday. The bike is a K4 with 66000 miles on the clock. I would say about 95 percent of my journey will be motorway. I'm wondering if I will have to change my servicing schedules because of all the motorway work?

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[ChrisCurvyS]

Dunno but I'd go two teeth up on your front sprocket. I've got a long motorway commute and it's helped massively - much less buzzy and about ten more miles before the fuel light comes on.

Only doing 6000rpm at 90, about 5000 at 70.

[redeye321]

Too late I have just changed my chain and sprockets. Will remember that for next time.

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[NTECUK]

Stick with your recommended one.

[yorkie_chris]

If it's solely doing 100 mile motorway trips you could stretch the oil changes out a bit if you wanted without too much issue. It's very light duty for one depending how fast you go.

But for the sake of saving £1/1000 miles it's probably worth just sticking to standard services.

[Ceri JC]

If it's solely doing 100 mile motorway trips you could stretch the oil changes out a bit if you wanted without too much issue. It's very light duty for one depending how fast you go.


+1
I found that you can safely stretch the service intervals a bit if you're doing lots of long distance motorway riding. Riding in London itself (lots of stop starting, hard acceleration and braking, poor road surface working the suspension) is quite taxing on a bike. Banging along at a constant 80mph on the motorway isn't.

The main reason I chose to do this was not one of cost saving, but rather time saving: money aside, it's a real pain to service the bike very regularly (as is necessary when doing high mileage) even more of a nuisance if you can't do all the servicing yourself and need to take time to drop it at a dealers, make alternative travel arrangements whilst it's out of action, etc. Yes, it's a gamble, but one that paid off for me and I never experienced a breakdown as a consequence.

[suzukigt380paul]

run it on good quality fully synthetic bike oil,and change the oil every 8k.just like every honda i own

[Fallout]

Sounds like you think motorway work is more taxing on the bike. It isnt, so long as your not screaming along in the high rpms. Its probably better per mile for all components.

[redeye321]

Must admit I did think that it was working a lot harder on the motorway. I was thinking my bike was reaching the end of its life due to the mileage that I have put on it but hopefully I should get a bit more use out of it.

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[Winder]

Engine is not even close to the end of it's life. It's the other bits you need to keep and eye on for corrosion etc, british weather and crappy road salt are your main enemy not the mileage.
You say you have just got new chain and sprockets, if you don't have one already i would recommend a scottoiler or similar lubrication system to really extend the life of your chain drive.

[Dicky Ticker]

Does your bike use any oil?,if you are topping it up every 2000 miles or so you are refreshing the oil.Oil is an engines blood and the cleaner the better. Motorway miles when the engine is maintaining a constantly higher oil pressure are in general kinder to the engine.