Great oil articles...

[Guest John T]

August issue of Roadbike has an article about Bike vs car oils.

They discuss the difference between the two and compare Synthetic to dead dinosaurs.

They also grill some industry insiders on oils. Great reading.

 

Some points to consider: There is a difference between bike and car oils, mostly in additive packages. Bike oils have less friction modifiers to address the wet clutch slipping issue, and car oils are lowering some additives to help catalytic converters.

 

You also learn about the Japanese Automobile Standards Orginazation (JASO) rating of MB and MA ratings. MA is for higher friction applications like wet clutches and MB is for lower friction applications like dry clutch designs (Guzzi, Ducati, BMW etc)

 

Mobil 1 15/50 car oil is MB rated and Mobil 1 V-Twin has friction modifiers taken out making it an MA rating.

 

I like Mike Gillory's article 'motorcycle motor oils" at www.yft.org/tex_vfr/tech/oil.htm.

This guy has 30 years experience at Shell in analytical chemistry,quality assurance and product research support for fuels and lubricants.

He uses Mobil 1 15/50 car oil with a shot of STP oil treatment for a dose of ZDDP. (anti wear additives)

 

The October Sport Rider does a motor oil lab/dyno comparo.

 

They do extensive testing of car and bike oils, synthetic, semi synthetic and full synthetic.

 

Synthetics come out on top of the rest for viscosity retention at high temps. They let the reader see the results and you make up your mind.

 

Me? I'm sticking to Mobil 1 and not skimping on change intervals.

[al_roethlisberger]

...sounds good to me. I've mixed and matched oils in all my bikes and cars, "as needed"(they've all been high mileage and leaked/burned oil ) ...and they've all held up fine.

 

I'm sure some oils are better than others, but I'm still of the opinion that as long as one get's quality oil, and the changes are regular, the results will be similar.... barring some specialized application.

 

My only concern in regard to our bikes, I had heard that some folks had found that the synthetics tended to seep around the seals/gaskets more readily than the dino oils??? Anyone have experience with this?

 

al

[dlaing]

He uses Mobil 1 15/50 car oil with a shot of STP oil treatment for a dose of ZDDP. (anti wear additives)

 

I think I'll give that a try.

I tried the mobil 1 15w50 and found that it was noisy, switched back to a motorcycle synthetic and it got significantly quieter.

The Mobile 1 is highly rated for maintaining viscosity, but I find it hard to believe it gets a 50W rating. The addition of STP may be just what it needs.

Are there any other zinc based oil treatments?

 

When I switched from semi synthetic to synthetic, I noticed no change in oil leakage. But I have always had a little weeping of oil, but not drips...yet.

20,xxx miles and counting slowlyl