i just changed to oil in my bike. after i finished i asked my girlfriend if she got MOTORCYCLE oil and of course she said yes. mistake number 1. anyways.. i was wondering if i destroyed the engine or not? it was definitely car oil. it was 10w40 non synthetic and i only had it started for about 15 seconds .

 

As long as the oil doesn't have teflon based lubricants, it will be fine.
The only difference between car and motorcycle oil systems,
is a bike's clutch is not seperated from the oil system, as a car's is.
If you use one of the teflon-based oils, you will have clutch slippage issues.

If your oil change was based on one of these, just drain it and re-fill with
a regular type oil and you should be fine. Save the oil and use it for your car.

Ern

 

If it has "energy conserving" marked on the label then it will cause clutch slip(like won't even move type clutch slip lol), otherwise it should be ok until your next change.

Also for future reference, any oils with "JASO-MA" marked on the label will be ok for wet clutches.

 

A 10w-40 weight is usually not energy conserving anyways, that's usually just 5w-30 and below, so you should be fine. Def look at the back of the bottle anyways though to make sure it doesn't say 'energy conserving'

 

#1. something as important as ur bike is, why let ur gf pick out the oil? foolish for sure!
#2. 10W40 and 20W50 petroleum car oils are fine, just not the best formula for high rev hot engines in bikes because of the impurities left in the oil after processing to keep the cost to a minimum.
#3. imo full synthetic motorcycle specific oil is the best for wet clutch and the trans if u plan on keeping ur bike and have $ budgeted.
heres a link to my recent post about motorcycle oils
http://www.post610.org/truth_about_motorcycle_oils.htm

 

I worked at a bike shop for a few years. And i was told that u should not put car oil in a bike unless its an older bike with a some what lower redline. Because i was told that bike oil has a anti foaming additive because not many car engines rev over 8500 rpm and modern bike engines rev to 12000 and over for sportbikes and i was told that there is additives to help your clutch hookup better and to last longer now thats just what i was told. Hope that helps

 

a physics professor at Cal State Fullerton published an article in the 90's, where he found motor oil marketed as for cars was actually better than oil marketed for motorcycles. He found that over time, car oil maintained its viscosity better than motorcycle oil at high temperatures. Keep in mind that this was in the 90s and the bike used for testing wasn't a sports bike. Still, it illustrates that the myth of motorcycle oil as being superior to car oil becuz it was designed higher revs and a transmission/ clutch that performs some sheering motion was nothing more than clever marketing.

To reiterate what others have mentioned above, modern bikes like the 2008 Honda 1000rr will state in the owners manual and also on the oil cap that it recommends motor oil with the JASO-MA rating and/or avoid "energy conservation" types of oil.

 

this website offers only opinion based stories. This is a cute line:
oh... this claim is also very amusing:

haha. i guess i've yet to encounter this good quality synthetic that the writer speaks of.

 

so far so good. can't really tell a difference. there hasn't been any slip or anything.