blano:
"Mobil 1 15/50 and M1 cycle 10/40 are both better choices and are cheaper to boot."
I'm leery of using most automotive oils in bikes which have their motors & trannies sharing a sump. I know people who use them with decent results, but I don't think they are anywhere close to ideal. This goes for even the high-performance synthetics. With the gearbox, you usually want a higher coefficient of friction (less slipperiness) for more positive gear engagement. An ultra slippery oil (like a really good synthetic) may be great for preventing wear once the gears are engaged ... but the extra slippery conditions may make for harder shifting (more difficult gear engagement) and that can produce even more wear in the tranny. There are a lot of factors involved with each different application and I don't know an alternative to experimenting, unless it is from someone who has already done a lot of experimenting ... including follow-up lab testing of used oil samples.
blano, where do you buy MX4T? A cycle shop? I have seen it at Wal-Mart for at least $6 per quart. Not really that cheap and I wouldn't guess a cycle dealer or shop would be
cheaper than the almighty Wally World ... or would they?
Chris:
"The Golden Spectro has been the a favorite of the BMW crowd."
Of all the dudes I know/knew who use Spectro oils, none get their oil ananlyzed so they can't really say for sure that it's doing a great job. Most think they figure they are using a specialty oil designed
specifically for motorcycles ... and it's expensive. So it's got to be good, right?
My brother used this stuff for years in his CR250 dirtbike, a dude I used to work with used this in his Yamaha FJ1200 but the guys I know that ran this stuff the hardest (motocross up and down the entire East Coast) got tired of burning up their bikes so they switched to Motul and couldn't have been happier.
Now, I don't know about your BMW buddies ... do they get their used oil tested? Regularly? That's really the key. And even with testing, they should have a number of motorcycles trying different oils over many thousands of miles to show trends. Motorcycle magazines could (realistically) do this ... but then we'd have definitive proof of the superiority of some oils over others ... and they'd lose out on advertising. Most magazines don't really want to give the reader useful information on brands. They have an interest in promoting brand wars as they profit from them, companies competeing with each other in part by trying to out-advertise each other. Also, if people got definitive answers on key technical questions, the might stop reading the magazine(s).
And, of course, there's the problem that different bikes may like different oils for a number of reasons; some have roller cranks, some have different clutch linings, bearing materials, cylinder arrangement, gear vs. belt-driven cams, etc ...
For what it's worth, what I've seen in OEM Honda cycle oils don't impress me much, either.
There are one or two reports on them somewhere on this site as well, I think. Very expensive, but they seem to use an indifferent quality shear-unstable base oil (like Spectro) and a merely adequate barrier package (again, high-borate content). There's simply no excuse for this. OEM stuff should be top of the line ... and if it was, more people would use it.
As for the change in zinc & phosphorous levels, yes, they probably spiked their levels of these additives in more recent formulas.
mcmech:
"I'll probably try Mobil MX4T as I've had good results from Mobil 1 in my cars."
Probably not a bad idea. Either MX4T or the Castrol R-4 that
Chris suggested. They can't be any less shear stable than Honda or Golden Spectro.
Still, I'm dying to see some analysis of Schaeffer oils used in a bike. I'd also like to see someone take a poor performing oil ... and see how much of an improvement some Schaeffers #132 additive can make to its used oil analysis.
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Bror Jace
[ January 01, 2003, 12:03 PM: Message edited by: Bror Jace ]
