when to switch to synthetic

[warsw]

I’ve said it before but I’ll say it again. It’s all about getting what you pay for. Having made blends at a refinery I can say first hand that oil companies are the worlds biggest crooks. You wouldn’t believe what makes it out the door, oil and fuel, and there’s always no shortage of buyers looking for a name brand at dirt cheap prices and no questions asked. Do you really think an oil company is going to flush 100,000 gallons of oil because it’s “a little off spec”? With fuels the effects of off spec product are usually immediate and pretty easy to identify and deal with. Not so with lube oil. You could fill most engines with gear oil and it would probably run fine for thousands of miles but it would fail eventually.
Using off spec oil is like smoking. It’s not going to kill you right away but the more you do it the sooner you die. Conventional oils are, more often than not, in spec. But conventional base stocks being what they are, i.e., a natural product from all over the world, don’t react to additives in the same way all the time. Sometimes for whatever reason they just refuse to meet specification. Other times they meet specification but only after the additive balance is…unusual so to speak. Other times it’s just plain garbage that somebody doesn’t want to dispose of as hazardous waste. Good example, my son opened a 5 qt. jug of Valvoline 10w-30 (from Walmart) and brought it over and asked if it smelled ok to me. One whiff of the sulfur/sewer stink and I knew it that “somehow” recycled oil found it’s way into a Valvoline jug. It even had the telltale layer of black at the bottom from the clay in the plate frame filters.

Synthetic base stocks are always the same, that’s the whole point isn’t it? And they always react the exact same way to additive blends. Chances are pretty close to 100% you’ll get what you pay for because it’s almost impossible to screw up a blend. The same 100% expectation can be applied to motorcycle brand name oils, including non synthetics. Reason being they don’t refine or blend the oil themselves and you can bet they hold the oil companies to a tight standard.

I use synthetics, and not the “synthetics” that can be had for $10 per gallon at Walmart, in everything not only because of the reasons I’ve stated but because they’re just a better product. And using them gives me wood.

Amen, 30yrs working for the oil companies, I have seen what you have seen.

 

[sprint_st]

Lets see some real test. I don't want to just here you dispute all the test and baffle us with BS and call that gospel.

See some "real tests" on what? The info provide above regarding what governs oil changes should be intuitively obvious once it is spelled out the way I did.

What specifically do you think is BS and what kind of "test" would prove it otherwise?

I have seen the results of thousands of oil sample tests at varying mileages and operating schedules that all went into the validation of the oil life monitor. Information I've supplied IS based on all those tests.

The "tests" that magazines and such run are usually terribly flawed in their methodology, data analysis and conclusions. They often make blanket statements from their test results that do not apply to other situations but they act as if their test was all encompassing. It is important to understand that oil life and oil degredation will vary due to the specific engine type, operating cycle thru the test, etc. and the test results then apply only to those conditions....i.e...running long trips and measuring oil degredation and basing ALL change intervals on that test is worse than useless....it is misleading and completely wrong in other driving schedules.

Sorry that the results I mention seem to fly in the face of your preconceived notions regarding oil. Keep doing what you are doing. With todays oils being as good as they are and the sufficient safety factor built into a lot of change intervals it is pretty hard to go wrong in the long run even if you do it wrong.

Last things first, you are absolutely right about "the safety factor" but I'll restate it "IT DOESN'T MATTER!!!!" As long as you are getting "something close" to manufacturer spec, keeping your oil level up and changing it at a reasonable interval, dino or synthetic you aren't going to tell the difference short term or long. You would have to switch to peanut oil to kill a modern day engine. (peanut oil chosen for effect, you can kill a modern engine but you have to work at it)

Totally agree on the magazine tests. They are designed to sell magazines not provide facts. When I challenged Sport Rider's methods they came back with "we had a limited budget and could not afford to do a comprehensive test." My reply was "bad methods and data prove nothing."

Now for the "real tests". Take one model of bike (lots would be better) but lots of them and do an oil analysis every 1000 miles for 20000 miles from the time it is new. You would do that on various types and brands of oils. That is a real test BUT absolutely not practical. You could also just have shitloads of oil analysis data on all kinds of bikes with mileage, riding style and a lot of other parameters provided. You would need hundreds and hundreds of thousands of these tests so you could categorize them for comparison because of the reasons stated above. That ain't gonna happen either. You might even try longevity testing by keeping track of all bikes sold and see what oil they used until they are scrapped or regularly tear apart engines and measure key components for wear. That data isn't available, if it is lets put it out on the table and look at it. Not there??? As I mentioned in my previous post, without data such as this done in a scientific manner, no manner what your job, background or credentials, your opinions on which oil aren't much better than the dumb ass that puts store brand el cheapo in his scoot. (notice I called him a dumb ass because if he does that "I" intuitively know for an absolute fact he is a dumb ass). So we will continue on with these BS oil threads as long as motorcycles use oil.

"Tis a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing" W. Shakespeare

 

[05fjrman]

i switched to synthetic, and my bike now goes 175 and turned purple

 

[Toecutter]

I use synthetics, and not the “synthetics” that can be had for $10 per gallon at Walmart, in everything not only because of the reasons I’ve stated but because they’re just a better product. And using them gives me wood.

Well then, I wouldn't recommend ever switching back.

i switched to synthetic, and my bike now goes 175 and turned purple

Now that's just crazy talk! :wacko:

 

[05fjrman]

i've been called worse.

 

[jestal]

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[slick001]

I have yet to see a synthetic oil that doesn't use the "Marketing Hype" as you call it, for extended oil drain intervals. I have read the hype and there reasons to back it up but I have yet to read any credible test to dispute it. I also cannot see that they can advertise something and not have "some" truth behind it without getting their butts sued.
Synthetics may not have extended oil drain intervals, I don’t know I always change oil at 4k, but I really doubt that you know either. Lets see the test.

Changing oil at 4K is not necessarily good enough if you are driving short trips in cold weather. In extreme cases cold weather starts and short trips can require oil changes every 1500 miles or so due to the water and gasoline (and other contaminants) that builds up in the oil. If your vehicles are operated in short trip and/or cold weather like then you should consider a shorter change interval.

Speaking of the "short trips" , engine not getting warm enough for long enough, what is considered short??? Just not getting the engine up to normal operating temp (about 4 bars on mine) or does it need to get up to temp for a certain length of time (say 20 minutes or so) ???

 

[jestal]

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[jestal]

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[evil_henchman]

Put water and fuel in the crankcase along with other byproducts of combustion and let it sit for days and you get.......H2SO4.....sulphuric acid. True. THAT is what eats bearings and causes corrosion inside the crankcase. Oil is formulated to combat acid formation but it happens regardless. Big reason why you want to avoid short trips without repeatedly without warming the engine up thoroughly.

Johnny was a chemist but Johnny is no more. Cuz what he thought was H2O was H2SO4.

Lab humor.

Synthetics have better pH buffering abilities. Just one more reason.....

 

[Toecutter]

There is no easy answer....Nice thing is that if the engine is warmed up thoroughly just once it will quickly boil all the fuel/water out of the oil and it will be eliminated by the PCV system.....
The FJR...is an oil-to-coolant heat exchanger. In addition to cooling the oil when the engine is running hot and hard it will actually warm up the oil when the engine is operated in cold weather. Getting the oil warmer quicker in this fashion is helpful in expelling contaminants as quickly as possible. This is also one more variable in the question of "what is a cold start"..... on any given engine.

 

[jestal]

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[warsw]

There is something to be said for quality and what is in the oil jug you buy on the shelf. No doubt some substandard products get flushed into the consumer product stream by unscrupulous marketers. That is one reason I stick to certain brands over others......because....certain brands of engine oil/transmission fluid/antifreeze/etc. are also bought in HUGE quantities by the OEMs that routinely check and test each shipment. This provides some certainty that the quality control on those products might just be a little bit better because they do NOT want to foot the bill for shipping 20,000 gallons of "bad oil" to an engine plant and ruining 15,000 new engines that the OEM would charge to them. Their quality control is carefully scrutinized by the OEMs as part of the sourcing procedure so one would know it is pretty good. NO guarantee of oil to spec but it does stack the deck a little better in your favor.

jestel, how do you come up with all this. You are living in a fantasy world my man. You need to get out of the office more often and take a look at what is going on out side. I can see as an engineer you probably sit in an office and have the info fed to you from the outside world. You are not seeing all of what really goes on.

First of all, products sold to the OEM customers are the exact same product sold to all the oil manufacture customers. If they are sold under an OEM name they are only re-brands of the same oil they sell under the manufactures own brand name, just in a different bottle.

Most OEMs do not test the oil they buy. They get certification from the manufacture of the products specs. The OEM just uses or sells it. If something goes wrong and they think that it might be oil related then they will send a sample back to the manufacture to analyze. If there is a dispute then an independent lab will get involved.

What the oil companies do when manufacturing a product is they will take more care in making sure that there upper grades meet the higher standards and the lower grades only need to meet the minimum standards. They are still in spec but barely.

This really shows up in their regular gas. Regular gas is the slop tank of the oil companies. All of the line wash, when the pipelines change from one product to another (diesel to gas for instance) gets put into the regular gas. It has to go somewhere. It will still meet the specs but it also has a lot of other crap in it. Lube oil is done the same way. The lesser products get the shit.

The lesson to this store is; you get what you pay for. Buy your $1.99 dino oil and that is exactly what you get. It will be in spec but barely. Get a little frisky one day out on the road and run you FJR a little hard and those minimum specs just may not be good enough.

BTW To the oil companies 20,000 gal of bad lube is nothing. If they are unable to fix it, it will just get turned into something else and sold as a different product. We were shipping over 200,000 gals a day of finished lube oil alone and that is just a drop in the bucket compared to the other products sold.

 

[jestal]

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[evil_henchman]

OK... I'll bite. Explain to me how/why synthetics have better pH buffering capabilities.
As far as I know the base stock...i.e..."synthetic" as opposed to conventional......has little to do with the pH buffering. That is all in the additive package. The same additive package could/would be in synthetic or conventional oils. So why would synthetics be better?

Conventional and allegedly synthetic oils processed and blended at the same refineries and sold at every cut rate store in the country have the same additive packages? Shocking. I’m just speechless. But you're right. It's academic.

 

[jestal]

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[warsw]

Our labs also do periodic sampling of shelf oil in major markets to assess the quality of what is being sold to the public. Gasoline is tested as well.

Really? Why would they do this? Testing is a very expensive process. Have they taken it upon themselves to protect us from the oil companies?

You say the "dino" oil is at the minimum specs....implying that the synthetic is not???

I don't remember even bringing synthetics into this. What I was referring to was less expensive oils but beings there aren't any inexpensive synthetics I would guess that they would fit in the upper level of the oil food chain.

I repeat, unless the oil is getting over 305 degrees F then there is no advantage to synthetic.

There are other benefits to running synthetics. You are just unwilling to accept it.

Your idea that my FJR might expire on dino is rediculous. As if synthetic is required to "save it" ?? LOL

"Again" I don't remember bringing synthetics into this. You did. I am talking about less expensive oils but like I said before, synthetic oils don't fit into the category of less expensive and most are made with very high standards.

 

[sprint_st]

Not sure if I'm reading this right, but it seems like you guys are saying that all oils run the same additive packages or at least similar packages. If that is correct, I don't buy it, especially when it comes to buffers. In those same bogus tests I talked about in an earlier post there are things that can be learned, one of which is that certain oils do have significantly different additive packages. For example, AMSOIL (not a dealer or user) does have much more in the way of buffering than Mobil 1 (which I do use). Does this really amount to anything, maybe if you let your bike sit for extended periods of time. This is another example of corrupt logic meeting the practical world. If a guy is so savy to understand he needs an oil with a good buffer package to protect his engine from the long term effects of acids when sitting around for long times, there is an implication that the guy doesn't ride much so he won't ever see the benefits of the buffer package. See what I meen, oil threads degrade the mind faster than bad oil degrades engines.

 

[jestal]

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[jestal]

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