What can cause oil consumption?

My bike never used to use a drop. The other day I started it up and the oil light came on. It's an oil level light on a Yamaha, not oil pressure.

The bike doesn't smoke and there are no drips under the bike. It is kept clean so you would notice if it was blowing oil out anywhere.

I can't see any seeping from anywhere. It's just been serviced (after I noticed the low oil) and the garage didn't mention any leaks. I know they were thorough as they picked up on some other stuff.

After the service it doesn't look like it is using oil again??? Any ideas why it could have been using a bit before the service?

Thanks

Scoobs

[jambo]

How often, and how much are both pretty crucial.

Note where it is now, and check regularly, keeping a note of elapsed time, mileage, and amount needed to get back to the starting level.

Hopefully you'll find that the usage is actually pretty low and just got that way over time. It's inevitable a little will be used but some motors are worse than others.

Jambo

[Fallout]

Cue YC or Sqiddyface to give you a more authoritative answer, but basically oil either leaks out onto the floor, escapes into the coolant or gets blown out the exhaust. There is nowhere else for it to go. So if there are no dribbles anywhere and your coolant is clean then it's getting into your cylinders and being burnt off. A small amount is normal. Possible culprits are rings or valve stem seals (ask my Gixxer about those!). Symptoms would just be smoking out the exhaust which you may not notice, normally because you tend to not be looking at the exhaust when you're riding along, and it can be impossible to spot in your mirror.

It's possible if your oil was particularly well used and therefore thinned out a lot. It would then leak more easily past seals. New oil is thicker and therefore you might see less consumption until it gets old and battered again.

All in all I wouldn't worry about it. If you're not seeing any smoking issues and it's only a bit then it's not worth worrying about, not least because any job to repair these issues will cost an arm and a leg, so you'd probably just live with it anyway! I do, on both bikes!

Originally Posted by jambo

Hopefully you'll find that the usage is actually pretty low and just got that way over time.Jambo

It is quite low and only needs a small top up over 1,000 miles.

Originally Posted by Fallout

It's possible if your oil was particularly well used and therefore thinned out a lot. It would then leak more easily past seals. New oil is thicker and therefore you might see less consumption until it gets old and battered again.

This is what I was thinking. I wasn't sure if that was possible or not.

It's not a major concern, just wondered what could cause it..?

[Fallout]

I can't remember what you ride Scoobs. I remember a radiator bursting a leak on the GM ride you attended last year (I think), and vaguely recollect the bike was white ... was it a Daytona? A small top up every 1k would be nothing for a Triumph AFAIK. If you had an old knackered bike like my Gixxer you'd praise the lord if it made it 1000 miles without using half it's oil. Still runs sweet!

08 R1 - and yep! Holed the rad last year. Feckin bikes!

Well my cb500 has just gone through at least 500ml in 1500 miles. Which is unusual for my bike but ive been using the gears shall we say alot more, getting it to the redline more frequently so maybe thats why.