Triumph Tiger 800

10,000km and no issues.

Those of you who think the stalling issue starts with the first service. It isn't always true, mine had the stalling issue before the first service, but has been fine since.

Mine started stalling at 2100 miles and yes, there are road bike stalling too. It's happening all over the world so U.S. fuel isn't the issue. You can read all about it here http://www.tiger800.co.uk/index.php/topic,1083.0.html You'll find several stalling threads there is you look around a little.

as of 3800 miles mine doesn't stall. yet. I wanted to add some positive data though.

I ran mine in per CalSci's recommendations.


To date, I've burned ZERO oil. None. I keep checking and it's the exact level. Not sure if that has anything to do with the break in procedure, or that this bike just doesn't burn any oil, but that is awesome. I ran in my Uly the exact same, and after 15,000 miles it still burns oil. Couldn't be happier about that aspect of the bike!


How to break in your new bike
This is an area of no small controversy. Here's my opinion, after breaking in 21 new motorcycles. You can get other opinions from Moto Man or in your owner's manual. You'll find what I have to say is in reasonable agreement with Moto Man, and we both contradict your owner's manual rather strongly.

I believe when breaking in a new engine you have several things to accomplish, and several things to avoid. Your new engine is not perfectly machined, and in the course of running for the first few hours a fair amount of metal will be worn off various engine parts and wind up in your oil. These metal chips will quickly overwhelm your oil filter, which is really not made to handle the volume of junk that happens in the first couple hours. You don't want to drive around a for a long time with a lot of metal chips in your oil.

In the first 15 to 30 minutes you run your motor, there can be very small hot spots that get to temperatures that are really not at all healthy for your motor. The motor overall is a large system and will almost certainly not overheat, but this doesn't mean every little spot on your pistons, rings, bearings, and cylinder walls is within temperature spec. Of course, you don't want to overheat your motor.

My opinion: The bike should be started and allowed to warm up at an idle for about two minutes. This is to get the oil at something close to operating temperature. Then, ride the bike normally for about 5 miles. Stay off freeways or anywhere else that would make you maintain a constant speed. Don't lug the engine - run the engine in the mid-range rpm band, roughly 1/3 to 2/3 of the red line rpm. You want to be accelerating and decelerating, and using the engine as a brake to slow you down at times. Stop, turn off the engine, and let the engine cool for about 5 minutes. This is to even out the temperature in case there are any hot spots. Start the bike and ride for about 10 minutes, again in stop and go traffic. Stop and allow about 5 minutes for the engine temperature to even out.

Now, ride the bike fairly hard for about 25 to 50 miles. A mountain or curvy road is a good thing at this point. You can use the entire rpm band, up to and perhaps even a bit over the red line. Make sure to accelerate and decelerate a lot, using full throttle and using the engine as a brake. Notice that your owner's manual says at this point you should still be keeping the RPM under something like 4,000. I disagree with this quite strongly. Moto Man gives a good argument on why the factories give such a recommendation, which goes against all my experience and understanding and what every racing team in the universe does.

At about 50 miles, go home and change the oil and the filter. I strongly recommend you use a top quality oil filter, a Purolator Pure One, Mobil-1, Bosch, or SuperTech. I recommend you use a synthetic oil such as Shell Rotella, Mobil-1 SUV, or Delvac-1. If you simply can't bring yourself to use a synthetic in a new engine, use Chevron Delo-400. Don't use a 10w-30 oil. If your manufacturer recommends a 20w-50 oil, use Mobil-1 red cap or Chevron Delo-400 15w-40, which meets the high speed shear standards of a 20w-50 oil. Information on oils and oil filters is available on this web page, see the Lubricants section. When you take out your factory oil, if you hold it up in the sunlight you'll see the color is very good, it looks almost completely unused, but you'll see lots of reflections from metal flakes in the oil. These flakes are very bad for your engine, and can clog up your oil filter so that your filter bypass is activated, meaning you effectively don't have an oil filter. Notice that the factory says you should still be using the factory oil and oil filter. I think this is insane.

Corvettes and Porsches come from the factory with Mobil-1 in their engines. Remember, these engineers have designed world- champion engines for F1, Indy, Le Mans 24 hours, etc.

At this point, the bulk of your break-in is done. Your rings are substantially seated, your cylinder walls are scrubbed in, and your transmission gears have shed the bulk of their machining flaws. You can ride your bike now like it's broken in, except I recommend you try to avoid lugging the engine or running at a constant speed on the freeway for long times until after your next oil change.

When you have 500 to 800 miles on the bike, change the oil and filter again. Again, I recommend a synthetic oil, or Chevron Delo-400, or if the manufacturer recommends 20w-50 use Mobil-1 red cap or Chevron Delo-400 15w-40. If you have a drive shaft, now's the time to change your rear end gear lube. Use a good synthetic in there, like Mobil-1 or Valvoline synthetic gear lube. Continue to ride the bike normally. At this point, you can get on the freeway and drone if you simply must.

At 2000 to 2500 miles, change the oil and filter again. Your bike is now pretty much completely broken in. There will still be a small amount of break in stuff happening until up to 10,000 miles, but it's nothing you have to think about. You can now get onto a sensible oil change schedule. I recommend changing your oil every 2500 miles if you use a normal automotive oil. If you use one of the recommended synthetic oils and recommend oil filters, you can confidently go 5,000 miles between changes. I go 8,000 to 9,000 miles on an oil change, and I measure the oil viscosity and detergent after every change. A good synthetic will hold up this long in a modern water-cooled engine. Except for the Ural, every motorcycle made after about 1985 has what I consider a modern engine. Even Harleys.


"Even Harleys"

Ditto here. I only have about 1200 miles on the XC but no oil burning and no (knock wood) stalling. I am in the camp that believes any stalling is related to the stepper motor. Software doesn't change but mechanical bits can and do. I suspect any software change will be made to compensate for some glitch in the stepper. I had the 600 mile check done at the dealer and the bike ran as good after as when I took it in. I don't plan to take it back though unless I have a warranty problem since I try and do all work myself.

I have 40,000 miles on one T100 and 30,000 miles on a second T100. Neither has ever burned any oil. I have 1500 on my XC and it has not burned any oil. I follow a blend of the breakin procedure posted above and the factory recommendations. I increase rpm as the engine loosens up. I think the key is no constant speeds and no lugging.

Neither my Speed Triple (40K) or my Sprint (30K) user so much as a drop of oil between changes. I'm pretty sure design rule #1 for every new Triumph is 'Do NOT leak/use oil..."

I did the "Drive it like you stole it" break in procedure. I did the pussy mfg procedure on the KLR and it burns oil. It's a single so you'll have that. But I took a different approach to this new bike. Seems to be working out just fine after 2900 miles.

2009 KLR's had an issue with bad rings. My local dealer replaced mine free of charge. I actually had him install a Big Bore Kit and he did that with no labor charge.It wasn't your breakin process it was a mgf issue.

Regards, Paul

Is there a full exhaust system w/o a cat available for the Tiger 800/800XC? Has anyone opened the cat and removed the guts?

I live in SW Florida and it's hot and humid this time of year, I'd like to reduce the heat on my lower legs and suspect much of it is coming from the cat.

Regards, Paul

I don't think brake-in is anywhere near as important as it used to be. I changed my oil at 200 miles & there was no sign of brake-in metal. Triumph had obviously run the motor at the factory & changed the oil. So, the method of riding hard for the first 20 miles was already screwed up.

We've owned 3 modern Triumphs: Bonneville, Scrambler and Street Triple and none have burned oil, never owned a bike that used oil. But Triumph did have some triples that used oil, remember Bike magazine blowing up a Tiger and I think also a Daytona due to low oil. They admitted to not checking the oil as often as stated in the manual, basically they never checked the oil, and their excuse was "when was the last time you rode a bike that used oil?".

http://www.triumphrat.net/tiger-chat/68420-bike-magazine-1050-tiger-long-term-test.html

At least the Tiger has a sight glass now and not the fiddly little dipstick like on my wife's Street Triple. So no, they're probably not gonna use any oil, but check it anyway.

Agreed. As for the Tigger that blew up, I doubt there's a single manu that doesn't have a problem with the odd bike - the Friday afternoon bike so to speak. I think in general though, most modern bikes are pretty good with oil loss these days.

Paul, I would like to know this, too. It is hot in Central Florida and I just do not ride the Tiger after around 11:00 AM. I have seen one post where the person had the CAT cut out and a section of pipe welded in in its place. That is probably less expensive that buying a new header system. And it could be reinstalled if necessary. I think the CAT is where most of the unbearable heat is coming from.

I'm very familiar with the issue. It was more prominent on the 08s. Supposedly a different ring was used on the 09s. I still have some oil burn but it really is to be expected on 650 singles. The KLR will be for sale sometime in the near future anyways when I actually get some time to clean it up and fix all the stuff I broke. The tiger is superior in EVERY way! That's why I bought it. Not enough go juice from the 650 to keep me happy. Personally I think the stock suspension performs way better on the tiger than the klr's with a bunch of money dumped into it as well. So so so happy with the tiger.

NO... Only with KLR's. The DR650 and the BMW 650 singles don't have this issue....

XR's burn oil also....

That sir is a fact I am well aware of haha.

True, my DR650 does not use any oil.

My Dakar 650GS does not use any oil either.