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Motorcycle Oils vs. Automotive Oils
I stumbled across an interesting article written by Ducati Meccanica. I think of all the arguments concerning the subject of oil, none out weight the controversial argument of using Automotive versus Motorcycle specific oil. I cut and pasted some bits of the article below, but I do recommend reading more of the article, especially the tests near the bottom of the page.
http://www.ducatimeccanica.com/oil.html
Walk into any motorcycle dealership parts department and you are virtually guaranteed to see prominent displays of oils produced specifically for use in motorcycle engines. Since dealers are not about to waste valuable floor or counter space on a product unless it produces a decent profit, it is obvious that motorcycle-specific oils have become one of the premier parts department cash cows of the 1990s.
Many motorcyclists have long doubted the need to pay the inflated prices asked for most motorcycle-specific engine oils. An even larger number of us have harbored at least some degree of skepticism about the claims made for motorcycle oils, but have been reluctant to turn away from them, for fear of damaging our precious machines if the claims should happen to be true. Most of this fear comes from very successful marketing campaigns mounted by the manufacturers and distributors of motorcycle-specific lubricants.
The idea, of course, is not so much to educate as to frighten the customer into paying for the more expensive motorcycle oil that only guess-who sells. Such techniques have played on our fears with great effect, to the point where high-priced, motorcycle-specific lubricants have become staple profit producing items in the majority of motorcycle dealership parts departments throughout the country.
What we, as well as the AMI, your local mechanic and all the other motorcycling publications have been doing is simply repeating what we have been carefully taught to believe over the years. The only problem with this approach is that our only source of information has been the people who stand to profit from our faith in the superiority of motorcycle-specific oils.
Bottom Line
It could appear from this data, then, that there is no validity to the constantly-used argument that motorcycle-specific oils provide superior lubrication to automotive oils when used in a motorcycle. If the viscosity drop is the only criterion, then there is certainly no reason to spend the extra money on oil specifically designed for motorcycles. There does, however, appear to be a legitimate argument for using synthetic and synthetic-blend oils over the petroleum based products.
I stumbled across an interesting article written by Ducati Meccanica. I think of all the arguments concerning the subject of oil, none out weight the controversial argument of using Automotive versus Motorcycle specific oil. I cut and pasted some bits of the article below, but I do recommend reading more of the article, especially the tests near the bottom of the page.
http://www.ducatimeccanica.com/oil.html
Walk into any motorcycle dealership parts department and you are virtually guaranteed to see prominent displays of oils produced specifically for use in motorcycle engines. Since dealers are not about to waste valuable floor or counter space on a product unless it produces a decent profit, it is obvious that motorcycle-specific oils have become one of the premier parts department cash cows of the 1990s.
Many motorcyclists have long doubted the need to pay the inflated prices asked for most motorcycle-specific engine oils. An even larger number of us have harbored at least some degree of skepticism about the claims made for motorcycle oils, but have been reluctant to turn away from them, for fear of damaging our precious machines if the claims should happen to be true. Most of this fear comes from very successful marketing campaigns mounted by the manufacturers and distributors of motorcycle-specific lubricants.
The idea, of course, is not so much to educate as to frighten the customer into paying for the more expensive motorcycle oil that only guess-who sells. Such techniques have played on our fears with great effect, to the point where high-priced, motorcycle-specific lubricants have become staple profit producing items in the majority of motorcycle dealership parts departments throughout the country.
What we, as well as the AMI, your local mechanic and all the other motorcycling publications have been doing is simply repeating what we have been carefully taught to believe over the years. The only problem with this approach is that our only source of information has been the people who stand to profit from our faith in the superiority of motorcycle-specific oils.
Bottom Line
It could appear from this data, then, that there is no validity to the constantly-used argument that motorcycle-specific oils provide superior lubrication to automotive oils when used in a motorcycle. If the viscosity drop is the only criterion, then there is certainly no reason to spend the extra money on oil specifically designed for motorcycles. There does, however, appear to be a legitimate argument for using synthetic and synthetic-blend oils over the petroleum based products.
...really...