Xtrainer oil injection durability??

[Chas_M]

1 hour ago, highmarker said:

talked to 2 people that had it OVER oiling and were gonna take it back to the dealer

Totally different system than the mikuni oil pumps used on snowmobiles for years, their reliability has been good but not really comparable to what beta has going on. It's new and needs to be proven time will tell. I haven't  noticed them smoking more or less than any other premix bike so far.

 

That's the problem I had with my '16 300RR.  The OI on my 300RR was inconsistent.  Sometimes it seemed OK and at other times it would be smoking so much that guys behind me would ask me what was wrong with my bike.  It spooged excessively with oil dripping down the length of the muffler and onto the ground.  Sierra BMW & Beta checked it over and verified that the TPS was within factory specs.  I eventually removed the whole OI system and am now premixing Amzoil Saber at 80:1.  What a revelation - - - clean running and no spooge.     

 

[highmarker]

1 hour ago, Chas_M said:

 

That's the problem I had with my '16 300RR.  The OI on my 300RR was inconsistent.  Sometimes it seemed OK and at other times it would be smoking so much that guys behind me would ask me what was wrong with my bike.  It spooged excessively with oil dripping down the length of the muffler and onto the ground.  Sierra BMW & Beta checked it over and verified that the TPS was within factory specs.  I eventually removed the whole OI system and am now premixing Amzoil Saber at 80:1.  What a revelation - - - clean running and no spooge.     

 

don't blame you but it woulda been interesting to work through the problem just to see what it was?   the electronic oi on the rotax motors when working properly meter a scary low amount of oil which worries riders too.  Most engines ( sled, outboards watercraft) with these precision metered systems also spec a (expensive) oem oil to be used with it. People struggle with that and end up using a oil of different viscosity that can change the metering, it shouldn't, but it does from what I've seen. Even in the old pumps I've seen the seals swell and stick the metering piston from using weird esters used in high end oils.

[oldman]

Sold my 2015 Xtrainer at 435hrs earlier this year.  Oil injection system was still working great.

 

[RudderFeet]

3 hours ago, oldman said:

Sold my 2015 Xtrainer at 435hrs earlier this year.  Oil injection system was still working great.

435 *hours*?  Good god man, how do you find that amount of time to ride in two years?  I'm lucky if I can rack up 40-80 in a year after work, maintaining a home, parenting, walking my dog...

[RevyRoamer]

1 minute ago, RudderFeet said:

435 *hours*?  Good god man, how do you find that amount of time to ride in two years?  I'm lucky if I can rack up 40-80 in a year after work, maintaining a home, parenting, walking my dog...

Funny.

I was thinking that sure was not very much for 3 years. 

 

[RudderFeet]

Just now, RevyRoamer said:

Funny.

I was thinking that sure was not very much for 3 years. 

I hate you both. 

[Sierra_rider]

2 hours ago, RudderFeet said:

435 *hours*?  Good god man, how do you find that amount of time to ride in two years?  I'm lucky if I can rack up 40-80 in a year after work, maintaining a home, parenting, walking my dog...

I used to put 200 hours a year on my main bike. I work a lot of overtime nowadays, so I'm lucky if I get 200 hours of seat time between all my bikes.

[GP]

Dealers aren't talking but they are aware that the system has its flaws. I know of one failure on a dealer bike. My neighbor's XTrainer had the same failure of the fitting pulling out of the manifold.

People here that judge the system simply by reports of happy owners are probably not technical people. Seems more emotion than logic to me. It's just human nature to defend a personal decision, you spend $$ and like the product, someone rains on your parade and you react. Understandable. Hopefully your system won't fail.

The snowmobile argument is not relative. Different components, better packaging, power supply, and much more protected environment. The airbox of a dirt bike is nothing like a sled under hood.

I don't own one of these but I've sure as hell had an in depth look at a couple.

[k4f5x0r]

On 11/3/2017 at 1:31 PM, shrubitup said:

It's counter intuitive to say that racing would need pre mix and deep wooods riding far away from any road or sweep riders would benefit from oil injection. It's the other way around really. 

Not really, in a race i could care less to stop and look at my oil tank for leaks and what not.  In the middle of the woods i'm prepared to stop and examine my bike here and there.  Oh and i'd probably have a bottle of premix with me in the woods and not in a race.  

Everybody is getting butthurt like their opinion is the right one.. the oil injection has worked fine on my bike, therefore there is no reason for ME to remove it from MY bike.  If you feel differently than by all means do whatever you want.  I'm simply giving the input that was asked by the thread which is that the oil injection has NOT given me any problems.  IF it gives me problems, it's pretty easy to unplug a few things and dump oil in my gas tank. It's REALLY not a big deal.

Classic forum chatter.

Edited November 5, 2017 by k4f5x0r

[shrubitup]

28 minutes ago, k4f5x0r said:

Not really, in a race i could care less to stop and look at my oil tank for leaks and what not.  In the middle of the woods i'm prepared to stop and examine my bike here and there.  Oh and i'd probably have a bottle of premix with me in the woods and not in a race.  

Everybody is getting butthurt like their opinion is the right one.. the oil injection has worked fine on my bike, therefore there is no reason for ME to remove it from MY bike.  If you feel differently than by all means do whatever you want.  I'm simply giving the input that was asked by the thread which is that the oil injection has NOT given me any problems.  IF it gives me problems, it's pretty easy to unplug a few things and dump oil in my gas tank. It's REALLY not a big deal.

Classic forum chatter.

I'm not butt hurt. Glad it's working for you. As with any problem, perceived or real, keep an eye on it. ?

[k4f5x0r]

3 minutes ago, shrubitup said:

I'm not butt hurt. Glad it's working for you. As with any problem, perceived or real, keep an eye on it. ?

Only that top sentence was towards you and none of it meant in a dickish way though it may have come off that way! 

Just a bit of a ramble after going through a couple pages of the thread.. it's the same topic every couple weeks with the OI nonsense.

[RevyRoamer]

My thoughts are that we all need to remember, that every human has an opinion. 

Some just voice theirs louder than others do.

Also this is the internet so many will post their thoughts even if they do not own the product in question. 

Also some will join a forum to complain about, or find out about an issue they are having. Most owners of a product will never join a forum though. 

So lets use this example: 

Dodge sells 1 million pickups. 

Of those 1 million owners 100 have an issue. Those 100 are the ones who will be vocal about it, and 5 of those 100 may join a Dodge forum.

So the 5 owners you hear from are the 5 with a problem. 

So 5 out of 5 owners are having troubles so it seems to be a common problem and people panic.

Then 5 more who do not even own that model of pickup truck jump in and say yes those trucks are crap and that is a serious problem. But they really do not know if it is they just like to join the conversation. 

 But remember the other 999,900  of that million owners did not join the forum to sing the praises of their pickup. 

So it seems much more wide spread than it really is.

It happens on all forums, and sure is not isolated to here.

 

And then there is what I call group 3 people. They seem to wish a problem was wide spread, and so they talk about it in a very negative light, hoping to incite fear.  Maybe they are bored, or just enjoy controversy. Who knows what their motivation is. But by reading the posts from them it usually takes only seconds to figure it out. 

I joined a dodge truck forum years ago when I was buying a new pickup. According to so many on there the trucks are plagued with many problems and most of them are serious problems to. 

Well I took a chance and bought it anyway, and it has been completely trouble free. 

Changed the oil many times, tires once, wiper blades 3 times, and that is all. 

Its due for a coolant and brake fluid change i need to get done though. 

[shrubitup]

39 minutes ago, k4f5x0r said:

Just a bit of a ramble after going through a couple pages of the thread.. it's the same topic every couple weeks with the OI nonsense.

Forums rarely have someone post up a thread with "2015 wonder bike with 3,560 hours and no problems. Damn thing keeps needing chains, grips, and tires! "

Edited November 5, 2017 by shrubitup

[firffighter]

44 minutes ago, RevyRoamer said:

My thoughts are that we all need to remember, that every human has an opinion. 

Some just voice theirs louder than others do.

Also this is the internet so many will post their thoughts even if they do not own the product in question. 

Also some will join a forum to complain about, or find out about an issue they are having. Most owners of a product will never join a forum though. 

So lets use this example: 

Dodge sells 1 million pickups. 

Of those 1 million owners 100 have an issue. Those 100 are the ones who will be vocal about it, and 5 of those 100 may join a Dodge forum.

So the 5 owners you hear from are the 5 with a problem. 

So 5 out of 5 owners are having troubles so it seems to be a common problem and people panic.

Then 5 more who do not even own that model of pickup truck jump in and say yes those trucks are crap and that is a serious problem. But they really do not know if it is they just like to join the conversation. 

 But remember the other 999,900  of that million owners did not join the forum to sing the praises of their pickup. 

So it seems much more wide spread than it really is.

It happens on all forums, and sure is not isolated to here.

 

And then there is what I call group 3 people. They seem to wish a problem was wide spread, and so they talk about it in a very negative light, hoping to incite fear.  Maybe they are bored, or just enjoy controversy. Who knows what their motivation is. But by reading the posts from them it usually takes only seconds to figure it out. 

I joined a dodge truck forum years ago when I was buying a new pickup. According to so many on there the trucks are plagued with many problems and most of them are serious problems to. 

Well I took a chance and bought it anyway, and it has been completely trouble free. 

Changed the oil many times, tires once, wiper blades 3 times, and that is all. 

Its due for a coolant and brake fluid change i need to get done though. 

Nailed it! It's kinda sad because when I first joined these dirt bike forums back in the early days, it was a community of riders helping one another and, yes, there was good natured banter, but for the most part,  it was a place to find pertinent useful information.  

Now,  as you so clearly stated, we have guys actually wishing for problems,  so they can somehow say "I told you so". Sad! 

It's also super classy to elude to OI owner's, who are satisfied with it's performance and have experienced many trouble free hours, as some sort of unwitting dolts.  I'm really surprised Beta hasn't hired all of these "experts" to advise on fixing this unsafe, poorly designed system. I mean, surely it'd be worth their time to consult these arm chair OI engineers being that Beta is struggling so much in sales of these widespread failure prone death machines.  

 

[RevyRoamer]

38 minutes ago, firffighter said:

Nailed it! It's kinda sad because when I first joined these dirt bike forums back in the early days, it was a community of riders helping one another and, yes, there was good natured banter, but for the most part,  it was a place to find pertinent useful information.  

Now,  as you so clearly stated, we have guys actually wishing for problems,  so they can somehow say "I told you so". Sad! 

It's also super classy to elude to OI owner's, who are satisfied with it's performance and have experienced many trouble free hours, as some sort of unwitting dolts.  I'm really surprised Beta hasn't hired all of these "experts" to advise on fixing this unsafe, poorly designed system. I mean, surely it'd be worth their time to consult these arm chair OI engineers being that Beta is struggling so much in sales of these widespread failure prone death machines.  

 

Hahaha that's what I was thinking to.

Beta R&D morons are obviously incompetent dolts.

They need to all be talking to and getting advice from a few of these TT guys. 

They would have the OI system working so flawlessly it would still be like new when the bikes is 90 years old. 

Since I am on call today for work I cannot go riding deep into the woods.

Have to be ready to jump in the truck and take off at a moment's notice.

So sadly i missed out going riding with my wife and daughter. 

Asked them both as they were getting ready to go if they had any issues at all with their OI system. Both said no it works perfectly. So 2 for 2 are perfect in this household. 

They top up the oil tank every 2nd or 3rd time they gas up their bikes.

I am very blessed to have a daughter and wife who love to ride.

No my daughter is not her biological child.

My first wife passed away when she was young, and she doesn't even remember her biological mother. 

My wife is a lot younger than I am, and she and my daughter are basically like best friends and usually together doing something. 

They also frequently ride together and each has a Xtrainer. 

[richhimself]

In March I got a 300RR, the guys that run my local garage recommended removing the OI, simply because as Beta dealers they'd see a few that had failed. The common problem seemed to be the pipes breaking and leaking.  

In theory the dash has some warning lights, that give you a warning if the level is low or if there's a fault with the system. However their advice was to remove it and just use premix and this is what I've been doing. It's only a pain in the ass when I go on really long rides, as you need to carry the oil with me.

I really like the concept of the OI, but also everyone I know with a Beta (8 people in our group) have removed it, it also cuts down weight too

 

[GP]

2 hours ago, richhimself said:

In March I got a 300RR, the guys that run my local garage recommended removing the OI, simply because as Beta dealers they'd see a few that had failed. The common problem seemed to be the pipes breaking and leaking.  

In theory the dash has some warning lights, that give you a warning if the level is low or if there's a fault with the system. However their advice was to remove it and just use premix and this is what I've been doing. It's only a pain in the ass when I go on really long rides, as you need to carry the oil with me.

I really like the concept of the OI, but also everyone I know with a Beta (8 people in our group) have removed it, it also cuts down weight too

 

We did a long DS ride over the weekend here in NJ.  30 -36 miles between gas.  With the jetting I'm running it was about a gallon each stop.  Small bottles in the hydropak, easy enough for me and hundreds of others. 

The OI system is open loop, that is there is no downstream sensor for actual oil detection.   The system can detect a low tank oil level and a pump disconnect (impedance) I believe, but nothing sophisticated enough to save a motor from other failure modes.  This would be more expensive to implement.  A real cost cutter in the design is the diodes and capacitor in the harness used to form the DC power supply for the system.  They are cheap and common PC board components soldered and shrink wrapped in the harness.  Same with the filter cap for the computer.  These components are made for static use soldered to a PC board flush, in a much different environment that a harness on a dirt bike that sees movement, vibration, and moisture.  Beta doesn't even properly solder the ground bus in the harness, but crimp it instead for production reasons.   A much better way, if they must use this OI system, would be a full DC config like the Sherco, where DC is needed for the electronic PV.  Beta 2stroke uses the std. 2K-4 with split windings, the 20W side for the battery charge ckt only.   The higher output winding is referenced to frame ground in the stator so any DC derived from it must be isolated or half wave (if using the same ground.)   The new KTM TPi 2strokes use this same DellOrto oil pump, but I suspect it is powered through a full DC system.

[richhimself]

I normally ride with 1 of these - http://www.drcproducts.com/tool/d59-44/index.html

Filling it up will give you 10 litres (2.4 Gallons) so it's pretty good and pretty light.  If we go on longer rides (120-140 miles) in day we just take two of them.

As you say, there's no down flow sensor so you'll never really know until it's too late.  As well, when the bikes are colder it's easy to see there's oil just look for the smoke, but when they are hot it's more difficult see the smoke and for you to know it's the right mix.  

For me I'd rather remove that stress and go with Premix.  In the end, it's a Beta there's enough another other things that break without having to worry about the OI

 

[GP]

Yep, your right hand and the carb do a pretty good job at regulating oil.  Lots of Betas here and the biggest issues are electrical as discussed.  I don't need the crap so stripped it all off and waterproofed the rest.  Mechanicals have been great, over 350 hrs.  Hoping to get a 200RR next year when they come out, won't even start it with the OI.  Maybe wait to see if a 200RR Race will be released.

[richhimself]

10 minutes ago, GP said:

Yep, your right hand and the carb do a pretty good job at regulating oil.  Lots of Betas here and the biggest issues are electrical as discussed.  I don't need the crap so stripped it all off and waterproofed the rest.  Mechanicals have been great, over 350 hrs.  Hoping to get a 200RR next year when they come out, won't even start it with the OI.  Maybe wait to see if a 200RR Race will be released.

 

I've only got 90 on mine and thinking about the first piston check, Biggest complaint are the electrics and the plastics, however on the plus side the plastics are cheap to replace!  How do you find getting parts over there? Here in Spain it's pretty easy and cheap!