Best Synthetic oil to use???

[hawk73]

What is the best synthetic oil to use in the GS500?

[spc]

AMSoil and Motul both make very good synthetic fluids.

[qwertydude]

Here it comes, the can of worms has now been reopened. Get your fireproof undies on for the ensuing flame war! By the way Shell Rotella synthetic in the blue jug,a gallon is only 16 bucks at walmart. One gallon is enough to get me one oil change and the top off necessary in between oil changes at 2000 miles.

[The Antibody]

I use Amsoil since day one. I can't compare because of this, but I have never burned any off or had any problems of any sort. The last few quarts I bought were $9.00 each.
I won't complain though. It's been good to me.


  -Anti

[spc]

Standard rotella synthetic is not a comparable oil to AMS or motul, shell ultra 4 is their offering in the category.  All I will say is a lot of duc dealers are refusing to carry motul over some interesting test findings.

[qwertydude]

I'm sure amsoil is a good oil, except I find the price off putting to say the least. And they're marketing strategy and website just reek of MLM schemes which just leaves a bad taste in my mouth, a lot of the pages I read about them don't even refer to the price of it's oil yet claim it'll save you money in the long run cause of extended drain intervals. Also I just plain don't like that they're always trumping a lot of strange tests they do but don't want to certify they're product lines to API standards. I also asked one of my good friends who is also a motorcyclist and a post-graduate lubrication engineering intern at MIT and he pretty much says most oils are good, synthetic is better watch out for car oils with moly, that's it no brand preference. It's just in my motorcycle club they don't particularly care for amsoil, and a lot of these guys put serious miles on their bikes in horrible conditions like cross country trips interspersed with off road riding. They're experience converted me from mobil one to rotella, not one of them uses amsoil and they're bikes easily have at least 50,000 miles or more without so much as wiped bearings or worn cams. What they also say is don't fret about putting 20 dollar oil in your bike, one of them uses wal mart oil, but changes it every 2000 miles and has had a kawasaki ninja 250 that lasted 85,000 miles before the valves recessed to the point of requiring new heads, every moving part though looked brand new. This was on WALMART oil! Lesson here is no extended oil drains even if you use synthetic oil, doesn't matter if its made from the finest grade of endangered whale oils and wizards and mages have cast they're spells on it, just change your oil often and everything will be fine. FLAME ON! 

[average]

eh,..22k on the clock? I think Ill stick with good ol' 10W40 

[spc]

Where are you seeing that AMS won't certify to API standards???  The shaZam! I buy direct several API ratings.  The price isn't all that bad, I pay right at $40 delivered to my door for a gallon.  That leaves me about a quart after a oil and filter change and my bike does not consume oil like the GS.

There are reports of people running CBR1000RR's on Castrol GTX for 200k miles, doesn't mean that will work for everyone, but it can be done hell there are people running Castrol GTX in Duc 848's.

[qwertydude]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amsoil

only xl and pco (for diesels only)  are the only amsoil lines that are api certified. All their other oils are not truly certified by the api, sure the base stock is good but their additive package may not fall in line with api certs. This includes adding too much anti-friction additives like zddp which is now being strictly controlled in newer oils because of the sensitivity of modern catalytic converters, zddp renders those cats useless when the zinc comes out of the exhaust and literally coats the cat making it useless and increasing pollution. There are other little tidbits you can ascertain. But I'll leave that to when I get in contact with him again, he's gonna get me free used oil analyses when he starts interning again, so I'll be able to know what my oil change interval should be. He's guessing with rotella it could be as high as 6,000 but also reccomends that I change it a little sooner, but not too soon if I want to save money which is my entire purpose for riding, hell I'm riding on cheap Kings tires which I think is a hard compound knock off of dunlop 501's, a cheap $45 rear tire for sure. Rotella really is a heavy duty oil. Truckers should know what a good oil is, they're the ones who are truly in it to save money but can't sacrifice engine longevity for the sake of cheap oil. And don't go on that motorcycle engines are this and that and our clutches destroy oils, rotella is certified to work with wet clutches there are certain farm tractors that utilize a wet clutch and wet brake systems that use the engine oil. I forget which ones but rotella is good for it too. Look carefully if you're not using their xl line of oils because that little starburst is not the api cert, it looks like it but is not the real deal.

[p51mustang]

 (wead in slowly),

My GS said it likes 1quart 20-50 castrol!& 2.2quarts super tech 10-40 & 9oz Lucous full synthic, mustang mixertech

[qwertydude]

Wouldn't you know my local walmart has run out of my favortie rotella, I don't wanna put 15w-40 dino rotella, so I bought castrol gtx 10w-40. Seriously they were out of almost all 10w-40's, because I normally fall back on walmart brand oil but shockingly walmart was out of their own brand of oil which they tend to usually overstock since nobody would be caught dead using that stuff, except for me and the other oil cognoscenti. I'm avoiding mobil's dino 10w-40 because it's only sold as high mileage and because it has elevated, though not damagingly high, moly levels in it. Again useful info from mister petroleum engineer.

[frankieG]

i use suzuki brand