Motul 7100 4T – French or French Colony?

I’ve been using Motul’s 7100 fully synthetic 4-stroke motor oils since my Pulsar riding days and have so far been pretty pleased with it. It’s reasonably priced and very readily available here in Singapore – which probably explains why its rather popular in this region.

BMW calls for SAE 5W40 API SL / JASO MA2 spec’ed oil for the R1200GS wethead. And since we never experience winter in this part of the world, Motul’s 7100 10W40 API SN JASO MA2 4T oil would likely be suitable. In fact, even the BMW dealer here – PML – uses Shell’s Advance Ultra 10W40 motorcycle oil.

Motul 7100 – 15W50 vs 10W40 side by side.

Since I had an old bottle of 15W50 with the remnant of my last DIY oil change on the Pulsar, I took it out and placed it beside the 10W40 just out of Continue reading “Motul 7100 4T – French or French Colony?”

Pulsar 200NS Engine Oil Anomaly

This is crazy… At the Sunday Morning Ride, I was just talking to a fellow biker about carrying an extra bottle of engine oil for a long trip. And when I returned home after the ride, washed and waxed by bike, I realized that my oil inspection window was… EMPTY!

I had initially thought it was still “warm” after the ride and allowed some time pass to allow the oil to flow back down. But checked the oil window the next morning, still empty – no matter how I tilted my bike. 🙁

So I thought the high RPM run on Sunday might have something to do with it. No external oil leak was observed. So my worst fear was an internal engine oil consumption – aka oil “burning” up. Was it an engine gasket issue? Perhaps a valve oil seal failure? But it was only 17,000km since my engine was rebuilt in Chiang Mai, and I’d be very disappointed if an oil leak or oil consumption occurred.

As a temporary measure, I added Continue reading “Pulsar 200NS Engine Oil Anomaly”