RiderSite.com - Motorcycle Forums

It has been recommended to me to use only semi synthetic oil in the falco.

As part of the current overhaul I will be changing the oil and filter as the bike has been stood a while.

I already have in the garage 5 litres of Putoline Syntec 4 15W/50 which is a fully synthetic oil, this is unused and I bought a while ago
Putoline guff on the back of the bottles says it is compatible with modern superbike clutches.

Seems a waste not to use.

Advise please
M

This is a long-standing forum favourite.

First question - what model year Falco do you have? If it's one of the early models (especially black, but possibly also red or silver with lacquered aluminium frame) then semi-synth is advised.

Later models (those with black frames, and some others) can happily tolerate fully synth.

And Putoline is jolly good oil, so it would be a shame to waste it.

What he said !

I've a 2001 black model and tend to run semi synth as its cheaper, however I have run fully synth several times and never had a problem with either.

So if you have it in stock you can try it. If the clutch slips then you'll be needing to buy some semi synth.

Keef's is one of the VERY VERY few early 1000 cc rotax engines that has run fine on full synthetic oil

(Oh - and by the way, the bike colour is more valuable in this instance than the year of registration - keef's 2001 was actually made in 1999 or 2000....)

personally I think the colour of the frame - as alluded to above, is probably not a bad marker

Hmmm not sure you're right Pete.

My understanding gathered from various sources is that early bikes may have a problem with fully synth but late models almost certainly won't.

With early bikes it's far from inevitable.


I think the perception may be a bit different due to a number of more vocal owners of early bikes having had problems.

That said, the "safe" advice is for owners of early bikes to buy what we know will work.

iv just bought oil and filter for mine (asked for semi synth) and the dealer was quite insistant that aprillia say only fully synth is to be used on any 1000cc rotax units. but when iv checked the service reciepts that came with my bike its allways had fully synth and i have no issues with clutch slip

struv wrote:iv just bought oil and filter for mine (asked for semi synth) and the dealer was quite insistant that aprillia say only fully synth is to be used on any 1000cc rotax units. but when iv checked the service reciepts that came with my bike its allways had fully synth and i have no issues with clutch slip

Your dealer is talking bollocks and trying to get more money out of you.

BTW, mines one that doesn't like full synth

If it isn't broken don't fix it

If you look in the Aprilia Owners Manual and Workshop Manual you will see the specific oils that Aprilia recommends.
If you then investigate carefully what sort of oils these are, you'll find each of them is a Semi Synth oil.
Your dealer clearly has not a clue what he's on about.

Nevertheless, unless you have one that doesn't work well on fully synth, it's absolutely OK to use that. I've normally used fully synth in mine but currently have semi in there. I'll be going back to fully synth at the next service.

Page 90 of this manual gives recommended oils, as d rider says they're semi synthetic.

http://www.martinpoll.dk/diverse/SL%20M ... nglish.pdf

I don't know many people who have put fully synth in a bike and not had problems. The last problem I saw was it coming out the overflow/breahter and soaking the rear shock as it's generally thinner than semi synthetic (not really the direction you want a lot of oil to be going).

wayno wrote:
I don't know many people who have put fully synth in a bike and not had problems.

Many of us run fully synth with no problems at all.

oh dear iv put it in now hope i dont have problems and your not wrong about wanting more money i thought £59.99 was expensive for 4 litres of oil

I have a silver framed falco and a black framed one....Old news.
I have taken the advice from the forum on oils in the past and stick with what has been recomended.
I have semi in the earlier bike and full synthetic in the later bike.
Both bikes run has smooth each other.
When the services come up in future i will not be trying anything different to what i have already done.
Why put fully synthetic oil in an early bike only to possibly cause problems.

I really don't see the point in putting any oil in a Falco other than semi-synth. It's the oil that Aprilia recommends, FFS.

It's a complete fallacy to assume that if semi-synth=good, fully synth=better. It's not. It's just a waste of money.

The only reason I could see to use fully synth would be if you were a trackday junkie or going racing. Otherwise, semi-synth is all you will ever need.