Leaderboard

That's correct on the MA oil. Some of the info in that post is wrong. There are two things moving the power from the engine to the drivetrain: first there's a wet centrifugal clutch, from that drives the primary cvt pulley, which has a belt to the secondary. The friction material on the clutch is prone to slipping with use of additives "energy Conserving II" API rated oils, which are used in most car oils. Cars use a dry transmission, most motorcycles use a wet clutch where the clutch plates are bathed in oil. The MA rated oils don't have that additive which causes wet clutch slip issues. See attached picture of the friction disc of the wet clutch. Yellow stuff is the friction material. Once it starts slipping you get rapid wear, and also a lot of crud in your oil. Generally speaking conventional vs synthetic, synthetic oils have more uniform molecules and hence lubricate better and resist more wear and tear before going out of spec. They also typically have better additive packages, because the manufacturer expects them to be used for more mileage. Conv vs synth it makes little difference, and I would lean towards changing oil early on these machines being a large single cylinder ("thumper") they get more wear and tear than a normal car engine, and also I've read a fair number of timing chain stretching issues, which is typically an issue with accelerated wear of the pins holding the chain.