Any oil with the JASO spec can be used in the primary. I use plain old rotella. Works great and I can get a 10 liter jug for 35 bucks. That's enough to do both my metrics and my Harley for at least a whole season.
Remember it's gotta say JASO. And you can use any automotive oil with the second number being 50,such as 5w-50. The second number is grade at operating temperature.
And use gear oil in your tranny.
Harley uses scare tactics because most people are sheeple and do as they are told.
Remember bearing skate? Harley invented that potential problem to stop people from using synthetic oil,because it was "too slippery". And people believed it because it was assumed synthetic was more slippery. Which it isn't,but most never took the time to do any research,they followed.
Honestly. Use whatever you are comfortable with. Your bike really won't know the difference

 

You lied!!!! This is another oil thread. LMAO.

Use whatever floats your boat.

 

I guess you guys didn't understand the original post as I intended.

Nowhere did I ask for oil choices or HD approval for what to use.

I asked if anyone realized that if you look in your manual it states to use only HD Formula+ for you primary and doesn't state any other choices. I was trying to figure out how it's legal for them to tell owners to only use their primary fluid. The same goes for oil, unless I overlooked it somewhere, it says to use HD oil and only use diesel oil until you can change it out. How is this legal? Shouldn't they have to specify what type of oils to use? That's all I asked about.

 

Same way car manufacturers(and every other manufacturer for that matter) do it. My F150 says it, my Volvo says it, my wife's Nissan, daughter's Madza. It isn't written in stone just a selling point for their products. It won't void your warranty so like I said just a selling ploy.

 

BBStacker beat me to it. All the mfg's do the same thing. There's Yamalube and Honda Lube etc.

According to the Magnusen-Moss Act a mfg cannot require you to use a specific oil unless they provide it FREE. Look it up on google. Wish more people knew about the M-M Act. Then they probably wouldn't be so gullible believing everything a dealer tells them.

So go ahead and use any oil with the same viscocity. Just make sure you use a good filter and change at the mfg's recommendation.
I change every 5K to 6K miles with syn, but if it makes you feel better changing more often, by all means do so.
There's nothing wrong with dino oil either if changed often enough.

Remember a few years ago Harley said you'll blow up the engine if you used synthetic oil?? How times have changed since they have their own syn oil.

 

Being your on other side of the pond, the real question here should be what is available in the way of indy bike shops that could provide you with an alternate oil. Don't know what's popular over there, but just about any quality 20/50 wt will do the job. The rating they usually have here for bike oil is SG. For the primary any 15/40 wt diesel rated oil will worn nicely. And gear oil with gl-5 rating and 75/90 wt rating or higher, will also do the job. Doesn't have to be synthetic.

 

"Same way car manufacturers(and every other manufacturer for that matter) do it. My F150 says it, my Volvo says it, my wife's Nissan, daughter's Madza. It isn't written in stone just a selling point for their products. It won't void your warranty so like I said just a selling ploy."

This is my point, other manufacturers state what oil to use through different temperature ranges. HD does not do this as far as I can tell. In the manual it says use Formula+ without telling me what else to use. Everyone keeps saying what to use and I already understand there are many choices, but I can't see anywhere in the manual where these choices are based upon given specifications. It seems to be based on experience, personal opinions and some other company wanting to sell me their fluids.

My whole point in this thread is that in our HD manual there are no specifications as to what fluids to use in our motorcyles. They only recommend HD oil which I thought was illegal because they can't make you use HD oils. Did I miss this in the manual? Does it give primary fluid specs. that are acceptable? Does it tell you what type of transmission fluid is acceptable? This is why I said this wasn't an oil thread technically, it's about the oil specs. not which one to use.

 

I don't pore over the manuals but do know that from day 1 Harley-Davidson has never been forthcoming about the exact lube specs they recommend. They used to say something like "use H-D Sooper Dooper Engine Oil or for extreme conditions use Sooper Dooper Hevy Dooty Engine Oil." And leave the weight ratings out. Of course the oil cans were stamped on the ends with the SAE or AP ratings but you had to look at the can, not the catalog.

 

i get excactly what you are saying. My manual for 2012 does not give any oil or lube specs outside of, use hd brand blah blah blah, it doesnt say api rating sj/sg 20 /50 or gear lube with gl5 rating. Primary lube oil with jasmo rating. And I was wondering the same thing.