OIL

[BOODRO]

Just got a 2002 R1150RT with 20k on it. It has been serviced by a dealership and has not had synthetic oil put in it. Dealer said they used a Castol? based BMW oil. I was wondering what type of oil I should use in this bike? Any insight will be greatly appreciated. This is the first Oilhead I have owned. Not had a BMW since mid 90's and it was a R100RTC airhead.

 

[Boffin]

The answer to that question is part science, part religion.

 

The science part is that it depends where you live (filling out your bio helps here). These bikes run forever on dino oil in temperate conditions. If however, you live in a hot part of the world where lane splitting is not allowed then synthetic copes better with high temperatures.

 

You will now get about 150 differeing answers.

 

BTW, Welcome to the board

 

Andy

[barncobob]

[RFW]

BMW specifies a "Brand Name type HD oil". You can pay a fortune for motorcycle-specific oils, or car-oils that are not recommended by BMW because the ongoing reduction of the extreme pressure lubricant ZDDP, ....or, you can use a so called "diesel oil" such as Chevron's Delo400 or Shell's Rotella or Rotella-T. These are in fact "type HD" oils, that have higher levels of ZDDP than anything on the morket and fully meet BMWs's requirements. Not only that, but they cost about half or less of some fancy "motorcycle oils". These are the oils that allow big rig trucks to go 100,000 miles between oil changes. There is nothing better. My old '86 K100RT has used these oils for years, and at nearly 200,000 km, it burns zero oil between changes.

[SinNH]

 

 

 

You will now get about 150 differeing answers.

 

 

 

Andy

 

Minimum

[ShovelStrokeEd]

 

 

 

You will now get about 150 differeing answers.

 

 

 

Andy

 

Minimum

 

And one more that doesn't differ. The modern diesel specific oils are perfect for our motors. Cehvron Dello 400, Shell Rotella products I happily use either in all my bikes, a number of which have much higher specific outputs (therefore loads) than my BMW.

 

My other suggestion is that your bike can't read. Put in something that is close to mfg specs, change it at regular intervals, maintain the level more or less to specification and ride. If you don't tell the bike what is in there or let it see the bottles, it won't get all confused.

[realshelby]

Not meaning to highjack todays oil thread....but I thought I might point out that the oil you may be putting in your diesel is not the same as it was! I deal with this daily at work. The new crop of diesels in pickup trucks require CJ-4 spec oil. That is because of the new emissions equipment/sensors installed and the use of Ultra Low Sulphur diesel fuel. Guess what these oils do not have? The Zinc and other high load additives are greatly reduced. Just like they did with "car" spec oils a few years back. Not saying these won't still be an excellent choice for the bikes but they are not nearly the same formula as before.

[RFW]

The Zinc and other high load additives are greatly reduced.

Zinc is not an additive per se, nor is phosphorous. There are no lumps of either floating around in your oil, no more than there are any lumps of carbon floating around in your gas. Both zinc and phosphorous are part the molecular makeup of the organometallic compound ZDDP (zinc dialky dithiophosphate). It is neither the zinc nor the phosphorous that does any good at all in the motor. It is the compound ZDDP that is the extreme pressure lubricant.

 

That said, I agree that current diesel oils contain less ZDDP than they once did, but in conversation with a Standard Oil (Chevron) chemist lately, he stated that current "diesel oils" STILL contain more ZDDP than car type oils do, and are made from better feedstock (for the most part) than most car-type oils (meaning that less VI improvers are needed to keep them from thinning out, among other things).

 

As a separate issue, these "diesel oils" contain no friction modifiers as is evidenced by the words "Energy Conserving" NOT being present in the lower half of the API Donut on the label. They will therefore cause no problems with wet clutch slippage (in a wet clutch bike).

[chrisx]

Jane.... you ignorant..... Since this is an oil thread. (Huzzah!!.... Huzzah!!...) i'll share my experiences. i just finished up a 4200 mile trip designed to finally break in my 2004 RT. At 11k in denver i changed the oil after some pretty good runs on the way there, crater lake, yosemite, death valley, bryce, zion etc. Lot of passes and hot weather. i changed to v-max?? synth 20-50 and have not added any oil in almost 2k miles. of course my engine froze.. but beyond that... i'll eventually go back to amsoil but i was still burning oil the first time i went synth and v-max was available at the corner store so i used that this time. in any case, a good synth will not off gas as much and has better cold weather flow but just using a good oil of dino or synth will be fine. synth lets you extend the drain interval and gives better protection over a longer run, i.e. if you don't want to change oil on a coast to coast to coast but any quality oil in good shape will be fine.

 

http://www.amsoil.com/lit/g2156.pdf is a pretty good article irrespective of the oil you use.

[dave_jo]

The service manager where I bought my '02 RT said he'd be glad to sell me a quart or two of the BMW stuff or I could buy Castrol GTX at considerably less cost...

I still haven't decided whether I'll switch to AMSOIL at 18K.

[Bob Palin]

The service manager where I bought my '02 RT said he'd be glad to sell me a quart or two of the BMW stuff or I could buy Castrol GTX at considerably less cost...

The service manager at my dealer told me that I would void the warranty by using GTX as it didn't meet BMW's specs.

[Paul Mihalka]

The service manager at my dealer told me that I would void the warranty by using GTX as it didn't meet BMW's specs.

There is a bit of misconception about "voiding the warranty". If your ABS control fails with the bike under warranty, you can have Virgin Olive Oil in your engine and the warranty is good on the ABS control. Even with engine failures, and I have seen VERY few in 25 years of BMW business, as long as there was oil in the engine the type of oil was never questioned. A question might pop from BMW if the bike under warranty was only self-serviced.

[Martyn]

The service manager at my dealer told me that I would void the warranty by using GTX as it didn't meet BMW's specs.

There is a bit of misconception about "voiding the warranty". If your ABS control fails with the bike under warranty, you can have Virgin Olive Oil in your engine and the warranty is good.

 

 

Presumably, BMW would expect us to use Extra Virgin or will any old olive oil do?

[dave_jo]

The service manager at my dealer told me that I would void the warranty by using GTX as it didn't meet BMW's specs.

There is a bit of misconception about "voiding the warranty". If your ABS control fails with the bike under warranty, you can have Virgin Olive Oil in your engine and the warranty is good.

 

 

Presumably, BMW would expect us to use Extra Virgin or will any old olive oil do?

 

I LOVE OIL THREADS!!!

 

Never trust a woman, or man for that matter, if they claim to be "extra virgin"

[Bob Palin]

I LOVE OIL THREADS!!!

 

Never trust a woman, or man for that matter, if they claim to be "extra virgin"

Me too

[phod]

peanut oil is better for the higher temp climates

[dave_jo]

I LOVE OIL THREADS!!!

 

Never trust a woman, or man for that matter, if they claim to be "extra virgin"

Me too

 

I love the beating the dead horse image. Perfect. But it does remind me of a college lit test on Crime and Punishment.

[Wyn]

Amsoil, one of the 2 purely synthetic oils. 10K between changes, 25K in your car.

 

Recommended highly by one of the 80 BMW Master Mechanics in the good old USA. Rennsport link at the bottom of this page. Tom has 1 million miles plus on BMW's (documented) and I believe he said 800K with Amsoil in the crankcase.

 

Give him a call at his shop. He'll be glad to speak with you about it. Great guy, a wealth of BMW knowledge, and he doesn't mind sharing it.

[RFW]

The service manager at my dealer told me that I would void the warranty by using GTX as it didn't meet BMW's specs.

And it quite explicitly does indeed violate BMW's stated oil requirements!

[philbytx]

And why is that, pray tell ?

[dave_jo]

And it quite explicitly does indeed violate BMW's stated oil requirements!

 

My Service and Technical Booklet calls for API Classification SF, SG, or SH, all of which are obsolete classifications that have been replaced by the SL and finally the SM oils.

So according to the American Petroleum Institute, the Castrol GTX, which is SL classified, does meet BMW's requirements.

 

I also use GTX in my BSA, it leaves the best sheen on the floor of the garage!

[BigAL]

Does Chevron Delo400 usually get good reviews on here (for dino, anyway) ? Anyone have anything negative (of substance) to say about it?

 

 

AL

[smiller]

Does Chevron Delo400 usually get good reviews on here (for dino, anyway) ? Anyone have anything negative (of substance) to say about it?

The heavy-duty diesel oils (Delo, Rotella, etc.) are generally thought to be excellent choices. The only negative I can think of is that the 15W-40 weight diesel oils don't cover 90F+ ambient air temperature operating ranges, which according to BMW require a 50-weight oil (for the oilheads at least.) Can't say how much that matters in reality, but the consideration does exist.

[jasonTDI]

you could just use delvac1 from mobil. 5w40 diesel oil.

 

 

Does Chevron Delo400 usually get good reviews on here (for dino, anyway) ? Anyone have anything negative (of substance) to say about it?

The heavy-duty diesel oils (Delo, Rotella, etc.) are generally thought to be excellent choices. The only negative I can think of is that the 15W-40 weight diesel oils don't cover 90F+ ambient air temperature operating ranges, which according to BMW require a 50-weight oil (for the oilheads at least.) Can't say how much that matters in reality, but the consideration does exist.