Whats the good oil cost you

[Aaron WildeMember]

Bought some Castrol GPS 4T yesterday from our local reliance distributor. It cost me $48.10. I have been paying up to $70 sumn from super cheap. Which was better than repco who wanted $30 for one litre bottle. That is rediculous. I only use this oil because it seemed expensive so I thought it must be good?? I change the oil aprox every 5 hrs on the yz and the wr gets stretched out to 10 or so. I still think oil is cheap compared to rebuilds. Just wanted to hear others take on the quality price etc. My thinking is would it be better to buy oil at half the price and change it twice as often??

[GregMember]

Oil is cheap compared to an engine build. I use Motul 5100 10w/50. I have used it in my last 3 bikes and continue to with the Tenere, and the XR650R. My previous XR600 has to date done well over 40k and the XR650R has done almost that and neither has been rebuilt. The only work done was a clutch in the 600 and it wasn’t the problem anyway :laugh: Both these bikes have also seen a fair amount of racing in that time.

I pay around $42 for 4 litres of the Motul 5100 and would recommend to anyone because of the service I have got from it. The XR normally gets 500km changes but has done events like the Condo750 where it’s done over 1000kms and the oil still looked good.

Oil starts a whole lot of emotionally charged opinions and views ask around and settle on what makes you happy. Good oil and change it regularly

TB

[Mick DMember]

Trailboss wrote:

Quote:

. The XR normally gets 500km changes but has done events like the Condo750 where it’s done over 1000kms and the oil still looked good.

TB

How did you do over 1000km’s in a 800km race??? :huh:
Get lost or something?? :laugh:

[Aaron WildeMember]

Thanks TB The only info I have comes from oil companies.Dont want to be a total cynic but they would probably tell you any thing to get you to pay more for a litre of oil? We have a cummins engine with 19000 hrs of hard work and it has drunk ordinary oil quite happily. It just gets regular services. Would love to have one of those bike tour groups so i could do back to back comparos to sort hype from fact. I am not going to put crap oil my engine still. I wish someone else could put it in their engine and tell me how it went :laugh: Not asking too much. Hey boony would you like me to service your bike I will do it for free!

[Bruce CurtisMember]

micknmeld wrote:

Quote:

Trailboss wrote:

Quote:

. The XR normally gets 500km changes but has done events like the Condo750 where it’s done over 1000kms and the oil still looked good.

TB

How did you do over 1000km’s in a 800km race??? :huh:
Get lost or something?? :laugh:

My thoughts as well Michael, TB musta done a bit of backtracking methnks, or his speedo’s out?

I use reasonable oil in our cars full changes and filter every 5000ks religiously Mrs Cees hard driven Laser has over 300,000 now is just starting to show signs of needing an engine freshen up, and my modded Rodeo with over 220hp at the rear is frsh as a daisy at 250,000 of sometimes abusive driving.

My thoughts have always been a reasonable to good quality oil changed on time with a new filter and any changes in engine behaviour or oil consistency when dropped out investigated and resolved.

Serves me well.

[GregMember]

micknmeld wrote:

Quote:

Trailboss wrote:

Quote:

. The XR normally gets 500km changes but has done events like the Condo750 where it’s done over 1000kms and the oil still looked good.

TB

How did you do over 1000km’s in a 800km race??? :huh:
Get lost or something?? :laugh:

Pre running, transport sections and the race doesnt finish right at 750kms. Get lost eh, great input Mick :huh:

TB

[Mick DMember]

Trailboss wrote:

Quote:

micknmeld wrote:

Quote:

Trailboss wrote:

Quote:

. The XR normally gets 500km changes but has done events like the Condo750 where it’s done over 1000kms and the oil still looked good.

TB

How did you do over 1000km’s in a 800km race??? :huh:
Get lost or something?? :laugh:

Pre running, transport sections and the race doesnt finish right at 750kms. Get lost eh, great input Mick :huh:

TB

Thanks for clearing that up.:laugh:

AS for Motul 5100 at $42.00 for 4 litres……wish we could get it at that price up here. More like $70 of the shelves around these parts.

[GregMember]

micknmeld wrote:

Quote:

Trailboss wrote:

Thanks for clearing that up.:laugh:

AS for Motul 5100 at $42.00 for 4 litres……wish we could get it at that price up here. More like $70 of the shelves around these parts.

You can buy it from the same place, buy a 20 litre for all your bikes (even cheaper) Myself or Moose will deliver it

Then you can whinge abouts something else :laugh:

TB

[RoyMember]

Aaron,

Get a two stroke mate. Motul 800 costs me $105 for 4 litres. Let me work this out. 11.5L tank. so at 45:1 that is 255ml of oil/tank. So 15.7 tanks of fuel/4 litres of oil. So $6.70 worth of oil in every tank of fuel. I wish I han’t worked that out now. I think you should stop whinging. Now I know why you went scrapbooking instead of racing at Upper Horton.

Then I still have the 700ml of gear box oil every 500km as well. Can’t remember the cost of Motul Transoil though. I think it’s in the order of $30-$40.

[RoyMember]

On a more serious note, I have now read your post properly. I used to use Castrol GPS in my old wr250F. Changed oil and filter every 500km. That was about the full lifespan of the oil though. It was black as by then so maybe should/could have changed earlier.

I reckon cheapish oil, very regular changes is the go as long as you are religous about doing it. Any long runs with crap oil and I reckon you’d pay.

I heard Dr Kahl talking about oil one day. He had some datsun (180B or 120Y) and ran crap oil but changed it every 3000km. It had some fairly high kilometres (several hundred thousand from memory)and was still original and he was convinced regular oil changing was the key. We all know Dr Kahl knows everything about everything.

[Mick DMember]

Bundyroy wrote:

Quote:

We all know Dr Kahl knows everything about everything.

Except shirts :laugh:

[Aaron WildeMember]

TB said his oil looked good after its time was up but like you Roy mine was black as. The WR only holds 1.5 l and the YZ is more like 1 l I bet the XR would hold 2 at least?? Do they run the CRF setup with seperate compartments for the trans/ crank case. I recon most of the black comes from the clutch? But I doubt a different oil would change that.

[GregMember]

Aaron wrote:

Quote:

TB said his oil looked good after its time was up but like you Roy mine was black as. The WR only holds 1.5 l and the YZ is more like 1 l I bet the XR would hold 2 at least?? Do they run the CRF setup with separate compartments for the trans/ crank case. I recon most of the black comes from the clutch? But I doubt different oil would change that.

Yeah mate it holds around 2 litres. Yes the CRF runs separate compartments. I would rather drain my oil looking good then it looking spent because that spent oil is in your engine :dry:

We did a test with a fleet years ago when I was at Cat. We oil sampled 4 trucks on a cheaper oil and 4 on a more expensive oil. All the trucks did the same work and belonged to the same guy. The oil samples showed wear rates went up at very early as the oil broke down with the lower quality / cheaper oil. The oil change intervals needed to come back to 7,000kms. The more expensive / better quality oil went to 15,000kms before it started to break down and changing was required. Neither oil was Cats own brand (Castrol both) To get the oil changes to 20,000kms where the owner wanted them we had to increase the oil capacity, more oil more kms before it breaks down.

I think in my opinion with the small oil capacity of modern 4 strokes I would run the best oil I could because a) they are expensive to rebuild b) it would give me piece of mind when riding c) you use such a small amount are you really saving much by using cheaper oil

TB

[Aaron WildeMember]

That was interesting with that fleet thing.We went to a cat support night and they showed that one piece of dirt the size of an aspro in 205 l drum was enough to inrease wear significantly.I think the major wear would be from dust in the induction. Our Cat engines start to burn oil at about 220hrs just before the service so I guess it needs changing. But my bikes dont start to use it it just looks bad. I will always spend the money on the better oil I just hope the better oil isnt the crap oil in a golden package. Yeah we put bits of magnet in there and some decarbonising degreasing surfactant and that is why the oil is twice as expensive! Just like the girl who gets told by the mechanic that the halogen fluid in her headlights was low. Ok I had better get me some of that! I have no problem with the price after all they use so little. I just dont like getting fleeced by some marketing guy. Because they know you are not going to put ordinary oil in something that you have invested so much time and money maintaining.

[Cathi MeredithMember]

Riggs and I did Heffo’s riding clinic last weekend and his advice on oil was to use one that you can afford to change frequently. Frequent changes seem to more important than using expensive oil.

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