Oilman: synthetic related questions.
Without asking you to condone bad maintenance techniques, would you say that a syntheitic oil of good quality will be more resistant to breakdown than a mineral or semi-synth?
I ask this as both bikes I have use small oil volumes, are air cooled and thus have very frequent oil change schedules (1500 miles Ural, 1000 miles XR400R). These run mineral and semi-syntheitc respectively.
Whilst I intend to change oils regularly, if I were to use either bike on a longer trip where oil changes might not be so easy/frequent, it would be good to know that the oil in the engine has probably not lost its protective characteristics... Can you comment?
My next question relates to a principle I learnt to operate by when I first got into bikes. I suspect this is no longer the case, but I have never confirmed this outright.
Is it now safe for the engine to switch from mineral/semi to fully synthetic and vice versa without needing an engine flush?
(I used to be told in my youth that such a mixing caused the oils to thinken through some chemical reaction, but I never witnessed it my self...)
Thanks.
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Last edited by Warthog; 18 May 2009 at 21:46.
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