My foreman 450 has 350 miles on it with 70 hours. Should i switch to synthetic oil, what do you guys think.

 

From what i've heard, once you switch, you can't go back. I haven't used synthetic in my race quad (300ex) for that reason, synthetic can get expensive really quick. If I were you, I wouldn't switch, and with you riding a foreman, there really isn't a need to switch, unless you want to start racing the utility classes, which I doubt is what you are aiming for.

 

most atvs unless fully auto only require 10w40 motor oil

 

My question is why would you consider it? Are you having problems with regular oil?
If you want too, sure. But you don't have too.

 

i just wanted to see if it would be better on the engine. why cant you go back once you use synthetic?

 

I see.
Like I said above, if you want to use it, use it. Synthetic oil is the best stuff out on the market but the real question is do you really need it?

Synthetic oil is made for extreem conditions. If your racing in extreemly hot weather and need every ounce of power it's a very good choice.

If you ride in -20 degree weather it's a very good choice.

If your not riding in any of these conditions then dino oil will be just fine IMHO.

There is no reason at all you can't switch back and forth from dino oil to synthetic oil. A lot of people that live in cold weather do just that. They run synthetic oil in the winter and dino in the summer.

Synthetic oil is not magic. As a matter of fact most over the counter synthetic oils are just highly refined dino oils. Sure; there synthetic oils that start out in life with very good base stock but these oils are very expensive and are absolutely not needed in even above normal conditions. We don't even use those oils in our racing engines and they go lap after lap at 9 grand.

If you want to read about oil there is a good site right here.

 

I'm not sure why the myth of not being able to go back to regular oil once you use synthetic still exists.......

Most synthetic oils are a blend, and most dino oils now contain part synthetic polymers. An example is 5w20 oil, which is all a synthetic blend even if they don't say so on the bottle. The fact is that in order to get the viscosity needed for that light weight they need synthetic polymers to be added.....

So it makes no sense that you could not go back to regular oil since chances are the "regular" oil you are using is a synthetic blend of some ratio. Most regular oils contain at least 10% synthetic oil today, and the "blends" usually contain up to 50% but usually around 30%......

Even some "full" synthetic oils like Amsoil, is still about 10%-15% dino oil. Others like Maxima I believe is 100% synthetic but you pay more for it too.

As Dr. Turbo points out, if you don't need it don't use it...... In a fairly low revving utility ATV you don't need synthetic that bad, you can run regular as long as you keep it clean it won't matter.....

I run Amsoil in all my ATVs generally.

 

There is more myth and nonsens floating around about synthetic oil, than any other topic! A lot of it historic, and this article outlines some of it:

http://www.volvoclub.org.uk/engine_oil_history.shtml


The fact is, that we only have petroleum oil because the raw material to make it (crude oil) is cheap and plentiful! If a chemist started from scratch to build the ideal lubricating molecule, it would not be based on a bunch of filty goo pumped out of the ground!

More excellent reading:

http://www.maximausa.com/techn...news/LubeNews2002.pdf


http://www.p1-performance.com/pdf/oildoc.pdf


Synthetic has huge advantages over petroleum, and Group V ester synthetic has advantages over the other two types of synthetics (Group III and Group IV PAO). If you want the best, cut through all the BS and run Redline, Maxima Extra, Motul, or Klotz.

 

thanks for the info. i think i might try some red line after this oil gets some more miles on it just to see if theres any difference

 

I run synthetic oil in my Lakota, main reason being that its air-cooled and synthetic oil handles heat better, and it keeps the engine a little cleaner.