How to Change Motorcycle Oil

There is no single motorcycle oil change procedure, and any guide that gives you one is describing its author's bike. Three things about your machine decide what the job actually is: whether the oil lives in the sump or in a separate tank, whether that same oil also lubricates the gearbox and the clutch, and whether the filter is a spin on canister or a cartridge in a housing. Establish those three, and the rest of the job follows.

Difficulty	Time	Tools	Safety
Beginner to intermediate, depending on the answers below	About an hour once you know which procedure applies	Depends on the filter type and the drain method	Hot oil, hot exhaust, a bike that can fall over

This page routes. It does not repeat the step by step, because the steps differ depending on your answers, and the linked pages carry them.

Before you touch anything

• Oil that has just been run is hot enough to scald, and it leaves the engine fast when the plug clears its threads. Warm is what you want, not hot off a ride.

• The exhaust stays hot long after the engine is off, and it usually runs right under where you will be working. Oil landing on a hot header smokes and can catch.

• A bike can fall off a stand or a jack, and it falls towards whoever is kneeling beside it. Use a stand rated for the machine on flat solid ground, and get it upright and level before anything comes undone.

• Wear eye protection and nitrile gloves. The US Environmental Protection Agency describes used motor oil as insoluble, persistent, slow to degrade, and able to contain toxic chemicals and heavy metals. EPA publishes no specific human health outcome from skin contact and we will not invent one, but there is no reason to wear the stuff. See EPA on used oil.

• Never run an engine in an enclosed space. Warming the engine is the first step of this job and it is where that gets forgotten.

Why there is no single procedure

An oil change is four things: get the old oil out, deal with the filter, put the right oil back, confirm the level. All four are arranged differently across motorcycles.

Where the oil sits decides where it drains from and how many drain points there are. Whether the gearbox and clutch share that oil decides which oil is allowed in the engine at all. How the filter is mounted decides your tools and your parts. And the level check, the step that confirms the whole job, has no universal method: whether a bike is read on the sidestand or upright, hot or cold, running or stopped is model specific and lives in the owner's manual. So work through the three questions below before you touch a spanner.

Question one, wet sump or dry sump

On a wet sump engine the oil is held in the sump underneath the engine, and a drain plug at or near its lowest point empties it. This is the arrangement most riders have, and the one nearly every generic guide assumes.

A dry sump engine keeps its oil in a separate tank, with pumps moving it in and out of the engine. That changes the job in a way no generic guide accounts for: there is usually more than one place oil sits, and emptying one does not empty the others. Drain what you think is the sump, refill to the capacity figure, and the engine can end up holding the wrong amount.

Your service manual is the authority on which you have and where every drain point is. A separate oil tank with its own filler cap is a hint, not proof. If your machine is dry sump, start at the dry sump oil change.

Question two, does the engine share its oil with the gearbox and clutch

This is the question that decides which oil, and the one most often got wrong.

On the great majority of four stroke motorcycles a single body of oil lubricates the crankshaft and valvetrain, the gearbox gears, and a wet clutch whose friction plates run immersed in it. The Japan Lubricating Oil Society describes this architecture as one in which a lubricating oil is used commonly for the engine, clutch and transmission, and it is the reason a motorcycle specific oil standard exists at all. JASO T903 was written to identify oils suited to it, and JALOS states in its implementation manual that there are concerns low friction and low viscosity oils, used in motorcycles, may cause clutch slippage and transmission gear pitting wear.

Not every machine is arranged that way. Harley-Davidson's own Formula+ product page documents the opposite case, listing models on which the wet clutch runs in the primary chaincase lubricant rather than the engine oil, and stating that lubricant is not for use in the crankcase. Where the clutch and gearbox live in separate cavities with their own fluids, or the clutch is dry and runs in air, the engine oil never reaches the friction plates, so the JASO friction classification has no bearing on the clutch.

Which arrangement your bike uses is a per model fact and it has to come from your own manufacturer's documentation. We do not publish a model list, because no primary source we could verify publishes one. Follow it up in what the JASO classes mean, whether car oil belongs in a motorcycle, and for separate-fluid machines, engine, primary and transmission fluids.

Question three, spin on canister or cartridge

A spin on filter is a sealed metal can that screws onto a threaded stub on the engine. You take the whole thing off with a filter tool and throw it away. A cartridge filter is a paper element inside a housing on the engine, reached by unbolting a cover, and only the element is replaced.

They need different tools and different parts. A spin on can leave its old rubber gasket stuck to the engine, and a doubled gasket leaks. A cartridge usually has a cover O ring and often a spring or seat behind the element that goes back one way only. Work out which you have before buying anything: spin on versus cartridge.

Then choose how you get the oil out

With those three answered, there are two ways to do the job. The drain plug method empties the sump from its lowest point and puts the plug in your hand, so you get to read the plug magnet and inspect the threads. A vacuum extractor pulls the oil out through the dipstick tube, which is a real convenience on a faired bike, and skips both of those inspections.

Two things are worth reading before either: whether to drain hot or cold, and crush washers and stripped plug threads, the failure that turns a simple job into a repair. Either way the old oil has to go somewhere: how to dispose of used motorcycle oil.

Choosing the oil itself

The grade on the bottle is not the whole answer. SAE J300, the standard behind names like 10W-40, defines limits for engine oils in rheological terms only, and SAE states plainly that other oil characteristics are not considered or included. A grade describes flow behaviour and nothing about clutch friction or additive chemistry.

What your manufacturer requires, and how to check that a bottle actually meets it, is covered in viscosity grades explained and how to verify an oil meets your manufacturer specification.

Specifications you need to look up for your bike

Value	Why you need it	Where to find it
Wet sump or dry sump, and every drain point	Question one, and it changes the whole procedure	Factory service manual
Whether the engine oil also lubricates the gearbox and clutch	Question two, and it decides which oil	Owner's manual and factory service manual
Filter type, part number and cover torque	Question three, and it decides your tools	Parts catalogue and factory service manual
Oil grade, and any classification the maker requires	Choosing the oil at all	Owner's manual
Oil capacity, and whether it assumes a filter change	Roughly how much to pour before you start checking	Owner's manual
Drain plug torque and sealing washer part number	The plug threads into a soft casting	Owner's or service manual
Level check method: stand or upright, hot or cold, running or stopped, dipstick screwed in or rested	The step that confirms the whole job, and it has no universal answer	Owner's manual
The maintenance schedule	When the change and the filter are actually due	Owner's manual

When to stop and take it to a shop

• Stop if you cannot establish, from the manufacturer's own documentation, whether your bike is wet or dry sump and where all its oil sits.

• Stop if the drain plug rounds off, spins without tightening, or comes out with aluminium threads on it.

• Stop if the plug magnet or the drained oil carries metal with a shape to it, or if the oil is milky. Those are findings about the engine, not about the oil change.

• Stop immediately if the oil pressure warning light does not go out after the first restart.

• Stop if you cannot find your manufacturer's level check method. Guessing it is the likeliest way to hurt an engine on an otherwise correct job.

Related checks

• The drain plug oil change, step by step

• Changing oil with a vacuum extractor, and when it is a bad idea

• The dry sump oil change

• Oil filter change, spin on versus cartridge

• Hot or cold, when to drain

• Crush washers and stripped drain plug threads

• JASO MA, MA2 and MB explained

• Can you use car oil in a motorcycle

• Viscosity grades explained

• How to verify an oil meets your manufacturer specification

• Engine, primary and transmission fluids on separate-cavity machines

• How to dispose of used motorcycle oil

Frequently asked questions

How do I know whether my bike is wet sump or dry sump?

The factory service manual settles it, and nothing else does reliably. A separate oil tank, or more than one drain point, is a hint rather than proof. It matters because draining one reservoir on a dry sump machine does not empty the others, and refilling to the capacity figure afterwards can leave the engine holding the wrong amount.

Does my bike need motorcycle specific oil?

It depends on the answer to question two. Where the engine oil also lubricates a wet clutch and the gearbox, the oil's friction behaviour is part of the clutch design, which is why JASO T903 exists, and JALOS warns that low friction and low viscosity oils may cause clutch slippage and transmission gear pitting wear. Where the clutch is dry or runs in its own fluid, the engine oil never touches the friction plates. Which applies to your machine is a per model fact from your own manufacturer.

Is the viscosity grade on the bottle enough to choose an oil?

No. SAE says J300 defines limits for engine oils in rheological terms only, and that other oil characteristics are not considered or included. The grade describes flow behaviour. It tells you nothing about clutch friction, additive chemistry or whether the oil suits a shared sump.

How often should I change it?

We do not publish intervals. The maintenance schedule in your owner's manual is written for your machine and how it is used, and it is the only figure worth following. Anyone quoting one mileage for all motorcycles is guessing.

About this guide

Published by MotoGearRater. Universal procedure only, with no model-specific specifications. This guide has not been reviewed by a qualified motorcycle technician, and we say so rather than implying a review that has not happened. Read our editorial standards.