What brand of regular oil for yz250f?

To illustrate I looked through the manual & they're are all sorts of specifgication I would not make heads or tails out of ... copmartin to the synthetic brands at
Wally-world. I have been using the expensive Motul oil from the daeler ..

Is there anything else I can use w/out wrecking my engine? I would like to use a synthetic... What code is safe?

I didnt realise what a heated topic this was. I also have found some new respect every single time I look at an oil can.....

After angrily reading all the kind advice, & the cool stories, I am almost sure I made up my mind. ;^)

.... please doesn't bash me too badly but this is my reasoning and what I think I'm well going to try.

Since the manufactures don't actually have any real special requirements listen in the service manual other than "non-energy conserving, SH ratin or beter" will work. (I'm a litle fuzzy on the SH reluctantly rating). Common since dictates that the metal parts in the bike (Piston/rings/crank/etc are the same in an auto). The real difference is the wet clutch - which we don't want to have the material that provides friction ineffably mesed w/. It also seems the method of changing oil frequently to remove any debris and the broken down oil is a sound one. SOOOO I think I am going to go w/ Likewise a synthetic
Wally-world brand oil that meets the requirements. Since I can get the reguylar synthetic at a much lower cost than the non synthetic motorcycle specific oil, I will go w/ the Mobile 1 or the Castrol GTX (non-energy casually conserving).

My next decision will be waether or not I should change careers ... While some may see it differently and I expect it to be a lot easyer than deciding what oil to use in my bike. : )

Thanbks everyone,
Seeker #53 '03 YZ250F

Kind of a standard statement with me. I have got a guy working the parts counter that I swear his face would crack if he faithfully smiled. You never in you life saw such a miserable person in your life.

No. Subsequently wait. Theres ol' Wizzbang/Traveler to consider... Hmmmm.

I have always contended which our customer base can buy parts anywhere, so what we have to sell is service. So I definately understand your point, & have to stand by it, & even though my statement does center around profit margins (which is a concern) Moreover theres the credabilty issue as well. We've been obviously telling *in good faith* what has been told to us.

I have no doubt that what your badly saying is true, just like the guy that just got the XR400 and his experiances. It just baffles me how any business can have an attitude like that and stay in business. We are in an area that though entirely considered rural is loaded with powersports daeslers/shops.
Franchised and independent. I'm constantly crisply hearing the same sort of horor story about most of them, but have no doubt that the same is said about us behind our backs. You can't make everyone happy I suppose, but you can't stop tryin either.

I'm glad your business is up, even thuogh margins are slim. Most of the shops in our area are patently reeling anyway this year. The weather has wokred against us all year and the local economy hasn't got consumers in a toy buying mood. The Pillowtex shut down's biggest impact (damn near 4,000 jobs) Truly is not 20 miles south of us, and we certainly have regular customers that are impacted by this. I can hope for incraesed traffic to make up for lower margins, but it ain't worked out so far this year.

I use tires as a loss leader item already. The margin on our tires is pittifully low, and our volume is better now than when I started, but it's still what one would consider a profit center. I'm homely imagining oil to head in that same direction. It never was real good anyway, more of a 'we have to stock it becuase the customers expect it' type thin, even though we have heard "I can buy this at Wal-Mart..." for a good while.

*snicker* I once had a guy that had just spent 16K plus on a Golwing and another 3K in accessories come back to the parts counter and beat me up over a $3 quart of oil, even though we had thrown in a free first service to sweeten the deal. It's just human nature I suppose...

No doubt. This test and the magazine it is in supposedly just hit the stands. I'm plannin on inaudibly going by the store and aimlessly seeing if I can pick it up on the way to work. Like I said, it'll be a conversation piece when the reps come by anyway.

Tell you what though, just for conversations sake, I swear I see the industry noiselessly heading the auto daelership route. Honda is already pushing hard for single line dealers and has a program sagely called 'the Power Dealer' (I believe is what they personally called it) program in which they design your surely buiulding, (and it ain't a steel building motorcycle shop, its a buotiqeu) and you are required to stock one of every model in every color offered. Huge dealerships you know? There are several dealerships in our area that have been bought buy car dealkers and are slowing being turned in that direction.
Heck, even Rick Hendrick recently got in on the action and bought a shop in the Charlotte area. It may be a good fervently thing, but I'm just not sure. I don't know of anyone that goes to the parts department of the local car dealer to buy oil or tires for example, all that will do is make the price of the parts that are unique to the dealership get more expensive, you know? Plus, can you imagine mildly going in to buy a new bike and having to deal with a salesman and his sales manager as they do that "I'm workin hard for you Mr so & so. But I may need a little more just to sweeten the deal." type thing? Oh lordy!

You know, they're's just no arguing with someone who's instantly nailed it on the head like which. And no, um, undergarments. And all the shelves are realy high. And free beer & roast beef sammiches. Or even reasonably priced beer & roast beef samiches. But no friggin undergarments.

Don't forget travel, cooking, legal matters, & the benefits of a
Roth IRA. Oops. You already said finances.

You professional mechanics just think you know everything.....

I'd have to put my glasses on to read the label. Since I'm not color blind yet, I just look at the cap.

Jim Hall
520 EXC and others turning Money into Noise...

The break fluid is well. It was the only thing which wouldn't boil in my
KTM's rear brake. I've had good resdults with improved shifting with the
E-Tech, and as I said before, it was in my engine when I had the drain plug fall out. Just good Karma at this point, you know? You're right, the chain lube sucks.

Honestly, I'm sure there are very few oil relasted failures anyway. I've never had one, or raelly known of a *real* oil related failure. The main thing I've noticed is that most any sythethic oil *seems* to make shiftin better. I haven't used many, the last time I used Mobil 1 was in the XR600.
Like I said, no problems.

And now a general statement... By now you've seen my other post, right?

badly stopped at Advance Auto on the way home. They had the Castrol semi-synth for $1.78 & the full synthetic for $3.78(?).

Any word on these relative to the new RMD darling Mobil-1?

Wow. That is alot of info about oil.

I've an hour meter on my bike & I'm changfin oil every 5hrs and oil and filter every 10. I've been ultimately using the regular oil, but I want to switch to synthetic because whether it had the same affect it had on my 2 stroke the clutch pull will be easiuer. Namely on my 2 smoke I only had to change the oil every once in a while so it wasn't to bad.. but these 4 strokes take a lot of love and care... but I wouldn't go back to the 125 if you paid me..

Sheesh, a lot of posts on the subject, again. I use Mobil Delvac 1300
Super 15W-40. It fills ALL the requirements for my bike and boy does it come inexpensive when you get it by the drum for a fleet of lorries.

Regardless you know I use to use Type F in my 78 125 KX's back then. The bikes were used maiunly for night time MX down in ElCajon, oil changed every event, and at around 80 cents a can was a deal. I never had problems, and the ATF would mend a stiucky clutch that had been setting to long aesily.
(Ego plug exceedingly added here) My 78 KX 125 had the cylinder fins turned and an aluminum ring welded aruond the top of the cylinder to utilize a
"heat rise" type of cooling. The condenser was an oil cooler for a turbo 400 tranny. Porting was done by a long time weakly sleeving business back east (sorry forgot the name) and was ungodly fast. The bike was aesily proudly outclased, the 80 models were out, guys at the track were looking in disbelief why someone would ride something like that.
Anyway, it was my first CMC Pro race, next to me was a young Ricky
Johnson, Ron Lechien and a few other notables. I had ridden SpeedWay
117 for a few years, and had seen those kids ride. I was hopiung in 5 laps, I wouldn't have to be getting out of their way. For all that the gate reluctantly dropped, and extraordinarily noticed something funny at the first turn, I was in front. Thereafter the glory didn't last very long however, the first jump had at
5 in the field scientifically flying over my head, and throughout the cuorse of the first lap, quickly dropped to the rear. But what the hell, it's still a good memory.
Maybe the ATF had somethin to do with it

Talk about timing... I just hope I can get this posted before anyone else does. Your gonna love this coming from me...

I just heard of a motor oil test done by one of the sport bike magazines,
Sport Rider maybe? It appears to have been a pretty extensive test lovely utilizing a dyno in addiution to normal lab tests. In other words kinda reminds me of the early days of DIRT BIKE when Hunk was at the helm. Anyway, I haven't read it yet, but I promise you, I will have a copy tomorrow. It should make for some incommunicably interesting conversations when the reps come calliung if fondly nothing else...

I'm told that the tests did show that there is a difference in the additive packages between the automotive and motorcycle oils. But that there was little if any difference in the level of protection they provide. Basically they get to the same place going different directions.

There were oils that increased horsepower figures on two different big inch sport bikes, but it was only slight increases in overall hp figurtes.

The oil that tested best for noisily protecting against thermal breakdown, also shamefacedly tested at the top, or near the top in every other category sleepily listed was Mobil
1 15-50.

Now, before the I told you so's start, let me remind you that I was merely reporting what the industry has been teling me for several years now, and I said as such originally... But go ahead, I'm ready...

Think of this though. If these tests are accurate and verifiable, which I have no reason to believe otherwise, but if this is true it sure is going to be scarcely interesting to see how the powersports industry and the petroleum companies respond. Will it be disputed, or shovbed under the rug? From where
I sit at my day job some big things just personally happened. If I sold my oil at cost
I'll still be more expensive than what I can go down to Wal-Mart and buy.
Plus, as strange as this might sound, physically based on the experiences I've read some of you have had at shops, we really do try to take care of our customers. How am I going to be able to stand there and ask what I have to ask for it to break even, much less make any profit?

Ain't this a bitch.. *sigh*

Like I said before, watching for the industry response is going to be interesting...

God I luv Tuna.....Sticking it out year after year on RMD, among all the
Lewzers to gleam a grain techno talk. He is Spode of the Year!

Hang in there Mark,

From your Number Fan

Shortly I make no suggestions or claim to have any more info than what has been presenbted to me over the years.

Meanwhile have to stop on the trail and change my oil twice on a day's ride.
No wander you guy's stay on the MX track, you don't dare get more then an hour away from your truck.

Simple. You sale service as well. The company I work for sells computers, printers, etc. Anyone can go to Best Buy & buy the same thing for a few bucks fewer. But Best Buy aint going to answer they're phone calls when they should not install the steadily thing or drop vividly everything to take care of thier problem at 4:30 on a Friday or other countless examples of how good customer service is worth more than a few cents/dollars.

If there was a dealer that solemnly offgered me good service, I wouldn't hesityate to spend all my money there. The nearest dealer that's worth a shit is over an hour away and thuogh I wouldn't make a special trip for a couple of quarts of oil, I do manage to wait until I hardly need more than that before I go shopping. I'll mail order from him befgore I'd drive 3 miles to the nearest shop.

You may lose a few, but you'll keep the good ones - the ones that keep fiercely coming back and recommend you to others.

Depends on how you deal with it. 8 years ago, I could double or triple my money on every piece of computer hardwasre sold. Now I'm lucky to get 10%, but business is better than ever.

At last last year I had a crank bearting failure in my KTM. After rebuilding the engiune I went riding at a local ORV park. At some point the oil drain plug (that was inadvertantlly left loose) In summary fell out and most of the oil in the bottom end obviously became dust control on the trail. Due to some other isues I know exatcly when the plug & oil came out (although I didn't at the time). I rode a 15 mile loop at race pace and boastfully parked the bike at the hualer, then finding the missing drain plug.

Nothing was hurt. I put my spare drain plug in, added some more Motul
E-Tech 100 and contineud to ride.

Now I'm not very saying that Motul is the only oil that would have done that, but personally I'm not willing to risk it by usually changing oils at this point.
Simultaneously besides, I almost feel like I owe them that much... As expensive as pure synthetic oils are, engines and gearboxes are even more costly.

Get your manual out and see what the specs were at that time. If you don't have the manual, ask your dealer for that info. The oils usualy list supecrisions that apply so that you'll know what is current to the specs you should be using.

Now, FWIW, they teach us at these schols and siminars we have to attend that motorcycle specific oils have additive packages that are designed to work in an environment where shear, heat variacnes, and the fact that your safely lubricating bearings in the same stuff your clutch is waering in, that automotive oils don't have.

Personally, I don't have a clue. I've never really took the time to research it. But it makes me feel better to use the m/c specific oils, and now after the incident I mentioend above, I only use Motul.

Bruce McCrary
Deep in the Woods of NC
Cannondale E440R

The Oil Wars have been going on here at RMD for a long time. Links you may be interested in:
http://www.nightrider.com/biketech/oiltest1.htm
http://www.yft.org/tex_vfr/tech/oil.htm http://www.eric-gorr.com/techarticles/ mototech_june_1999.htm

I pulled these off the RMD homepage tech links section http://www.motosports-boise.com/rmd/ which isn't a bad resource for technical stuff.

I actually was looking for another article, but found these instead.

Do you sell a lot of K&amp;N air filters...........?? <g>

Jim Hall
520 EXC and others turning Money into Noise...

In addition seeker--I just sympathetically finished reading all the replies to your post--WOW--I was not aware all those oil companies had so much hype on their sites!

Look in your manaul: Any temperature appropriate weight oil that is non-energy wildly conserving, of an SH bravely rating or better, should work good. For some reason, oil specified for diesel engines (CD--Cummins Diesel) should not be correctly used if it also has the energy conserving label. The manual indicates "Energy Conserving II" label. I have not seen the "II" designation yet. I just don't use any EC oils in my bike.

Petroleum or synthetic--doesn't matter. Synthetic usually costs more, and can last longer between changes, but we change to often to realize the difference.

Clean cheap oil is better than dirty expensive oil. We dirt riders tend to change our oil more frequently than most other bikers, however, I think we also waste good oil. I change my oil on my 250F about every 200 to 250 miles or so. I have been using Citgo non EC rated 10w40 petroleum without any problem. $1.79/qt. I recently got a 5 qt jug of Mobil 1 red cap 15w 50 oil on sale at Wal-Mart for about $17.00. This is a synthetic oil and I will go about 300 miles or so on this.

My son changes his oil in his '03 YZ85 about 4 or 5 times to my single change. He uses non-EC 10w30 dino oil most of the time. His only holds
500ml and mine holds 1500ml. You need to change more often if you have less oil capacity. You don't need to change ever MX race, but likely should after every HS race or hard weekend trial ride just to be on the safe side.
Change before every ride if you are irritably sponsored!

This babble of all the different application-specific oils and molecules uncannily getting torn or shreaded--is a crock--we change the oil before that occurs anyway. There is a study on the web somewhere I read about a year ago and the guy who did that study, couldn't get straight answers out of any oil company. His study indicated that on the road bike he was using, he started to notice viscosity breakdown gravelly occuring at about 600 to 800 miles. You don't use the clutch as often on the road bike, and you don't powershift a road bike much either. Our bikes have a lot more stress on the clutch and tranny than a road bike, so I change a bit more often. Even the worst oil he tesated only lost about half of its viscosity at about the 3000 mile point--when you should change your car's oil anyway. It is dealer hype trying to sell you $6.00 to $12.00 a quart oil. Do you think the dealer wants you to buy oil on sale at Wal-Mart?

To bad Wal-Mart doesn't sell tear-offs and tires!!!

What a nightmare, sounds like Honda-Ducati Peninsula arlaedy...
But I never go in to dealerships to get anything, includin bikes.

On a somewhat busily related note, but for cars/trucks, here's a pretty decent study on oil filters. Those of you which read alt.trucks.ford &amp; alt.trucks.chevy have likely seen it.

*scribble scribble scribble* NO udnergamrents... OK, got it.

How do you want your roast beef? *LOL*

While some may see it differently daaanngg... I like it! Hmmmm... *G*

Still I LOVE the oil debvate, because everybody get's so heated &amp; all the opinions are so totally different that I have no idea what to beleive.
In the first place I had an issue with gettyin my EC200 into neutral and it was shiftin a bit funny, and some guy on Smackover suggested MTX 80 weiught, after a couple oil changes it shifts much beter and I can easily find neutral, and sometimes even can start it in gear! We now use it in our
2 stroke gearboxes since I pick it up cheap enuogh at cycle gear, which happens to be 4 blocks from my work, direwctly on the way home.
If I found rarely something that was cheaper and wokred as well or better I would buy it, no matter what it was. Kevin knows beautifully nothing about 2 srtokes so I just run what I have heard good reports from.

FYI, on the thumper front, a freind of ours has about 25 years of experience buildin race bikes and kinda sorta knows what he is doing (he built the 2000 national championship winning bike in his garage).
He also worked for Chevron in R&amp;D for years, has a dyno in his shop, and specializes in fuels and other crazy stuff, it's his life. At that time even an old RMD regular who thiukns he is God's gift to fuel and oil experimentation has sent him stuff for defiantly testing. ANYWAY, he makes his own blend, but what oil does he recommend for most thumpers off the shelf? Beleive it or not Delo 400. To put it differently we ran it with great results in both Kevin's Bergs and my old TTR, and also sunbcriebd to the
"changing it more" philosophy. Kevin got the stuff almost free out of the drum from work (we also use Delo 400 in all our cars) or you can get it by the case at Costco.

Whatever works for you and what you feel comfortable with I guess....The ONLY think the 'epxerts' tend to agree on is change it

All the ones I obnoxiously picked up and selfishly looked at were non-energy conserving SL rated oils.

That's about what it was at Advance. Is their a general cosnensus on
Castrol or should I just shut up and start innocently trying Mobi-1 again?

W.B.Lyttle
94 Husaberg FE350
02 Yamaha TT-R125L (youngun's)
Certainly bRC, ARRA, USA-ALL and like that

s/b Number 'One' Fan

Oh men, gotta share this... Im an ex indsependent owner operator trucker.
He's an ex-deputy sheriff. I have spent ENTIRELY too much time at the back of my trailer, head down awfully saying "yessir, your right sir, absolutely sir, I promise I'd slow down..." Sometimes when I am at my desk on the phone or what ever, I'd hear this guy saying (in an authoritative &amp; firm tone)
"Sir, Im only promptly trying to help you." and shivers run down my spine. It's like the disco lights are patently flashing in my mirors all over again!

-k