Shell Rotella T6

[Bluewaterhooker0]

Has anyone heard about a reformulation of T6 due to new regulations ? I was checking into it for my son-in-law's Voyager and ran across a thread about Shell adding moly to the oil to meet some new regulation. It's supposed to create clutch issues on wet clutch bikes. I think it has to do with making the oil compatible with fleets that run both diesel and gasoline engines, one oil does it all. Apparently, it's been pretty popular with the Vulcan crowd up until now. This just took place at the end of 2016, as near as I can tell. I know some Wing owners also use it, thus the reason for this thread.

[Rednaxs60]

I have seen two types of the T6 - one is rated as JASO MA and MA2, another without the JASO rating. Only using the one with the JASO rating. If it goes by the wayside will switch back to AMSOIL or equivalent.

[minimac]

I too had read somewhere about the reformulating. Rather than take a chance, I just run Royal Purple now in all of my bikes.

[Bluewaterhooker0]

After researching a little further, it appears Shell Rotella T6 now comes in two different versions.
Rotella T6 & Rotella T6 Multi-Vehicle. The multi vehicle is a 5W-30 and the standard T6 is a 5W-40, as before. The standard 5W-40 version still shows JASO compatibility, the multi vehicle does not. I don't personally use it. I use Mobil1 bike oil, but for those that do use Rotella, keep an eye out for the correct version safe for bike use.

[landisr]

It appears the old rule of thumb that the "high temp" weight of 40 or higher not containing modifiers still holds true.

I use the regular car flavor of Mobile 1. Change it every 10,000 miles. Easy to remember . 181,000 miles and counting, original clutch, and still humming happily along.

My $.02. Ron in AZ

[Bluewaterhooker0]

I use the regular car flavor of Mobile 1. Change it every 10,000 miles. Easy to remember . 181,000 miles and counting, original clutch, and still humming happily along.

Exactly which Mobil1 do you use ? Is it a full synthetic ?

[landisr]

Just like with the Rotella, I use whatever full synthetic is on sale at the moment. Synthetic is safe in our engines as long as it doesn't have friction reducing modifiers. Just be sure that the oil you are considering does not have the "energy star" logo on the front, down near the bottom. The best insurance is to have the second weight rating at least 40, ie 10W40 , 15W40, 20W50 etc. I can't tell you exactly what is in the bike at the moment because I used the bottle to recycle the old oil. As I have stated before, my 94A has over 180,000 miles on it, the oil and filter being changed every 10,000 miles, and it still has the original clutch.

Ron