Hi Everyone,
I just picked up my second hand Tenere last week and have so far put 600 miles on it and absolutely love it. I stopped for petrol this morning and realised that I hadn't checked the oil level after I picked it up from the dealer a week ago - I was told this was done in the pre-sale checks along with tyre pressure, chain slack etc. Anyway, looks like this is not the case as the dipstick wasn't showing any oil on it this morning. Luckily the garage sold motorcycle oil, so I topped it up with 300mls to halfway on the dipstick. I'm now a bit paranoid about any damage that may have occurred to the engine. If the oil capacity is 2.9l then surely running at 2.5 - 2.6l shouldn't cause a problem should it?

P.S. Excellent site by the way

To add to Keiths excelent instruction set, although I'm sure he missed a bit ...

The oil on the 660 motor naturally runs down into the bottom of the engine, that gravity thing. When the engine is running it pumps the oil into the header tank and this in turn is pumped/flows back into the top of the engine. The Scavenger pump runs a little quicker than the oil is drained from the tank, so this is why you need to run the bike before taking a dipstick level. It's called a semi-dry sump.

In practice, the best time to check your oil is after a ride, just after you stopped the engine.

What you know have, probably, is 300ml more oil than you need...., but best check it. There are conflicting reports of what happens when you have excessive oil, it's not something that ever bothers me too much

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Cheers for the replies. I checked the oil after a 35 mile ride. It was done immediately and 10 minutes after stopping. Both times the dipstick showed the same reading. I checked it by having the bike upright and the dipstick not screwed back in.

I was just a bit worried about running the bike for 600 miles with the dipstick level at empty, but as it only needed 300mls, hopefully the longevity of the engine will be unaffected.