Ducati Sporting Club UK > Model Specific - Discussion, Technical Problems and Help > 998 / 996 / 916 / 748 > What Oil??

[geoff m]

Decided to do an oil change,

Can i use Silkolene Pro 4 , 10-40 fully synthetic? (cos I get it for nowt)
I have a new filter to fit as well, whats the capacity pls ?
Ta

geoff M

[Carbon749]

10w/40 would be OK, but, you may have the oil light flicker on tick over when the engine is hot, Idid.

On my 748 Italia in Lincoln serviced it with a 10w/50 and said it suited the bike better.

[sparkin]

http://ducatisportingclub.com/contro...d.php?tid=6566

Scroll down for some interesting reading on oils.

[Edited on 20-8-2005 by sparkin]

[DEMON]

"On my 748 Italia in Lincoln serviced it with a 10w/50 and said it suited the bike better. "
EH !!?
What an absolute load of bollox they are talking mate.

It seems many dealers are not not up to date on oils and their properties, including synthetic and mineral oils, and just bullshit bike owners..... I remember a great saying.......bullshit baffles brains and its true.

Manufacturers spend hours in the design of bikes, test bed monitoring, in order to achieve recommendations for owners.
synthetic is great ONCE your bike has been run in, but before that mineral oils should be used, as per their recommendations.
stick to what the book says and you cantr go wrong !!

[rockhopper]

If you think that Ducati spend hours designing their bikes i would suggest that you have never been around the factory!

[ils]

Manufacturers spend hours in the design of bikes, test bed monitoring, in order to achieve recommendations for owners.
synthetic is great ONCE your bike has been run in, but before that mineral oils should be used, as per their recommendations.
stick to what the book says and you cantr go wrong !! [/quote]
But Geoff M never said his bike wasn't run in..10/50 & 15/50 is supposed to be better for the rockers - something that Ducati would rather not draw too much attention to.

[Rushjob]

Posted by demon
Manufacturers spend hours in the design of bikes, test bed monitoring, in order to achieve recommendations for owners.
synthetic is great ONCE your bike has been run in, but before that mineral oils should be used, as per their recommendations.
stick to what the book says and you cant go wrong !!

Fair enough, but it's best to actually read the book first or you can put your foot in it!
According to "the book" by which I mean the Owners Manual for my ST4S and the Factory Workshop Manual for the same beast, the recommended oil is Shell Advance Ultra 4
If you then go on to read it in full you will see that although the standard oil mentioned is 10W-40, it is also permissible to use 15W-50 providing that the average ambient temperature does not drop below -7 Centigrade.
So unless you live in Central Europe or other such cold areas, using 15W - 50 Shell Advance Ultra 4 is something that Ducati are quite happy with.....
10W-40 is only needed for temperatures below an average of -7 Centigrade.
Accurate information sometimes baffles bullshitters.........

[Edited on 21-8-2005 by Rushjob]

[Carbon749]

Demon .... "It seems many dealers are not not up to date on oils and their properties, including synthetic and mineral oils, and just bullshit bike owners..... I remember a great saying.......bullshit baffles brains and its true."

OK, dealers may not be up to date on oils, BUT what about me.

I've worked for over 10 years in a small oil company called TEXACO and can assure you that I know the difference between mineral, semi and full synthetic oils. I also know about viscosities, ambient temp's, service intervals, duty cycles etc. When I went to Italia and told them about my oil light flickering on tick over they told me to change to 10 or 15w/50 fully syn as it suited the bike better when hot. I went off and did my own research and agreed with them. And yes, changing the oil to a ?w/50 based on summer riding did suit the bike better.

I would agree with one point you made, only go over to a high spec fully syn' oil once the bike is run in.

[DEMON]

Carbon
dont take it personally
my Comments were directed at dealers not riders.
Sounds like you are in the same line of work as me too anyway.
Shops are the same too, staff are uneducated in oils and greases and generally pass on mis - information to customers, mainly to sell the product.
Having worked for all the majors, Shell, Mobil, BP etc, they sell their base stock crude and unrefined products to each other, then put their own ingredients in, to arrive at their OWN finished product.

[stephen hall]

whats oil?