How-To: Choose the Right Oil For Your Bike

Have you ever cooked an engine because you didn’t check whether it had enough oil? Okay, that can happen to the best of us if a rock’s holed the engine cases mid-ride and we were blissfully unaware the donk hemorrhaged its lubricating lifeblood. But if you’ve ever seized an engine because you filled it with the wrong sort of oil to begin with … well, shame on you!

Actually, let’s suspend judgment here for a moment because selecting the correct oil for your motorcycle is not always a straightforward exercise –mainly because not all oil brands deserve a 10 out of 10 when it comes to packaging clarity. And that leaves room for a very expensive mistake when you’re hurriedly grabbing a bottle of oil from your local dealer en route to that long-awaited weekend ride. Aside from engine damage, the wrong oil can also affect the feel of your clutch and transmission.

This is one of the reasons we’ve been running Motorex oils and lubricants in Transmoto’s project bikes in recent years. The Swiss brand’s colour-coded packaging makes it crystal clear what you’re buying and what its intended application is. That, and the fact Motorex is a quality product that’s made in Switzerland and shipped to Oz, and offers a complete range of motorcycle-specific products – from high-performance engine oils, gearbox oils, brake fluids, greases, lubricating and protective sprays and suspension fluid.

So, by answering some oil FAQs, let’s look a little deeper into what engine oils Motorex offers, how the brand delivers a consistently high-quality across all its products, and which oil is best suited to your pride and joy’s powerplant, clutch and transmission…

How does Motorex ensure consistent high-quality products?
All Motorex products in Australia are designed, developed and manufactured in Switzerland, then shipped to us in Australia. That means you receive the same high-quality oils and lubricants used by multiple title-winning legends such as Toby Price, Todd Waters, Daniel Milner, Daniel Sanders, Zach Osborne, Antonio Cairoli, Jeffrey Herlings, Jorge Prado, Graham Jarvis, Manuel Lettenbichler, Jonny Walker and Billy Bolt, just to name a few. The Motorex laboratory controls the quality of the raw materials used in every engine oil. It’s Motorex’s combination of high-quality base oils, mixed with the right additives, at the right temperature that guarantees the highest quality across the entire range. Many of the quality additives and base oils blended at Motorex’s headquarters in Langenthal, Switzerland, are only available in Europe.

Did you know Motorex produces specific oils for European and Japanese motorcycles?
It is widely known that Motorex now has a global affiliation with European brands, KTM and Husqvarna, and is used in those two brands’ production bikes from the factory. But what many don’t realise is that Motorex also makes engine oil specifically for Japanese dirt bikes; engine lifeblood that’s been developed to exceed all OEM specifications.

Why JASO MA ratings matter?
Unlike car engines (which use a separate gearbox and engine oil), motorcycle engines require another level of performance that generic engine oils can’t match. Car oils have used more and more friction modifiers, which, although good for cars, isn’t too good for motorcycles as these modifiers can cause clutches to slip at higher revs and gearbox pitting. As a result, JASO MA classification standards were introduced for motorcycle manufacturers to ensure the correct oil is used; oils that pass the ‘JASO T 903: 2016’ clutch system friction test, that is.

How is the JASO MA standard categorised?
The JASO MA standard is divided into two distinct ranges of performance:
JASO MA1 (Lower Friction Standard) and JASO MA2 (Higher Friction Standard). If some properties fall within the MA1 and some within MA2, then the product is simply a JASO MA product. All Motorex four-stroke engine oils achieve the JASO MA2 standard, so make sure you look out for the MA standards label on the back of the bottle.

And probably most importantly, how do I choose the right engine oil for my bike?
Thankfully, Motorex’s colour-coded labelling system highlights the differences and makes it easy to select between Racing, Fully Synthetic, Synthetic Performance and Synthetic Blend engine oils. Here’s a handy snapshot of which oil is best suit to your needs and what you’ll pay for it: