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Any real reason not to use Motul 300V oil?

22003 Views 4 Replies 2 Participants Last post by  silverluxe
I ended up buying Motul 300V 15w50 oil for my first oil change. Mostly based on something I read online about it making peoples bikes shift as smooth as possible.

However, there's a few pieces of opinion out there as well that 300V is race oil, not street oil. Something about that it is good at protecting bikes for racing and very short change intervals. And those people suggest to use Motul 7100 for street use.

Is there any truth to this? My dealer told me that 300V is the best oil Motul makes and sort of suggested that it means it's better on the street than 7100 but just costs more money.

I was looking for oil that met JASO MA2 standards due to the bike having a catalytic converter.

I've never owned a nice enough bike that oil really mattered, but I wanted to see if any of you have opinions or past experience using 300V as opposed to 7100.

Motul's data spec sheet on their website states that 'other uses' for 300V are "Street bikes fitted with catalytic convertors"

Link: https://www.motul.com/system/produc...riginal/300V_Factory_Line_15W-50_TDS_(GB).pdf

But I don't want to use it if there's some reason I shouldn't be. Some of the things I've seen posted by people (who knows if they know anything or not)

-Race use only, needs to be changed quickly because it breaks down
-It's a 'high pressure oil' and doesn't circulate well at idle

Is any of that true? There's a TON of bad information out there about oil such as the people who simply buy Shell 15w40 dino diesel oil and run it in everything from their lawn tractor to their Bugatti Veyron.

I'm willing to pay whatever for oil, so for me it's not much about the cost, as it is not wanting to run something not designed to work well with the wet clutch and something that doesn't have a long enough service life.

Opinions and facts are both welcome! :nerd:
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I've been using Motul 300V in my Royal Enfield for a few years now and can vouch for the positive impact it has had in terms of slicker gear shifts and lesser engine vibes. This is not a racing bike by any stretch of imagination.

Now the facts - As you might know, 300V is a fully synthetic oil, as opposed to semi synthetic and mineral oils. What this means is that this is a oil 100% born in a lab as opposed to a SS or MO. A lot of research has gone into 300V type of products to perform the way they do at their specified operating ranges.

Coming to the operating range, the 15W specifies that it maintains it's viscosity to specified standards at winter temperatures of 15 deg C. the Higher number specifies the viscosity standards at temperatures upto 100 deg C. These two operating numbers is what makes the oil a multi-grade oil.

So a 5W30 oil will have a better performance at even lower temperatures than the 15W40 but will thin out more than the 15W40 at temperatures approaching 100 degrees C. That's all there is to it.

The specified standards here could be OEM - BMW, Merc etc or industry body based - SAE (Europe), API (USA) or JASO (Japan).

The rest is all marketing fluff, and in some cases like Shell's Helix offering there are genuine additives like detergents to keep the engine internals nice and sparkling.

The other USP of 300V is just the opposite of what you've been told - it supposedly lasts a very long time compared to other synthetic or semi-synthetic oils (10000 miles or so). I personally don't trust this one and religiously change my oil every 5000km.

Hope this helps and as always - YMMV.
:)
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hmmm...looks like Motul US is playing very safe there. Anyway 3000 miles is exactly when I change mine and longer drain intervals is never an attractive proposition to me. I would rather err on the side of caution when it comes to the engine's well being.

There is lots of user feedback about 300V on the main Ducati forum in case you want to take a peep. It seems to be a popular choice and mostly good feedback.
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