Oil Consumption

[dave]

Any oil residue collecting on the bottom of your engine coming from the oil filter? It is possibly you left the old filter's gasket in the filter housing's sealing groove and screwed on a new filter with its own gasket on the mating surface resulting in TWO O-rings "stacked" instead of one. This will generally result in an inadvertant slow oil leak due to improper sealing of the filter to the engine.

No, but thank you for the suggestion.
For clarification: Honda states that our bikes require 4.1 U.S. quarts after an oil and filter change. I purchase 5 quarts when I change my oil, and add exactly 4 quarts when I change the oil and filter. I let the oil drain a minimum of one hour (usually 2+ hrs while I'm off doing something else). I add 4 quarts after an oil and filter change, and this always over-fills my bike slightly - after performing the Honda-recommended inspection process the oil is always slightly above the upper line in the sight glass, but I just leave it. I check my oil level every several hundred miles, and add as required to bring the level up to the top line. I perform oil and filter changes every 3,000 miles. However, when I reached 2,900 miles this time my oil level was at the bottom of the two lines in the sight glass, and I had completely used up the fifth quart of oil I purchased prior to performing the last oil change by topping-off the level as required during inspections. I don't see or smell any oil burning, so my only thoughts are this bike is either burning oil, or my inspection method is not working. There is absolutely no oil leaking anywhere out of this motorcycle. The next time I do an oil change I will collect, and measure, the amount of oil that drains. Does it really make a difference if I check my oil after the bike has been sitting over-night, or does warming the oil actually make a difference? I believe that if anything, more oil would drain into the crankcase the longer the bike sat without running, potentially causing an incorrect "over-filled" reading at the sight glass. I don't believe the thermal expansion of engine oil is that significant as to make a difference between hot and cold inspections when reading the level in the sight glass - or am I wrong?