[Closed] oil question on for the mechanics

Don't bikes need bike oil for the clutch?

Richmars that is what I thought, hence the "supermarket motorbike oil".

Assuming same ISO standard why worry?
I assume you put fuel from supermarkets in her?

I always use good quality oil as a few quid extra on oil is cheaper than an engine rebuild.

Coat got and on!

loco do you think supermarket own brand for motorcycle will be ok? Or should I just play it safe and get some uber expensive motul oil

Should be ok, but have always used the good stuff in my bikes. Depends how new/much the bike is worth to you.
Used to use cheap oil in my old banger cars because they were on the way out anyway.

If they could not instill this paranoia about "inferior" brands* how could they get us to pay more for their premium brand made to the same standard?

See bike shops and shock fluids /brake fluid and see the price in a motor factors/motorbike shop for further examples of paying a premium for essentially the same thing.

* the word inferior here means cheaperSAE 30 is SAE30 whoever makes it etc

Get the stuff that matches the specification numbers you need. I suggest having a look at "The engine oil bible" which comes straight up on google, particularly the section on oil specs.

I'm perfectly happy to use oil that costs approx £1 a litre from the local motor spares place in my cars. The thing is, it meets the oil specifications VW set, and VW specs that are newer than my car. So I know it's fine for my VW.

I don't know if bike makers produce their own specs in the same way, but it's a very easy way of checking out an oil's quality.

There are other industry wide specifications from 2 organisations. Even the crappiest oil will have specs from these bodies, but each organisation has standards with different grades. As I remember A3 and SL are the basic specs to look for on oil for a car petrol engine.

A bloke I know worked for Triumph(Hinkley)
The engine test bloke there told him that all the oil reps would supply their recommendation and pay for an engine and test. The best ones would then be sorted on the best deal for Triumph and this would be Triumph's recommendation to its customers.

At the time(10 yrs ago) the only one that passed their fierce tests was Mobil 1 racing.

So that's what I use. (80K).

I always use good quality oil as a few quid extra on oil is cheaper than an engine rebuild.

Assume you could get 100,000miles from an engine running on cheep oil, double it on expensive oil.

Assume 5000mile oil changes (we're trying to make this engine last remember).

'Expensive' oil at £50 a go would cost £2000 over the lifetime.

'Cheep' oil at £5 a go would cost £100, and maybe £1000 to rebuild the engine or buy an engine from a writeoff.

Expensive oil is exactly what it says on the tin, expensive!

Edit: and thats assuming the expensive oil actualy makes a difference!

Yes, the oil you use matters, depending on the application. See here:- [url= http://www.opieoils.co.uk/technicalinfo.aspx ]Opie Oils[/url].

What car is it, and what does it get used for?

Assume 5000mile oil changes (we're trying to make this engine last remember).

'Expensive' oil at £50 a go would cost £2000 over the lifetime.

'Cheep' oil at £5 a go would cost £100, and maybe £1000 to rebuild the engine or buy an engine from a writeoff.

And this is false reckoning. I'd only be changing my engine oil every 5000 miles if I was putting £5-a-pop junk in. Even doing the "expensive" oil at 10,000 mile intervals (and that's being super-anal about your oil changes) would make it cost-effective over the "cheap oil" by your reckoning. And you'd still have a car with a working engine at the end.

It depends what Angela is, a four stroke single presumably ("Thumper"), but air or water cooled and Japanese or British/Indian? What grade is recommended? What use is she put to?

The oil manufacturers would have us believe that modern car oils contain an additive that causes clutch slip when used in a motorcycle with shared engine/transmission.

I once made the mistake of putting car oil in a Montesa clutch and it not only slipped but wouldn't free off either. But then Duckhams Q in those days was strange stuff with a colour and smell all of its own so who knows what it was made of.

I've no personal experience but a pal runs old British four strokes in competition and buys the cheapest oil he can get but changes it frequently. I haven't heard from him of any problems over about twenty years or so.

More info required really.

Ref Hinckley, I recall a magazine article yonks ago on one of the original triples that had been run by a dispatcher for about 80,000 miles with no oil changes. They stripped it and measured it and there was no intolerable wear. Can't remember which mag it was but I'd like to get a hold of it now.

Ok thanks all. First angela is a lovely srx a four stroke air cooled monocylinder from yamaha, it's the 1XL motor, very similar to the XT 600 motor (only difference is in the bore and exact volume 608 vs 599 cm3).

Service interval for the oil is 4000 milles (6000 kms). Oil type is SAE 2OW40 type SE motor oil , but the mechanics who rebuild the engine used some 10W40 and said I should be fine with it.

HTH

I've got one of those! It's an 85 with a few extra bits, lovely bikes the engine in bits at the moment as it happens.

lovely bikes indeed specially here with roads like that
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That looks just the ticket 😉

The welsh roads are good but not quite as good those!

If its air cooled you should be looking at a mineral based oil, and ideally not one thats designed for a liquid cooled engine.

As a ex mechanic for the local authority, and i have a few contacts in wsb racing, oil is vitaly important to an engine due to the varying operating temperatures and requirments a motorcycle engine has.
In some ways you have answered your own question

angela is a lovely srx a four stroke air cooled monocylinder from yamaha

Cheers gav, i'll try to see if I can find some mineral oil or at least oil not designed for watercooled vehicle 😀

Hey Juan, where are you? If you really want 'premium' oil my old man can probably help you out through his workshop.

If the supermarket stuff is cheap and your worried just change it every 2000 miles. It'll be fine though. My old man has an email from 'the experts' at a high profile company and it's very interesting reading. Basically any oil is good as long as you select an appropriate weight oil and service it regular. If I can find it I'll post it up....

hi zedsdead i am in the south of France but I am curious to see the email from your old man 😀

Juan, did the guy that rebuilt the engine sort the oil pump? you probably know that they are one of the weak points already just thought I'd mention it.

Here you go,some interesting info as well 😉

http://castrolmoto.com/en/products/actevo.php

OP-Is your bike air cooled or water cooled?

Use decent oil. Don't have to be the latest expensive super oil but I wouldn't use cheapo stuff unless you are changing it more frequently that the book says

I you haven't come across these guys Juan they're pretty good for info bit like a STW for thumpers,

http://www.thumperclub.org.uk/drupal/smfforum?action=reminder

"more frequently then the book says"

Synthetic oil has a lifetime of arround 12000miles, mineral about half that in average use. Replacing it more regulalry than that would depend on the usage, in a race car/bike you'd be changing it every time its in the pits for more than a few minutes, if your ploding up and down the motorway at 70 you could probably double the service intervals with no ill effects.

Interestingly...........

Modern engines leave the factory with mineral oil (plus the modern additives, so not quite cheep supermarket oil) in them, as high quality oils wouldn't allow them to bed in!

The specification of the oil is dependn't on 2 things, the mineral/synthetic base oil, obviously you need to pick the right one based on your service intervals, as I pointed out above no point changing synthetic oil at 2000mile intervals, it'll still be fine, and mineral oil will have degraded somewhat if you leave it in for 12000miles!

Next the viscocity, almost all engine oil these days is multigrade, stick to the recomended values for the ambient temp. If its an old engine going for the thickest you can get away with will quieten it down and reduce smoking (at the expense of power).

The last bit you need to look at is the specification. Off the top of my head theres 3 or 4 old grades that you can't even buy any more (toxic, and no market for them). Above this its different additives, some reduce friction, others increace oil life, reduce emmisions, increace compression, etc etc. You can put a 'better' specification oil in the engine, but it might not need it. Old cars with realy deep sumps for example don't need anywhere near as much anti foaming additives, or need to comply with the latest stricter emmissions targets, for example so the 'expensive' oil is wasted. A dry sump engine on the other hand would fail fairly quickly without the correct anti foaming additives.

I would definitely advise against full synthetic in an older type motor - they just aren't designed for it.

A pal put synthetic in his CBX and it showed signs of discomfort one night so he stopped to check and found a dry dipstick - the oil had simply disappeared. Tolerances too great I suspect. That cost another crank rebuild - not cheap with a six.

Seems unlikely it was the synthetic part that caused the problem, synthetic would have been a waste of money possibly, but not a problem. The problem was more likely addititves like detergents cleaning out 30 years of grot from inside the engine.

Grot + oil = grinding paste --> dead engine

Classic car/bike stick with classic (or supermarket) oils.

No grot as the engine had not longsince been stripped for new big ends. Wouldn't explain the disappearance either but basically I agree with what you say generally.

Loco nope he did the running chain,all the gaskets (top middle engine and side case), the cylinder and the piston rings ( not sure it's how they are named... they are what keeps the oil in the cylinder and the compression up). Not the oil pump though. Well next service will be 5th gear sprocket crank bearing and maybe the oil pump then 😉

Cheers for all the infos I'll try and find some castrol then 😀

http://www.carbibles.com/engineoil_bible_pg2.html

Although there is a difference between bike oil and car oil, there was a letter in Diesel Car magazine, Feb 2005, issue 203. (www.dieselcar.com)

" Myself and two other motoring enthusiasts got together to find a cheaper way of getting quality oil at a better price. We each agreed to accept a 20 litre container and, armed with an order for our 60 litres. I went to a local oil distributor to get a price for some fully synthetic oil in this case Total Quartz 9000 5w/40. In January 2004 I was quoted £1.45 per litre including vat. When we eventually went to order in October we had expected a price rise - what with the escalating cost of crude oil. We were then quoted £1.20 per litre, plus vat and I could barely believe it! I was told that it was because the order was placed at the beginning of the month! That worked out at £7.05 for 5 litres, delivered to my front door. Apparently we were classed as "bulk-buyers"."

Why is oil dearer than petrol or diesel when the cost of both petrol and diesel is mostly tax?

to the OP'e early post
1) Motul is one of the cheaper (in price not quality) brands
2) Hein Gericke own brand oil is repackaged Motul, and even cheaper.

I'd take advice on running an air-cooled engine specced for 20/40 on 10/40. Air cooled engines work over a larger temperature range (as another poster said) and the first number in the pairing is the high temperature viscocity, so youre running you engine with oil half as thick as it needs to be at high temperatures (assuming a linear relationship in the value and viscocity).

I change the oil in my R1 twice as frequently as Yamaha suggest; yam have 6000 mile intervals whereas most other japanese manufacturers use 3000-4000 miles. I use motul/HG semi synth, and given the low mileages I (and most bikers) do the extra cost is worth the peace of mind to me. Changing the recommended semi synth every 3000 miles makes more sense to me than changing an over-specced oil like fully synth which is twice the price every 6000 miles as even if the oil hasnt broken down it may be contaminated.

Well the other oil from castroll seems good too. The one GPS is meant to be good for thumpers as well. Now someone just told me on a motorbike forum that careffour's own brand of oil is just castrol. Now that would be just fabulous 😀

Right I have been reading a scan of an article from a French motorcycle magazine (the one that is cheaper is you are insured with "mutelle des motards" a motorbike specific insurance) and apparently in 2004, the best oil you could buy (the one that got the best grade and the best results to the test) is E.leclerc own brand oil for car O8
I know it's quite a surprise. I wouldn't risk it though, specially since they have their own motorcycle brand. The second best one is the MOTUL 5100. I'll double check the price of the castrol if I can find some and the normes of the E.leclrec own brand and I will report back ;-).

I know of a race team that were sponsored by Silkolene oil, but used Castrol in the racebikes! 😯

If Carlsberg made oil etc etc....

I gav I have just bought 4 L of E.Leclerc own motorcycle oil. It got plenty of certification specialy the "MA" developed by japanese motorcycles compagnies (due to the same oil lubricating the motor and gearbox).
Oil got the API, SG, CCMC, G5, JASO and MA certification.
Compare to the 13€ a L motul someone sold me last time it is actually better for my bike (After much reading I understand a bit better about the oil) as it's not fully synthetic might be more appropriate for Thumpers 😀

Price is ourageous... 14€
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For four L 😉

Still don't see how synthetic oil would just disapear if it were the correct viscocity, its essentialy the same stuff, just cleaner (its synthesised from short chain HC's rather than simply blending the bottom of the barrel).

Thisisnotaspoon, any news on the peugeot?

It's in a box awaiting Mr Postman, sory its so late, untill Tuesday I didn't get much done other than shit, vomit and post on STW.

cool, thanks for the update, hope you are okay, not nice...bolied water and dry toast??