Best oil to put in the bike?

[venom51]

10W40 semi-synth. Fully synth can cause clutch slipping issues.

Please stop propogating that myth. If your clutch was marginally functional at the point you put the synth in it the perhaps. But synthetic oil alone has not and will not cause a properly functioning clutch to slip.

Having said that we run Redline in all my race bikes.

Fully Synth 'Car' designed oil will as it has plenty of friction modifiers in there to promate slippage (better Gas miles in a car as parts move with less drag) and no wet clutch to slip.

Fully Synth bike oil is ok

I use Motul 300V 15w50 Factory line fully synth for summertime trackdays. and either Honda Ultra S9 10w40 (semi) or 10w40 mineral oil (cheapest of cheap) any other time depending on whats available:D

If I have to tell you not to stick oil designed for cars in your bike then you may not be the sharpest knife in the drawer.

[force-v4]

i only use semi synth castrol gps 10-40w in my Nc30's.
its not cheap but its good oil & i change it every 1000 miles.

im shocked that Neo is using cheap mineral oil - my 1000 mile old castrol oil has to be better than mineral oil!

[Neosophist]

Venom:

The amount of people i hear using car oil in their bikes is unreal! They think Magnaetk or Mobil1 car oil is going to be good, then they wonder why they have clutch problems soon. They don't realise that it's different, until you try and explain that a lot of syntheic oils, even some semi-synths have friction modifiers in them, which is where your problems come in. Not to mention that the sheer force of the gearbox breaks down the oil at a quick rate.

ForceV4:

Whats wrong with dino-oil? It never stays in the bikes longer than 6-800miles. Your castrol oil may have a longer life-span but if you change at the reccomended intervals (or sooner) your not getting any benefit from it.

Any extra added detergents etc to the oil may give a marginal increase in mpg / performance but I really doubt it'd be noticeable, I had one of my engines apart thats done 9000 miles on mineral based oil and it was spotless inside.

The owners handbook states that the bike was designed for API SE / SF oil (both of these are now obselete) so any oil that meets these specs should be fine for the bike (when taking into account temperatures and choosing a correct viscosity of oil)

I tend to stick with S9 during the winter (10w40) as it's easier on the engine when cold, especially here in the UK where we get down to 0 quite a bit.

But i'll happily use Procycle 15w40 Mineral oil (API SL) during the summer months, at £15 for 4litres its good value and i've clocked up many many miles with it.

[force-v4]

Well, just call me fussy but i just like to know my engine is good - ive had some bad experiances in the past with tuned car engines & "get me home" mineral oil. the last time it cost me £3k & that was totally unacceptable - never again!
Since then i only use top quality oil.

& yes, i only use it for 1000 miles but again, that because im fussy.
if im lucky i do 1000 miles a year on the NC30 so changing it after the 1000 miles is just the standard once a year thing.
My NC has only done 2500 miles in 3 years.
but also, i claim all my servicing & running costs for the NC back against my business, so i'd rather spend the money on the bike rather than give it to the tax man!

[venom51]

Just so everyone is clear on what wea re talking about.

http://www.mobiloil.com/USA-English/Mot ... aspx#FAQs1

[Neosophist]

http://motorcycleinfo.calsci.com/Oils1.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Thats along the same gist as Mobil1's but a lot more in-depth

Surprisingly it reccomends Shell Rotella Sytheic Diesel oil for bikes! (CI-4 Plus) certifited, Shell also say that it's ok :)

It's a really interesting read

Some people should, in my opinion, clearly use a synthetic oil. You should be using a synthetic if:

you routinely start your engine in temperatures under 40°f, 5°c.
you live somewhere where it gets below -35 degrees, and you want to start your car. In this case you must use either Mobil-1 0w-30 or the Canadian 0w-40 Rotella. If you're riding your bike in -40 degrees, I want a picture just before you die.
you leave your vehicle sit unused for months at a time.
you are unable or unwilling to change your oil within 2000 miles.
you have one of these new 4-stroke MX bikes. These MX bikes hold only about one quart of oil, all of them have marginal cooling systems, and if there's a more severe use of an engine than MX, I don't want to be physically present when it happens.
If it's below -55c, -65f, stay home. Really.

If you read the article you'll see that synthetics can have many advantages of normal oils, The Shell Diesel oil seems to have the highest quantities of everything in it as it's commercial certified.. although the exact model is REALLY expensive in Europe.

It's quite enlightening but for all purposes, the mineral based motorbike oil I use in my bike is still fit for its purpose.

Oh and the additive that causes the clutch to slip is Molybdenum

[dar5150]

Ran with halfords fully syn last year on the race bike and it went great, no sign of clutch slip at all. Because it comes in 5litres you can get two oil changes per can

[nakes999]

Shell Rotella T is apparently fine to use in bikes... just curious, has anyone here ever used it in their NC?

I need to do an oil change and usually use Motul 5100 semi-synthetic but nobody close-by seems to stock it... so looking at other oil options...

I'm asking about Shell Rotella because there's a Shell service station down the road and I'm pretty sure they'd stock Shell Rotella oil...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shell_Rotella_T

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motorcycle_oil

[Neosophist]

Shell Rotella T is apparently fine to use in bikes... just curious, has anyone here ever used it in their NC?

I need to do an oil change and usually use Motul 5100 semi-synthetic but nobody close-by seems to stock it... so looking at other oil options...

I'm asking about Shell Rotella because there's a Shell service station down the road and I'm pretty sure they'd stock Shell Rotella oil...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shell_Rotella_T

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motorcycle_oil

Shell Rotella Aka Helix Ultra (proper CI-4 Diesel spec one, not any of the other high end ones they do in this brand) is REALLY expensive. £16.99 a litre expensive.

[nakes999]

Oh :S.. I thought it would be cheap... I read on another forum that guys are using the Rotella 15w40 oil in their bikes and they're saying it's cheap?...

I'll have a look around here anyway just to see what it sells for... motul5100 is around 30 pounds but that's at a bike shop on the other end of the worst road for a bike in Cape Town... so wanna avoid it if I can..

Isn't the Rimula range equivalent to the Rotella range? Oil for diesel engines?