Synthetic Oil Pros and Cons

[dutch780]

I agree with CORSCO. Though one thing to consider with a blended oil is that you can top up with regular oil in a pinch, ie. while touring and require oil in Smalltown, Nowhere. With a pure synthetic (not as readily available), obviously you should not mix it with standard oil.

Why?

Touche Shorts! I was told by my mechanic that it was fine to mix conventional with blended oil, but not with synthetic without giving it much thought.
A little search later and it seems at least from one source that it is alright to mix a conventional or "Dino" oil with particular synthetics like mobil and castrol: http://minimopar.knizefamily.net/oil.html

Im going to be at the dealership in the next couple days and will query him again on the issue.

Dutch

[MrStitch]

Wow.... talk about your funny post!

Lets look at it another way....

Companies have always needed something new to sell to make the stockholders happy. Vwala! Brand spanking new oil line ready for you to argue over till you're dead.

So, how about this angle - Dino oil has worked for aeon's, no fuss, and no hassle. It's readily available in every gas station across the country, and if you change your oil regularly (like you're suppose to with ANYTHING that has an engine) then there won't be any problems.

The whole synthetic thing is probably just there to get you to spend more money..... which makes me wonder.... I wonder how much it REALLY costs to make this synthetic stuff. After all, you don't have to pay for a 500 million dollar oil rig to get it. Don't have all the staff on that rig to pay for. Everything you need should be right there on the shelf, mix and refine. (I'm sure it's more complicated than that, but you get the drift)

I smell dirty corporate greed.

[scan]

In theory anyway, synthetic should save you money. It is more expensive, but you can double or triple the distance in time between oil changes. If you feel like you need to change your oil every 2 or 3000 mile regardless of what oil you use, go with dino. If you feel you can trust the synthetic to do what it is suppose to, and you stretch time between changes, go synth. I'm going to try synthetic because I've also hear it will help a bike run cooler. I also stetch my change intervals, but I will change my filter at every oil change once I start. Nothing I said there hasn't been said previously by other posters here.