Best Oil

[mkrieg]

I am about to change the oil in my 87 Venture Royale and am looking on some advice on the best oil to use. Also since the bike has 74k miles on it, is it good to run any oil treatments or something along those lines in it? Any advice would be appreciated.

[raceman62race]

I think you will find that you will get recommendations ranging from A to Z when it comes to oils. I don't think there are actually "bad" oils in today's market. I have had several scoots and have ran Yamalube, Amsoil and I am now running the Rotella blue jug synthetic in a 2nd gen.

[mkrieg]

What weight oil do you use? 15w40? etc.

[93 venture]

I am now running the Rotella blue jug synthetic in a 2nd gen.

 

I been using rotella synthetic in mine for the last 10,000 miles or so,seems to be working good, I think the weight is 5-40, i get it at walmart. some people says it will cause oil leaks on hi mileage engine but i have no leaks ,My bike has 110,000 miles on it and still going strong.

[pappyam]

I think that as long as the oil is not energy conserving, any decent brand should be ok. Not sure but anything in the 10-40 and up range has no energy conserving modifiers in it. My 2¢.

Don

[Evan]

I know very littel about oil and won't make any reccomendations. However, last night I changed the oil on my 88VR that I recently purchased. The previous owner said he had used synthetic oil, but I don't know what brand. I wanted to use good oil that would also result in smooth shifting, so I used AmsOil 10W40 symthetic. I was quite surprised when it did not shift as smoothly after the oil change, although I know many others like AmsOil.

 

Evan

[ddoggma]

Just changed my oil today. I used the NAPA filter and Rotella 15-40 DINO oil. Bike seems to like it better than the Castrol 4T that I had in it.

[noahzark]

I am about to change the oil in my 87 Venture Royale and am looking on some advice on the best oil to use. Also since the bike has 74k miles on it, is it good to run any oil treatments or something along those lines in it? Any advice would be appreciated.

 

Here's a site that will give you as much information as you can handle on this subject, but it is broken down by the amount of information you want. (I copied it from earlier posts on this board.)

 

http://www.motorcycleanchor.com/motorcycle/how_to/mc_oil.html

 

I think you'll see raceman is pretty much right--there aren't really any bad oils out there. You should read the section on using car motor oils, though, especially in bikes with wet clutches. Other than that, it appears frequency of changes based on how you ride is the most important thins in deciding what you want to use.

[mattevans]

I to have wondered this but after reading many posts on the subject, I have went to the rotella 15/40. just seem like it was the most recommended by other riders, nothing speeks better than experiance so i went with it.

[eagleeye]

Right now, I use Rotella 15-40 but in my opinion, it isn't what brand that you use, but in actually DOING IT.

 

Steve

[bobcat]

Right now, I use Rotella 15-40 but in my opinion, it isn't what brand that you use, but in actually DOING IT.

 

Steve

 

AMEN.......

[raceman62race]

Right now, I use Rotella 15-40 but in my opinion, it isn't what brand that you use, but in actually DOING IT.

 

Steve

 

I do agree....My Grandfather use to run nothing but Quaker State in his truck. That was back in the day when Quaker State really had a bad rap going for them. He use to change it every 3000 miles. He died, and I ended up getting his truck. It had almost 200,000 miles on it and the truck was falling apart but the engine ran strong. This was back when you almost never heard of a vehicle getting more than 100,000 miles. I decieded to put the engine in another truck. During the engine swap, I pulled the valve covers and oil pan and it was clean as a freshly rebuilt engine. That proved to me that it is more important to change the oil more so than what oil you put in it!!

 

MKREG I run 5W-40 because that was all I could find in the Rotella Synthetic. My wife's bike is older and has more miles on it. I think next time I am going to run regular Rotella 20W-40 in her bike

[MiCarl]

Right now, I use Rotella 15-40 but in my opinion, it isn't what brand that you use, but in actually DOING IT.

 

Steve

 

Yep.

 

In mine I run SUPERTECH 15w40 (Wal*Mart house brand). It's a couple $/gallon less than the Rotella and I wouldn't be surprised if the only difference is the bottle.

[mkrieg]

Thanks for the feedback. Sounds like I need to run down to Walmart and pick up some Rotella 15w40.

[Venturous Randy]

I have run Valvoline 10-40 in everything I have for years. Like raceman said, I have also pulled the intake off a small block Chevy with well over 100,000 miles and it was as clean as a new engine inside.

As far as this oil in my bike, I started having a little clutch slip under hard load at about 70,000 miles. My problem was weak springs. I replaced the springs and at the same time bought a set of clutches for a friends MK2. The springs stopped my slip, but after not putting the clutches in his bike, I put them in mine and with the springs and clutches and pulling a 450lb camper, I feel pretty good about it.

Another concern is when I replaced the gear set with a later model, I found that the orange O-ring in the oil galley was broken and sticking out like a worm. So, after running the bike with the oil system comprimized, plus routine 8,000rpm sprints, plus pulling a heavy camper, I feel that the Valvoline 10-40 works just fine.

I did try Amsoil Synthetic motorcycle oil a few years ago and the only difference I felt was the lighter wallet and oil leaks I did not have before.

RandyA

[RedRocket]

Just changed my oil today. I used the NAPA filter and Rotella 15-40 DINO oil. Bike seems to like it better than the Castrol 4T that I had in it.

 

 

What model number of filter do you use?

[ddoggma]

NAPA # 4933 It comes with the gaskets...unlike my stealer. Is a better filter and is cheaper too.

[Vance]

I used AmsOil 10W40 symthetic. I was quite surprised when it did not shift as smoothly after the oil change, although I know many others like AmsOil.

 

Evan

 

Evan, Amsoil makes a sythetic oil for motorcycles. Did you use that product, or the Amsoil for cars? Amsoil for cars will make shifting a little harder if used in a bike.