I was told that starting your bike and letting it run in the winter was not good for the engine because it doesnt get warm enough and the condensation cut down the life of your motor. Has anyone else ever heard of this?

 

Definitely have heard of it. If you start, it you should let it warm up to operating temperature. That is not good to let it idle that long, also if it is in your garage running that long there can be CO2 issues. Fill up the gas and add sea foam or stabil, change the oil in the fall before you park it and keep it on a charger. It will be ready for the spring.

 

https://www.hdforums.com/forum/touri...m-storage.html


There you go fellas

 

Intermittent starts in the garage during the winter is one of the worst things that you can do to your scooter. Condensation is the enemy. Every time you start it the variation in temp from cold to warm and then back to cold when shutting down produces massive amounts of water vapor than will stay in the oil, combustion chambers and the exhaust ..... just waiting to rust everything! Clean it, put a battery tender on it, cover it, grab a beer ( at least one every other night ) and patiently wait for old man winter to take a hike! Trust me ... this works !

 

Parked mine at the end of October. Filled it up, put some sta-bil in, plugged in the tender and put a sheet over it. That's how it will stay until the first good rainstorm in spring when the roads get cleaned off.

 

It was all said above, as much as I would love hear it fire up, it will sit there until the day I decide is good enough to go for a ride. Water is the enemy of all engines. Let it sit

 

Although tempting - leave bike sit until you can ride again (weather permitting). It needs to hibernate in cold weather - just like bears...

 

I started riding back in the 60's and every builder or wrench I've ever known has told me that while they don't recommend doing this excessively, that they've never seen a damaged engine that they could conclusively say was caused by starting the bike once in awhile during the winter.

Just sayin.

 

Yea, it's not like your engine is gonna explode the next spring after starting it for 5 minutes in the winter. Much of this is theory, but it's based on scientific facts. Will it harm you engine in the long run? Maybe. Why take the chance. Leave it sit until you ride it.

 

Listen to Uncle Larry he has wisdom!