• Hi Guest!
    You can help ensure that British Car Forum (BCF) continues to provide a great place to engage in the British car hobby! If you find BCF a beneficial community, please consider supporting our efforts with a subscription.
    There are some perks with a member upgrade!
    **Upgrade Now**
    (PS: Subscribers don't see this gawd-aweful banner
Tips
Tips

Motorcycle oil for Mini, based on shared oil

Share this page

J

Jerry

Darth Vader
Gold
Country flag
Offline
I was just reading another mini forum and there was a recommendation for Motorcycle oil to be used since the tranny and engine share the oil. The thought was the modifiers will keep more particles out of the engine, and the shifting will be better for the tranny. Anyone heard of this? They are talking about oil with MR2 rating.

Jerry
 
That's the first I have heard of it.

Any particulates in the oil (either oil) would have to be sucked up by the oil pump intake tube and then pass through the pump and filter to be removed. I cannot see how motorcycle oil would do anything uniquely different than regular 20W50 with regard to that. In the articles you have read, what method are they suggesting keeps the particulates "out"?

Is motorcycle oil even available in 20W50?
 
I skimmed the 3 page thread that you linked to. Only the very first few posts discuss motorcycle oil and I did not see anyone recommending it for the purpose of particle control and smoother shifting. I did see that the user named Richard1 posted that motorcycle oil was good for Minis with automatic gearboxes.

I know nothing about the Mini and/or Austin America automatic gearbox so I cannot comment about that. The thread also took many sidetracks about filters, ZDDP, and other additives. On page 2 the character "Robster" (Tony something) shows up and the meaningful content in the thread evaporates.

Stick with a quality 20W50 with some level of ZDDP and your engine will be well protected. I use VR1 but that is a personal choice, yours may be different. As I mentioned earlier, you cannot prevent the particulates from forming so you want them kept in suspension long enough to be picked up by the pump and passed into the filter to be caught. Change your oil often. For me, this means once a year or 3k miles.
 
Back
Top