Tha Saga Continues…
Having finally (after almost a month) got the scooter legally registered I checked the oil levels, filled the gas tank and too it out for a ride. It rode for 25 miles over a couple of days, keeping the speed down to the 25-30mph region. Using a GPS unit I found that the speedometer was about 10% optimistic (when it read 30mph the true speed was 27mph), but the oddometer was quite accurate and calibrated in miles. I’ve read some reports of oddometers calibrated in km, but mine wasn’t.
After 25 miles I changed the oil in both the engine and transmission. Who know what type of oil was put in at the factory. It may be good or it may be bad, but an oil change on a scooter is so cheap and easy that there’s no reason not to do an early oil change. I used Castrol GTX 10-30W in the engine and Castrol Hypoid Gear Oil EP80W-90 in the transmission. After 200 miles I did a second oil change. During the break-in period there is additional wear on the engine and scooters like mine don’t have an oil filter like car does. They have a mesh screen filter which will catch large chunks of metal and metal shavings OK, but which won’t remove suspended metalic particulates which are generated as the engine goes through the break-in process of smoothing out the moving surfaces. An oil change on a scooter takes under 5 minutes and costs about $3. Why not do it often.
There are many schools of thought on how to break and engine in. Some recommend the very slow and lengthy approach (20 mph for the first 100 miles, 25 mph for the next hundred, 30 mph for the next 300 miles and 40 mph for the next 500 miles). Few, if any, riders have that much patience!
There’s also a school of thought that says you get better rusults with a very fast break-in, in which you run the engine very hard as described here http://www.mototuneusa.com/break_in_secrets.htm. I’m not so sure that would be a good idea with a scooter, and I certainly didn’t feel like testing it out on mine.
What I did was to keep the speed low (30 mph) for the first 100 miles, with no rapid acceleration, no “wide open throttle” and varying the speed (no constant speed cruising). Over the next 100 miles I’ve been keeping the speed below 40 mph and again trying not to hold a contant speed for more than a few minutes. I’m still using Castrol GTX 10-30W. It’s an oil I’ve used for many years in all sorts of engines including highly tuned turbos. I would not use synthetic oil in a scooter, especially during the break in period. Once the engine is broken in properly (after around 1000 miles) I may go to a synthetic blend oil. However changing the oil frequently is probably much more important for engine life then exactly what brand of oil you use.