Which fully synthetic oil .....

Well, I use the bike oil left over from changing the oil on other
peoples bikes.
Call it a perk.
If I'm buying it myself then a good quality 10/40 semi-syth car oil.
I had clutch slip once with a car spec fully synth. Never used it
since.

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"Are you sure you need a five gallon drum of oil for this job?"

 

Bad form... Bugger. Mis-snipped it.

 

My FZR can go to 18,500rpm.

 

Yes, I know. Had it not been for the fact we were in the middle of
Wales, I'd have been worried about getting nicked for parking and curb
crawling.

 

My tuppence worth:

I beg to differ slightly,only in that I always use a quality semi
synthetic in the Triumph, and change it every 3,000 miles (my choice)
However I cannot run anything other than conventional 20/50 in the Rotax
504,(1) and it is not an archaic agricultural engine, it is a high
performance competition engine that revs to over 8,000 and produces
enormous amounts of torque and horsepower (relative statement!) and is a
precision unit, it just cannot run on anything other than 20/50 (2)

(1) It is fair to say that it should be changed at a max of every 250
miles along with both filters but that is another story...

(2) It has been hammered by me so far, and will be in the forseable
future, and yes, I do have a 'vague' understanding of things mechanical.

 

Ovenpaa says...

There are bike specific 20W/50s available. Motorex definitely make one.
I feel that a car oil will be lacking in performance over an oil
designed for motorcycle use.

My old XR400R needed it changing every 500 miles, which was pretty
stupid given that it was for me to use as a commuter into London.

I don't doubt you there. I'd be inclined not to use a car oil though.

 

Why not buy proper bike oil at a reasnable price?

I get Morris bike oil from the FJ club at a very nice price. So far the
FJ hasn't consumed any of this in 3500 miles.

 

Magnatex and Halfords semi-synth car oils are cheap at the moment, and I
can use them in both the bike and the cars, so it cuts down on the
bottle count in the garage.

 

SteveH says...

So that's the real reason you don't buy bike specific oil for the VFR
then? Foolish if you ask me.

 

Yeah but each to their own surely?

I mean it's not like you're going to buy Steve's VFR if he ever sells it is
it?

 

dwb says...

You're spot on the money there, old bokker.

 

I guess I'm lucky there. Free Shell Helix for the cage, so I buy Morris
oil for the bike

 

I've given up on expensive oils since the Selenia burning off almost as
quickly as petrol incident.

 

SteveH says...

What was that in?

 

Alfa 33 16v.

 

SteveH says...

So a SOC burnt off your expensive oil, so you won't use an expensive oil
in a bike engine. Very logical

 

Although it wasn't directly in response to the bike oil question, more a
general comment based on Andy's comment about getting free premium car
oil.

 

A.Lee says...

That's my point. It's a world apart from a modern engine that revs to
almost twice as fast. Older lumps like GSs, aircooled Zs, GSXs and XSs
will happily run for ever on mineral 10W/40. Put the same stuff in a
modern ZX engine, or an R1 or Gixxer and see how it compares after a few
thousand miles. I run my SOB on whatever is cheapest, but my ZX-9R and
all my recent modern engines have been run on quality semi-synth.
Running them on car oil is a false economy.

 

Doing a bit of googling, it appears a bike mag. ran a Fireblade to 100k
miles on Castrol GTX with no problems.