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Best oil for 1995SeaDoo Sportster jet boat
- Thread starter lmmdop
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You only need to change the oil if you want your Seadoo engine to last...... Idiots and their TCW-3 oil....
No, TCW-3 oil is the totally wrong oil for your Seadoo and you need to get it out. This involves removing the oil tank and cleaning it out, draining all lines going to the engine and flushing the oil that goes into the side of the engine (rotary gear cavity). Then you need to refill with only API-TC rated oil and on your model it doesn't have to be synthetic.
After you have drained and cleaned the system you need to install new inline oil filters to each engine, they are the white filters. I would also change the little 3/32" tygon oil lines from the oil pump to the intake manifold now as they are the only point of oil system failure on these engines.
For oil you can get Seadoo XPS mineral oil from Amazon at $35 per gallon or Lucas Semi-Synthetic for $30 but be careful with the Lucas as they only make one that is compatible with the seadoo and three others that are not.
No, TCW-3 oil is the totally wrong oil for your Seadoo and you need to get it out. This involves removing the oil tank and cleaning it out, draining all lines going to the engine and flushing the oil that goes into the side of the engine (rotary gear cavity). Then you need to refill with only API-TC rated oil and on your model it doesn't have to be synthetic.
After you have drained and cleaned the system you need to install new inline oil filters to each engine, they are the white filters. I would also change the little 3/32" tygon oil lines from the oil pump to the intake manifold now as they are the only point of oil system failure on these engines.
For oil you can get Seadoo XPS mineral oil from Amazon at $35 per gallon or Lucas Semi-Synthetic for $30 but be careful with the Lucas as they only make one that is compatible with the seadoo and three others that are not.
Riverguy42
Member
I'm in a similar situation, except that the previous owner had no clue what brands he'd been pouring into the tank of my new-to-me 1996 Sportster. "I looked for API TC, but no one sells it, everybody told me TCW-3 would be fine". He's mostly right. Go to any marina fuel dock and all you will find is TCW-3.
So here I am with a 25-year old Rotax 717 that has been running well on TCW-3 for at least 15 years, with no disaster (yet), but I am certain there is trouble brewing inside...more on that later.
Re: "Idiots and their TCW-3 oil...."
That reaction is a little bit unfair to unsuspecting users. We can thank the 'idiots' at NMMA for this mess, by intentionally choosing to use the API's ancient "TC" designation (which originally stood for "two-cycle") and morphing that into "TCW-3", NMMA provided a window for manufacturers of cheaper oil to market their crap to unsuspecting users. TCW-3 is fine for it's intended purpose, the 'W' stands for "Water-Cooled", but Rotax engines are a different animal whether they are water-cooled or not -- they require lubrication for the rotary valve itself, which does not exist in non-Rotax engines.
We can also thank the 'idiots' at Sea-Doo for this mess. You will note that even SEA-DOO themselves no longer rate their oil according to these ancient API classifications, but neither do they use the modern classifications (JASO and ISO). Worse, they offer no guidance to owners of these older machines that have labels on them saying "USE API TC OIL ONLY".
It is not idiotic for someone to presume that "TCW-3" is equivalent to or better than "TC", especially when NO ONE sells "API TC" oil anymore. Obviously (follow the money) Bombardier want to sell proprietary oil at premium profits, so they do not offer any ratings guidance of any kind, just "use our branded oil only", a blatant scam which only adds to the confusion.
In the meantime, for those who don't want to play Bombardier's marketing games, recommending only "API TC" oil is not the right answer either. The API's TC designation was developed at a time when oil refining and additive technologies were still in the stone age and synthetic oils had not yet been invented. While it has not YET been declared 'obsolete' by API, as all their other API designations have, API TC is nontheless obsolete.
Lucas (to their credit) lists all of the modern classifications and they point out that their JASO FD and ISO GD rated oils EXCEED the API TC classification, which is very helpful.
As far as I can tell, my 25-year old Rotax 717 has survived on it's diet of TCW-3. Compression is still good and I see no evidence that the top-end has ever been rebuilt. That said, I am prepared to find a badly deteriorated rotary valve when I do a 'just for fun' teardown this winter.
Now that my Rotax will be getting a steady diet of JASO/ISO rated oils, I see no reason why it won't keep going for another decade or two...
So here I am with a 25-year old Rotax 717 that has been running well on TCW-3 for at least 15 years, with no disaster (yet), but I am certain there is trouble brewing inside...more on that later.
Re: "Idiots and their TCW-3 oil...."
That reaction is a little bit unfair to unsuspecting users. We can thank the 'idiots' at NMMA for this mess, by intentionally choosing to use the API's ancient "TC" designation (which originally stood for "two-cycle") and morphing that into "TCW-3", NMMA provided a window for manufacturers of cheaper oil to market their crap to unsuspecting users. TCW-3 is fine for it's intended purpose, the 'W' stands for "Water-Cooled", but Rotax engines are a different animal whether they are water-cooled or not -- they require lubrication for the rotary valve itself, which does not exist in non-Rotax engines.
We can also thank the 'idiots' at Sea-Doo for this mess. You will note that even SEA-DOO themselves no longer rate their oil according to these ancient API classifications, but neither do they use the modern classifications (JASO and ISO). Worse, they offer no guidance to owners of these older machines that have labels on them saying "USE API TC OIL ONLY".
It is not idiotic for someone to presume that "TCW-3" is equivalent to or better than "TC", especially when NO ONE sells "API TC" oil anymore. Obviously (follow the money) Bombardier want to sell proprietary oil at premium profits, so they do not offer any ratings guidance of any kind, just "use our branded oil only", a blatant scam which only adds to the confusion.
In the meantime, for those who don't want to play Bombardier's marketing games, recommending only "API TC" oil is not the right answer either. The API's TC designation was developed at a time when oil refining and additive technologies were still in the stone age and synthetic oils had not yet been invented. While it has not YET been declared 'obsolete' by API, as all their other API designations have, API TC is nontheless obsolete.
Lucas (to their credit) lists all of the modern classifications and they point out that their JASO FD and ISO GD rated oils EXCEED the API TC classification, which is very helpful.
As far as I can tell, my 25-year old Rotax 717 has survived on it's diet of TCW-3. Compression is still good and I see no evidence that the top-end has ever been rebuilt. That said, I am prepared to find a badly deteriorated rotary valve when I do a 'just for fun' teardown this winter.
Now that my Rotax will be getting a steady diet of JASO/ISO rated oils, I see no reason why it won't keep going for another decade or two...
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