Conventional vs Synthetic in my recent experiance

This is not intended to be a flamewar of one verses the other, just an interesting observation on how it has worked in my bike.

I bought my 2002fz1 in September 2011, she had 16,000 miles on the clock.

The guy I bought her from said he used Yamalube Conventional Oil because in his words "it is just as good as synthetic".
He also claimed the oil had just been changed.

Not wanting to do an Oil change right away I rode her for a few days and found the oil light came on pretty quick.

I have been using Mobil1 in my cars for a number of years now, so I am biased towards Synthetic and decided to stick to my brand and bought the 4MT motorcycle version for the bike. At $10.00 per quart, that makes for an expensive change.

At about 1500 miles the low oil light came on again and so I bought another quart and topped her off.

Changed the oil at 3k in.

On my second change using full synthetic I did not have the light come on once, and today I noticed about 1/8 - 1/4 of the glass showing the oil line. I just hit 3k a few days ago so I went ahead and changed it today.

I am hoping that I go the full 3k and have less or no line showing in the glass.

Based on this experience alone, I would say that the Synthetic is much healthier for my bike, and she burned much less oil because of it.

Has anyone else experienced anything similar?
 
When buying any vehicle used, I tend to not believe the seller when it comes to vital engine fluids, and will change them at the soonest point I can. Trust is earned in my book, and someone selling a car/bike will say whatever they can to get it out of their possession.

I had always taken my '01 to the shop during the first year or two and they put in Yamalube in it. After that, I started doing the changes myself using Yamalube. It was always fine, but every once in a while, the oil light would come on...typically close to oil change time. After a year or so, I switched to Mobil1 (being a fan of synthetic as well) with none of the side effects of conventional oils. The bike liked the sight glass full, and it wouldn't lose any oil despite the high summer and engine temps. I would only change it annually...in Sept./early Oct. (approx. 5-6K miles a year).

With my new bike, I let the shop do the first change, and at 4K, I took over. I am using Mobil1 again, as my experience with it is top notch. Check your bike to ensure that all the seals look good, and keep feeding it good stuff. :Rockon:
 
Based on this experience alone, I would say that the Synthetic is much healthier for my bike, and she burned much less oil because of it.

Has anyone else experienced anything similar?

I believe the oil consumption is related to the oil flash point and not grade .

I had a similar experience when I got my fz1 last year, i bought it from a dealer with new oil in.. it looked clear in the glass ... but it burned quite happily and I got a bit of start-up smoke every morning.

I changed the oil myself with a semi syntetic of a good brand and the morning smoke disappeared, now I changed again with same brand ,only full syn 10w50 and no smoke and 0 oil consumption in ~1k
 
I use 4t in my bike just because I like how it shifts and I've used Mobil 1 in my mustang (275hp 289, not easy on oil) for a long time with no problems.

To be honest, I think most of the name brand oils are fine these days, but since I've never had a problem with Mobil 1 synthetics, I'll keep using till I do. Life is too short to spend much time thinking about oil :)
 
Synthetic oils have higher flash point (burn at higher temps) vs regular oils, I also noticed no oil consumption with Mobil T4 vs regular oil, synthetic oils have uniform molecular size, less impurities & stay in their grade much better than regular oils.
 
Been using Motul 7100 10w40 full syn for about 50,000 klms ,clutch - beautiful silky changes zero slippage very happy with the oil & only change every 10,000 klms without any need to top up
 
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