360 Twin™ Motorcycle Oil: The Motorcycle Oil Debate

This article gives you a brief understanding of what our oil products are and why we developed them this way. The 360 Twin™ Motorcycle Oil Line was developed to provide a premium oil with premium additives at a low cost. It is not an overdeveloped product that tries to justify you running dirty oil in your engine for 20,000 miles to compensate for a ridiculous cost. 360 Twin™ Motorcycle Oil is a product that has been developed to match the oil filter capabilities and the normal wear and debris build-up that naturally occurs in your engine no matter what oil you use.

What Oil Should You Use?

There’s been an ongoing debate for decades over what oil is best for your machine and my thinking tells me there’s no standard answer to that question. That’s because there are too many variables. The climate you live in, the amount of time you spend on the road, the type of bike you ride. All of these are serious considerations. A lot of people will tell you that synthetic is the way to go, but that’s not always the case.

Where you live is an important consideration in your choice of oil because of climate considerations and oil flow rates. Synthetic oils definitely hold an advantage in the cold-weather department. High-viscosity conventional oils simply don’t flow in cold temperatures, and even low-weight conventional oils stop flowing at around 34 degrees Fahrenheit.

Synthetic oil will flow at minus-50 degrees Fahrenheit, a serious advantage if you live in a cold climate. Almost all of the wear in your engine occurs during start-up. If you live in a cold climate and you fire up your bike from time to time during the winter months, you could be doing some serious damage to your engine. Synthetic oils also perform well in high temperatures. Some synthetic oils can offer protection at temperatures up to 400 degrees Fahrenheit. Conventional oils tend to fail at around 270 degrees, although this is seldom an issue since bikes normally run under the 270 mark. If you do have a bike that runs low oil pressure, and could touch the 270 mark on occasion, you should definitely consider using synthetic oil.

The Type of Motorcycle You Ride

The type of bike you ride is also a major consideration when choosing an oil. For instance, if you ride a motorcycle that uses the same oil for the clutch as it does for the engine, conventional oil is the way to go. That’s because synthetic oils are “slippery,” for lack of a better word. This can cause major problems with a clutch because clutches need some friction in order to work properly.

Price of Oil

When it comes to the pocketbook, of course, synthetic oils are more expensive. A lot more! There are many benefits to using synthetic oil, but saving money is definitely not one of them. It costs money to develop these highly efficient oils and the end-user pays for it. In some cases, you are paying much more than what is considered reasonable, and that may be due to the name of the product. As a rule, synthetic is about 50 percent higher in price than its conventional counterpart.

Dirty Oil

One thing that conventional oils and synthetic oils both have in common is their ability to get dirty. There are synthetic brands out there that claim you can run their oil for 20,000 miles or more without an oil change. These oils cost a lot more than some of the other oils on the market, so that is how they justify that cost. That being said, having that debris run through your engine for 20,000 miles is not a good thing. Some will say,” Well you need to buy a high-quality oil filter”, but they are not aware that there are basically two factories that produce most of the motorcycle oil filters on the market. In testing, most of these filters are very comparable. You should also know that if you are trying to run oil through a dirty filter, you are restricting oil flow, which is also, not good.

The Best Combinations

Your oil should be changed at regular intervals (usually after 5,000 miles) whether you run synthetic oil or conventional oil. This will ensure the best flow rate through the engine while keeping debris to a minimum which your oil filter can handle without restricting flow. In most cases, synthetic oil is the best choice. Conventional oil is fine for those riders who live in a mild climate, change their oil like clockwork, and ride a bike that uses the motor oil to bathe the clutch. For the rest of us, our bike is best served by spending a little extra on the synthetic oils.

The 360 Twin line of oil products has been developed to offer a premium oil with premium additives but at a reasonable price. This ensures you when you use our oil you are not throwing money in the trash. These oils meet or exceed API SL / JASO MA2 requirements. They also meet all know warranty requirements while exceeding the factory oil offerings in an independent test.