The little oil that could

[Pursuvant]

Join me, won't you, for the story of the little diesel oil that could. Our little oil, Rotella dreamed she could lubricate powerful water-cooled sport bikes with wet clutches, so she huffed and she puffed and she filled the crankcase of budget minded squids everywhere. Rotella T6, myself included, captured the moderately frowned upon lower end of the sport bike oil market by "being good enough". And T6 was good enough, bikes where changing oil for $20 (a gallon of T6) + Hi-Flow filter all over. No oil failures. No smokey rooms. No screeching halts over the bars.

And the reason the oil worked money-wise was because it was a mass produced synthetic, quadruple times 10 that, mass-produced for diesel heavy earth working road building construction equipment world-wide with wet clutches. Shell makes a "sheetz-Tonz" of eeeht. And like magic, no one had to tell moto men to use Rotella because they find there own way in the free market, searching out the "good enough" for my FZ-07. Shell could sell all of it they could make at oil biz thinner margins and still make fortunes. Like heroin, only better, nobody's transmission died.

Zip forward to reality, that T6 jumped from $20/gal to $57/gal to "unobtainium" in classic hyper-hyperbola fashion, reaching the outer atmosphere almost overnight in a relative way. I bought my last 3 gals at wally-world for about $23/gal. And now the bit-coin like frenzy for fake, amber, diesel oil - that just happens to run in my XSR700 engine and trans, is no more, available or reasonable priced.

After looking off an on for awhile, i decided last weekend that the move for me is Rotella T6 synthetic 15W40 to Yamalube 10W-40 Full Synthetic at $39/gal. No kidding, Future Shock. But I'm moving to a product that will remain in reasonable availability (around that price I am hoping), because I only want to switch once, from Rotella to Yama (not the Dhali kind). I truly have been enlightened, mentally and my pocket $.

So, if you were a low priced oil consumer, "what's the plan?" That next oil change is coming up fast in your mirror like a Busa with a surfer dude sport'in shorts & Sketchers

[Triple Jim]

I got two gallons of Yamalube full synthetic 10W-40 for $22.50/gallon a while back, and and still have enough for two more oil changes.  Maybe the price of oil will settle down before I need to get more. 

[FZ not MT]

 Castrol Actevo (10W-40) 

 

Edited August 9, 2022 by FZ not MT

[Pursuvant]

What were u running and what you doing different if anything 

[FZ not MT]

5 hours ago, Pursuvant said:

What were u running and what you doing different if anything 

I bought my FZ new, so it had Yamalube in it. My first change was with Yamalube. My second change was to Castrol Actevo (semi-synthetic). After that I tried the supposedly great Motul 7100 (full-synthetic). My bike did not shift as well and appeared to not rev as well too. That revving issue is not really easy to describe, but it was noticeably slower winding up with a rough feeling to it. I went back to Castrol ACtevo, and problem solved. I currently have over 16,000 miles on my bike.

 

[M. Hausknecht]

With my street vehicles, I tend to be a bit lax with my oil changes, so I've used synthetics since Mobil 1 became available. The data I've seen from reputable sources indicates they do better than dinosaur oil when not replaced as regularly as they should. I used Mobil 1 almost exclusively because it was decent quality, readily available in the viscosities I needed, and not too expensive. It seemed fine in my street bikes; no shifting or clutch slip issues. More recently, I've used Rotella for the reasons @Pursuvant noted, including in my F-350 diesel.

With my race motorcycles and cars, I used Mobil 1 initially, and then switched to much more costly Redline race oil when I started to build higher stressed motors. Better safe than sorry when you're getting 25-50% more power (and heat) than the manufacturer intended, and just a single viscosity with no detergents. I noticed no shifting or clutch issues. More recently, beginning with my 07 and now with my Kramer, I'm using Motul Factory Line 300V2 4T and Motul 300V LE MANS (10w60!) respectively. They seem to work well; again, no shifting or other problems noted. But the sh*t ain't cheap and I typically do changes every other race weekend. 10w60 is tough to find but beyond that, I don't have any particularly good reasons for using Motul other than having had a decent sponsorship deal from them in the past.

Everyone has opinions about oil and what is best. For bike racing, I look for detergent free oil with high levels of anti-wear additives. If anyone has links to reputable tests/comparisons of motor oils, please post them. I'd be happy to spend less than $75 for 4 liters of oil.