Originally Posted By: alarmguy
Joe, Garak ... and ANYONE else who has good knowledge of this ACEA thing. If you can help that would be great. Its important to me personally to use the recommended oil type for my bike.
My bike clearly calls for CH4 or higher. In the USA its almost impossible to find except for 1 company and 2 boutique companies in a 20w50. I am currently using the 1 company, Citgo product Mystik semisyn 20/50. Has claims of up to a CJ4 oil but no API symbols etc.
This thread caught my attention with this ACEA rating thing which I know nothing about and never paid nor had a reason to pay attention to it. It almost sounds more precise and stringent rating then the API ratings.
SO QUESTION is, does anyone know for sure what ACEA rated oil would meet or beat an API rating of CH4 or better?
Is there such as thing? Is an A3/B3 the equal or superior to an (API) CH or higher?
What about an A3/B4?
or do I really need to go to an ACEA E class oil?
and what about all the ACEA oils inbetween??
Appreciate your thoughts...
Im really clueless in this area and will start researching. ... researching now, cool thread, ACEA seems like a much better rating system and stringent.
(for others reading this post I do not care to get into a motorcycle oil discussion, I just want to know if their is an equal ACEA rating for an API "C" rated oil.)
Reasear
Part of your issue is the difference between Passenger Car Diesel and Heavy Duty Diesel definitions in the API vs ACEA.
In the API you have SN- for PCEO (typically gasoline), you have CJ-4 (soon to be CK-4) for HDDEO. The API doesn't have a specific category for Passenger Car Diesel engines the way Europe does.
For ACEA you have the E category for HDDEO and in passenger car you have A for Gasoline, B for diesel and C for low saps oils.
Because of this key difference in North America almost all diesels will call for an API C category oil - because they are mostly heavy duty engines. With the new FA-4 category coming this fall you will probably see passenger car diesels gravitate towards this category as it will be closer to the ACEA C1 or C2 oils or A1/B1, A5/B5 if they have higher phosphorus (ie CK-4 only not CK-4/SN).
Also for Motorcycle oils, they often refer to older categories in combination with the required JASO specification.
Here are some good resources to help you get started with your research:
http://www.hddeo.com/keyspecifications/ACEA
http://pceo.com/key-specs/acea
Motorcycle 4 stroke Key specifications
In a short answer to your questions A3/B3 and A3/B4 are high saps (so more similar to the CH API category than to CJ-4) would likely be closer to what you need in your bike - unless you opt for a dedicated motorcycle oil which would be my preference.
The other thing to note is that ACEA certifications are "evergreen" which means the category name doesn't change even though the specifications may be upgraded. For example ACEA A3/B4 oils from 2010 will meet a different specification than those that meet the specification upgrade from 2012. Dexos specifications also work this way (with a revised Dexos1 being released this year). It can be hard for consumers to know the differences between specification years, but ACEA's theory is that if you are purchasing new oil, it will always be the most up to date specification. They do not allow older specification categories to be claimed the way the API does (API CI-4+ is still an active category even though the spec is like 15 years old).
Joe, Garak ... and ANYONE else who has good knowledge of this ACEA thing. If you can help that would be great. Its important to me personally to use the recommended oil type for my bike.
My bike clearly calls for CH4 or higher. In the USA its almost impossible to find except for 1 company and 2 boutique companies in a 20w50. I am currently using the 1 company, Citgo product Mystik semisyn 20/50. Has claims of up to a CJ4 oil but no API symbols etc.
This thread caught my attention with this ACEA rating thing which I know nothing about and never paid nor had a reason to pay attention to it. It almost sounds more precise and stringent rating then the API ratings.
SO QUESTION is, does anyone know for sure what ACEA rated oil would meet or beat an API rating of CH4 or better?
Is there such as thing? Is an A3/B3 the equal or superior to an (API) CH or higher?
What about an A3/B4?
or do I really need to go to an ACEA E class oil?
and what about all the ACEA oils inbetween??
Appreciate your thoughts...
Im really clueless in this area and will start researching. ... researching now, cool thread, ACEA seems like a much better rating system and stringent.
(for others reading this post I do not care to get into a motorcycle oil discussion, I just want to know if their is an equal ACEA rating for an API "C" rated oil.)
Reasear
Part of your issue is the difference between Passenger Car Diesel and Heavy Duty Diesel definitions in the API vs ACEA.
In the API you have SN- for PCEO (typically gasoline), you have CJ-4 (soon to be CK-4) for HDDEO. The API doesn't have a specific category for Passenger Car Diesel engines the way Europe does.
For ACEA you have the E category for HDDEO and in passenger car you have A for Gasoline, B for diesel and C for low saps oils.
Because of this key difference in North America almost all diesels will call for an API C category oil - because they are mostly heavy duty engines. With the new FA-4 category coming this fall you will probably see passenger car diesels gravitate towards this category as it will be closer to the ACEA C1 or C2 oils or A1/B1, A5/B5 if they have higher phosphorus (ie CK-4 only not CK-4/SN).
Also for Motorcycle oils, they often refer to older categories in combination with the required JASO specification.
Here are some good resources to help you get started with your research:
http://www.hddeo.com/keyspecifications/ACEA
http://pceo.com/key-specs/acea
Motorcycle 4 stroke Key specifications
In a short answer to your questions A3/B3 and A3/B4 are high saps (so more similar to the CH API category than to CJ-4) would likely be closer to what you need in your bike - unless you opt for a dedicated motorcycle oil which would be my preference.
The other thing to note is that ACEA certifications are "evergreen" which means the category name doesn't change even though the specifications may be upgraded. For example ACEA A3/B4 oils from 2010 will meet a different specification than those that meet the specification upgrade from 2012. Dexos specifications also work this way (with a revised Dexos1 being released this year). It can be hard for consumers to know the differences between specification years, but ACEA's theory is that if you are purchasing new oil, it will always be the most up to date specification. They do not allow older specification categories to be claimed the way the API does (API CI-4+ is still an active category even though the spec is like 15 years old).