Oil question....
Road Warrior
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Road Warrior
Joined: Jun 2007
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From: South County, CA.
If you change your oil frequently (4000-5000mi.) do it. Unless you use something like the Scavenger where you remove all the old oil, there is about 1/2 to 3/4 qt of old oil in the crankcase, So unless you use the same Brand/Type/Weight every time you change your oil,you will always be mixing them.
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Road Captain
Joined: May 2005
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No its not about scrimping. I probably left that impression because I said that was the oil I had on-hand. But its about the information or maybe the mis-information about oil. I've read from quite a few web sites today and there is certainly a variety of information out there that is completely contradictory. Here is some info I gathered and questions I have about this issue:
--Some say do not mix syn with dino; but how is that different from what mfr's do and sell it as a synthetic blend??
--Some say to mix syn and dino you gunk up an engine; but again how is that different than a syn blend?
--Some say do not mix oil with different weights; but if you mix Castrol 20W50 with a 10W40 why would that do anything other than lower the weight of the 20W50 a bit??
So if you change your oil often I'm not finding any evidence that doing a little mixing is a bad thing at all. No one that I've seen indicated it did any harm whatsoever to the engine. I called the Harley dealer and the service Mgr said he had been on a trip and was low on oil and the only thing the station had was some straight 30W dino oil. He used that and it really didn't seem to make any difference. I would have thought in this heat that would be bad. But I suppose the alternative was to run being a qt low and that would have been worse.
So IMHO it seems a lot of what we are repeating is what we have heard rather than first-hand factual knowledge. It makes for some interesting discussion but discussing oil is almost like politics and religion; not many seem to be able to have an intellectual discussion without getting crazy in da head. LOL; Thanks for the replies. I'll keep studying.
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Road Captain
Joined: May 2005
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We'll see what happens. I put Harley full syn 20W50 and two qts Castrol 20W50. It seemed to run cooler today in 101 degree heat. I'll probably leave that in til I change to something lighter weight for the winter. Thanks for those that offered advice.
