Oil Change

[pikey]

Im using wilkinsons 20/50 dinosaur oil £9 for 4.5 litres in my 1989 helix it runs great and works out £2 an oil change every 1200 miles never run full power and dont live in Norway

[Data]

That's fine to do that if that's what you want to do. It depends what you feel your own bike needs are and how much you value your engine. For example, you may feel it may not be worth it to use a semi or fully syn if the bike is old with a limited life. But you don't have to live in Norway to benefit from fully syn! Over 95% of your total engine wear that occurs during it's lifetime happens in the first 7 minutes of operation each time you start from cold, and dino oil is the worst for allowing that to happen and the worst at protecting your engine when running hard or just sitting in traffic with the engine fan coming on. The oil superheats and cooks. Dino oil damages really easily when that happens and immediately gives reduced protection every time you run the engine with that oil in. It never recovers. Changing it more often helps but not much. In the test we did on our new engine development fully syn gave virtually zero engine wear in 60,000 miles. All cross hatching present in bores, no ring or piston wear, no bearing wear at all, no camshaft or valve guide wear. Using dino it was a completely different story with clear wear patterns already forming. I'm afraid I can't tell you the engine type and details as that's secret. Semi syn was much better but nowhere near as good as fully syn. I could quote all the wear measurements but it would take up a lot of space. The oily bits were my domain and even I was surprised at the big difference these modern fully syn oils make. It's a very different story from even just a few years ago. Oil is now much more advanced...except dino! So bottom line is, using fully syn makes your engine last significantly longer. That's my main point.

[pikey]

Youll never wear your engine out using semi instead of fully in the time you own it even if its 10 years or more thats my point .I dont dispute all facts and figures but worn engine will still run a long time . Ill take my chances with the Helix it was only £400 to buy .

[Data]

Pikey, I feel sure you are doing the right thing for your bike. You may know, but In older bikes that have never been run on semi or fully syn and that have cover big mileage, putting in fully synthetic oil can even kill the engine if you are unlucky. It cleans engines out so well it disolves the crude around the inside of engine oil seals and can make then leak if they are a bit worn anyway. It doesn't harm the oil seals, but just cleans out the engine brilliantly. If you run it from near new it's fine.

[pikey]

Exactly my engine was designed before synth oil was invented

[mightbesane]

So in sum, if you're buying new or used with a service history that shows full synth, the first change should be full synth. If you're like me and bought used - a K4 400 - with a shaky service history, it's probably best to go with semi.

[Data]

Hi mightbesane, that's a brilliant question. If an engine is well looked after with normal service intervals and normal use, then you are ok to use motorcycle fully syn in virtually any engine. If the engine history is unknown but mileage is low to medium it should also be fine. If I didn't know the bike then I would probably refrain from using fully syn if the miles are very high, that is unless it's been run on semi syn for most of it's life. That will have kept the oilways and seals clean so no problem even if the oil wasn't change quite as often as it should be. If in doubt then just use semi syn. As Pikey says, it'll do most people just fine. Semi is really cheap too and is considerably better in any engine than dino (not meant to be a particular critiscm of what you are using Pikey). The dealship where I worked used to put fully syn oil in all Honda's during servicing years ago. The use of fully syn dramatically reduced camshaft and camchain problems at that time when Honda experienced some issues in that area on some of the CBX range. You can tell how long ago it was I worked in that area! The issue with the seals leaking (which in reality is rare) is normally only applicable to engines that have covered large mileages without good oil servicing. Or indeed, very cheap oil having being used, and/or when the engine has been used for predominantly short trips which again allows the build up of crud in the engine. This crud packs in and hardens around the oil seals. which in itself is not a problem. But when the engine is getting worn and someone comes along and puts fully syn in it, the fully syn is so good at cleaning out the inside of the engine that on a worn high mileage engine the seal may weep/leak when the fully syn disolves away the crud. If you use fully syn from near new the amount of wear on bearings and seals is very significantly reduced, the engine oil runs considerably cleaner, and the engine will cover many many more miles without problems. We also found a 4.5% overall reduction in fuel use when on fully syn during bench testing due to reduced friction inside the engine (that's compared to dino of the same grade). Incidentally, the bench testing was computer controlled and with real journey loading. Dino oil is used during development as a control oil to accelerate wear inside the test engine at high loads. It does that just fine since the engine is designed to run on fully syn. Just make sure if you are going to use fully syn in a new bike you don't put it in straight away at the first service as it is so good at stopping engine wear that the engine won't fully run in if you use it before at least 4k miles. Sorry if I sound like a bit of a geek on oils, I certainly don't know everything there is to know about it. But it's an area I've had to become very familiar with for what I've been doing and the oil companies have been brilliant at helping us with our research.

[pikey]

I shall be using semi synth in my vespa gt Im not a complete cave man LOL

[Data]

Actually Pikey, you sound pretty clued up. Never for one moment thought you were in a cave!

[pikey]

I was inspired by this hang on till 2 mins in the oil change LOL