Greetings.

Just thought I would share my experience of changing the oil on my Xt600e 4PT model... Tell me if its just me....

Last year just after I bought the bike I wanted to check the oil level and after following the manual procedure which says 'run it for at least 10 seconds and check' and much confusion as to why there appeared to be no oil in it at all, I worked out that running the engine is not good enough - for some reason I have to ride around on it for 10 mins to get an accurate reading.

Even then - when I'm as sure as I can be that the oil level is right - for the whole of last year if I feel bottom edge of the airbox there always seems to be an oily smear as though there is a tiny smidge seeping out...

Today - a year on - I changed both the oil and filter. Followed the manual procedure to the letter.... First odd thing was that only about 2.1L of oil came out - I say odd since the manual told me to put 2.8L in I assumed 'about' 2.8L would come out. Its not been burning oil - things only done 6k miles since new - it was definitely filled correctly last time - and the tiny quantities in the airbox wouldn't add up to 0.7L even over a year!

2nd odd thing was that when I got to about 2.1L on the refill - the oil tank was 'full up' and it started overflowing out of the filler hole. So having learned from last years experience, I put the filler cap on, ran the engine for a couple of mins to pump it round a bit - the oil level then went right down and so I carried on filling the oil up to the 2.8L specified in the manual. Ran the engine again & measured the oil level - as per previous experience - despite engine having been run - nothing on the dipstick. Rode round a few lanes for 30 mins, came back, measured the oil - bang on 'max' on the dipstick.

I bought this bike for the character, but it seems even doing basic jobs like changing the oil have character !!!!

Am I normal ?

Andy