well... i think it all works.


I've been in a lube shop for the past year.


I've seen a guy run 20-50 in his brand new nissan calling for 5-20


I've seen a guy running 10-30 in his duramax


Another guy runs delo in his tracker...


And this little old lady wants 2 quarts of lucas in her 4.5 quart impala.






All cars are still running just fine.

 

I ran 20w50 in my 81 VW scirocco for about 2 years, changing the oil and filter somewhere between 7k and 10k miles (sometimes a lot more than that) and put over 250k miles on the engine. The car was not a 'grandma' car- it was driven "balls out" most of the time (cornered better than a 'vette going up the 330 to Big Bear), would bark 2nd gear shifts without a problem and passed smog tests for California just a few months before I wrecked it.
So I take issue with anyone saying that you "must" run (x) oil or you're gonna burn your engine up. Show me a Ferrari, Porsche or even Rolls Royce engine that has 250k miles (not kilometers... MILES) on 20w50 and I may start taking the argument seriously.

 

Amen! Haha! All I know, is change often and early, use good gas, and keep the tune ups on schedule. Heck I change my plugs about every three to five months. Do they ever look bad? Naw. My oil normally looks pretty good too. I figure I'm not hurting a thang! Besides, I keep NGK, Castrol, Quaker State, and Mobil1 in business right?

The one argument I do agree with is finding it hard to compare a Ferarri engine with a 22RE out of a Toyota.

 

Let me preface this by saying you must read what I'm writing in order to understand. You keep trying to debunk "The Ferrari Guy" without even reading what he had to say. Simply because he owns talks about Ferarri's doesn't mean it does not apply to us. Because he talks in generalities.

The same logic can be applied here, that would be like saying nothing disscussed here could possibly apply to lifting a different leaf sprung truck. But in reality many of the same tricks (longer springs, lift blocks) would work because they are universal. He is talking about Oil and it's Lubricating properties. Plain and simple. Therefore it applies to every engine out there.

Now onto your points...

1. You are correct. I had it backwards. He provides an excellent example.

"We left off discussing that a 0W-30 weight oil is not thinner than a 10W-30 oil. They both have the same thickness at operating temperature. The 0W-30 simply does not get as thick on cooling as the 10W-30. Both are still way to thick to lubricate an engine at startup.

I have heard several people say that Porsche specifically prohibits a 0W-XX engine oil, that it is too thin. Now here is the partial truth I spoke of earlier. We will discuss multigrade oils. Earlier we said that a straight 30 weight oil has a thickness of 10 at the normal operating temperature of your engine. The multigrade oils 0W-30 and 10W-30 also have a thickness of 10 at 212 F.

The difference is at 75 F, your startup temperature in the morning.


Oil type... Thickness at 75 F...Thickness at 212 F

Straight 30...... 250......................10
10W-30............100......................10
0W-30..............40 ......................10

Straight 10........30....................... 6"

"Note that a straight 10 weight oil is also too thick for your engine at startup. It has a thickness of 30. Yet at operating temperatures it is too thin having a thickness of 6. It needs to be around 10. The oil companies have added viscosity index improvers or VI to oils to solve this dilemma. They take a mineral based oil and add VI improvers so that it does not thin as as much when it gets hotter. Now instead of only having a thickness of 6 when hot it has a thickness of 10, just as we need.

The penalty is the startup thickness also goes up to 100. This is better than being up at 250 as a straight 30 weight oil though. Oil with a startup thickness of 100 that becomes the appropriate thickness of 10 when fully warmed up is called a 10W-30 weight motor oil. This is NOT as thick as a straight 30 weight oil at startup and it is NOT as thin as a straight 10 weight oil at full operating temperature."

2. This was interesting enough to note but has nothing to do with the swelling or nonswelling of seals.

http://www.carcraft.com/techarticles...oil/index.html

Synthetic was good for more HP than 20w50 in a 392 Ford.

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&r...tional&spell=1

Well, I was unable to find any proof that the seals will swell. Everything points to the fact that Sythetic Molecules are smaller and more uniform.

So my line of logic leads me to belive that after running Synthetic for a certain period of time. The smaller Molecules will fill in spaces that the Larger Molecules of Conventional oil simply can not. So after time the seals will "swell" you switch back to conventional they will shrink.

So on the same token, I was unable to find anything that would lead me to belive that Synthetic would not swell the seals. If it did not enter the seals at all, then it wouldn't be doing it's job. Seals are designed to be small and then expand as the oil enters it.

So I'm not sure where your getting the idea that larger, illregular Oil Molecules will enter the seal easier than smaller more Uniform Molecules.

All Engine seals in contact with Motor Oil are designed to swell.

Oops spoke too soon. One reference.

http://www.carbibles.com/engineoil_bible.html

"Gaskets and seals! With the makeup of synthetic oils being different from mineral oils, mineral-oil-soaked gaskets and seals have been known to leak when exposed to synthetic oils. Perhaps not that common an occurrence, but worth bearing in mind nevertheless."

3. You're right about the API ratings, and there being no Goverment Regulations.

You're also right that just because it's more expensive doesn't equal it being better.

BUT, the better oils tend to be more expensive. Sythetic is better and it's more expensive.

So you can't really make the arguement that just because it's expensive it's better, but as in all things you get what you pay for.
4. Depends on your driving.

Check this out.

"The thickness of moving oil is measured in centiStokes or cS. Most engines want the oil viscosity to be around 10 cS at normal operating temperature. The really thick multigrade oils have a viscosity of 20 cS at operating temperature. One is not twice as thick as the other, it is only 10 cS thicker.

As we increase the heat from 212 F to 302 F the most commonly recommended oil thins from 10 cS to 3 cS. The thicker oil drops from 20 cS to 4 cS. Note that in a very hot engine the difference between the two oils is now only 1 - 2 cS. In other words they have about the same thickness. There is little advantage to a thicker based oil as a 20W-50 at very high temperatures. No, the 4 cS oil is not twice as thick as the 2 or 3 cS oil. This difference is almost insignificant.

There is a huge advantage of using the thinner, 10W-30 at startup where 90 percent of the engine wear occurs. At 75 F the thicker oil has a viscosity in the range of 250 cS while the thinner oil has a viscosity of 100 cS. The thicker stuff is 150 cS thicker. This is a very big difference. I am using the 20W-50 as my thicker oil example here."

So if you drive long periods of time, the wear on your engine is minimal.

You have to remeber, it's a well known fact that most of engine wear occurs when you first start a motor. So the Thicker Oil isn't going to protect it as well as a thinner oil. It's an opinion. Based on a lot of reasearch.

You are entitled to belive whatever you want. But if you're going to say that this guy is wrong and Ferarri engines have nothing to offer the lowly 22re read it! Don't sit there and judge when you don't know. Most of what I've quoted is directly from the Ferrari Forum.

If you actually read it... you would see that it is applicable here.

Thanks for all fun .

 

you put 250k on a car in about 2 years? geez...what were you doing?
maybe it made it that long because the engine ran constantly, and thus there was no "startup" wear

i'm not piling on, i've run 20w-50 for years. never spun any bearings, never had any cam/valve issues nor any no oil related problems.

if you think about it, 90% is a pretty arbitrary number. and if all you have to do is get at or close to operating temperature for ANY of them to work properly, then they really all share the same problem, no matter what you use, where you live or what you do. and the amount of time it takes to get to operating temperature is not very long at all. in order to really examine this we need a graph that shows oil performance over a range of temps, not just 2 different values. that way we can all debate the minuscule, split-up hair, teeny weenie difference there is for the few seconds it takes for the oil to heat up.

when i was younger (and even more stupid than i am now, if you can believe), my best friend down the street had a '69 camaro with a 396 big block that he ROUTINELY put USED oil in, because we decided to spend what little money we had on other things. that car ran for years, 0-65 in 4.5 seconds (i held the stopwatch) and that was before the 1050 dominator carb, before the mickey thompson slicks and before the nitrous. so if we've learned anyting here, it's better to have some kind of oil than no oil at all.

 

I believe that this whole oil debate over
http://www.ferrarichat.com/forum/faq...=haas_articles
has been covered before.
I tried searching, but had no luck.

I am no "master mechanic" but I think what this guy says makes at least "some sense".

I have read some of your posts Abecedarian, and know that you are a pretty smart cookie when it comes to Toyota's.
Idk, I am not sure that you read the article through, as you attacked the Ferrari guys character (for having a doctorate degree, even though that is meaningless to oil) and the fact that he works on Ferrari's, and impliments his oil thoughts to his own vehicles. Not saying your a bad guy, and don't want to get on your bad side, but I want you to read the whole thing (or at least some in-depth of the article).

I can understand that the whole beginning (about who this guy is) has no attachment to the meaning of the oil that he is explaining. But I feel like this thread is pretty much repeating itself over based on if this guy is talking about "Ferrari engines" or oil in general.

A lot of people I know praise this article and obviously the new Toyota trucks are onboard with these theories when they recommend 0w-20 in their trucks.
Not saying the same things apply to older vehicles, but I think we can all agree on a few things.
-Oil has changed over the years (improving of course )
-Synthetic oil is better than Dino Juice in both protection of seals as well as many other plus-es.
-Different driving conditions/climates require different oils.

I think older vehicles would be going on a different oil topic,
even though the subject has turned from 10w-30/10w-40 to this Ferrari guy.

Of course if I had a brand new truck I would run 0w-20 in it. I don't know if I would in a 15-20+ year old truck (where the "damage has been done" with older more outdated oil).
All in all, everyone has their own opinion, but it's nice to try to straighten things out.

 

So...many...opinions....so much techie talk.....
my head hurts now.....

 

Gotta admit, it's been fun. I know what's worked for me in the past and all I can do is voice my opinion on the matter. Everyone is free to use whichever oil they desire in their engine. So I suppose I should say that one should use the thinnest oil they and their engine are happy with.

 

I have been at work and not able to reply. I cant beleive this went on so long but some good info came out of it hopefuly for some. Dont forget i can help you get that thin oil

 

so, as i said back on the first page, its basically run what you feel comfortable with...
i feel comfortable with running 10-30, so thats what im running...
if you wanna run 0-XX, then go ahead...

 

yep. 0w10, 0w15, 0w20 even.
just don't tell me to use a 0w, or even a 5w when 'cold' means it is 80F outside.

 

Yo you fellers are goin way too deep. I will tell you a little story--I live here in Texas and a bunch of years back I purchased a new Chevy truck-- I know this is a Yota forum but jes keep readin--The manual stated that the reccommended oil weight was something like 5W20 which is all well and good and I like to keep things like they were engineered to be. Problem is Texas summers and 30K miles the engine was starting to knock in the hot summer under acceleration. I quizzed my uncle who operates his own auto shop he told me to switch to straight 30 wt in the summer and go back to the lighter stuff in the winter. I took his advice and it worked just fine. He told me they don't take into consideration the hellish Texas conditionsand because of the colder climates in the rest of the USA the thinner stuff is more desirable.
Just my ramblings --

 

When I started driving almost everyone used 30 weight. A college teacher I took some mechanic classes from, who had worked for Ford told me to use 20-50 when it came out in everything except maybe a new engine or a fresh rebuild.

This was his explanation of how the "new" oils worked. For 20-50 think of the 20 as the ability of the oil to penetrate (molecule size) and the 50 as the ability to protect (film thickness). I don't know how correct that is but it sounded good to me at the time.

I think engines today are built with tighter tolerances between metal surfaces and bearing surfaces etc. needing less film thickness. Engines with more miles/wear could possible need thicker oil?

I have always used 20-50 and have had no problem. I'm pretty sure it's better than the old 30 weight, but there are some who would still argue that point.

Also if 20-50 was bad for your engine it wouldn't be on the market.

The MPG thing mentioned above interests me though. Using a lighter oil for better MPG sounds logical. How much of a difference I wonder.

 

Here is a simple answer, run what is recomended. My boss at the parts store was just talking about this today, the heavier the oil, the longer it takes to create oil pressure on start up(longer dry start up times) on motors that weren't meant to run that heavy of oil, motors are made different to handle different pressures/viscosities etc., he used an example that ford says to use a 0-20 in newer vehicles because the oil hole in the hydraulic tensioner is so small that if you use a heavier weight than 0-20 until the heavier oil gets warm enough that it can flow properly through that hole you will basically have no tensioner on your timing belt, not exactly something I think any of us want. I'm sure there's lots more evidence and explanations, but that is just one of them. I'm sure some will disagree with me and some might agree with me, but either way I hope this was somewhat helpful.

 

When you start an engine you have the best oil pressure you're going to get all day as soon you hit max pressure of that oil in that engine. What the question here is I would think, is what is the difference in time between how long it takes a certain weight oil to reach that max pressure compared to another weight oil, because once you have that max pressure everything in your engine has all the oil it needs. The other factor would be how much engine damage is done in that length of time. We need someone to come up with a way to measure the damage done in time periods measured in millionth of a second inside the engine I would guess, or billionths. Also how long the oil film that is on your bearings etc. will protect the engine during start up. Then some way to measure how long it takes say a 0 weight oil to get to max pressure compared to a 10 weight oil. I'm guessing the we won't have equipment good enough to measure such a minuscule amount of damage for some time if ever.
I have 270,000 on a 95 GMC 350 C.I. that I always use 20-50 in. The engine is in great shape. Suck's a lot of gas though. 11 city, 13 hwy. I'm looking at the Toyota 4x4 with a 4 cyl. manual to haul me and my dogs around. I'll use the GMC to haul fire wood, hay, etc. I wish someone would come up with an oil that would give me a 10 MPG boost. I would definitely use that one.

 

FYI, the oil caps interchange between these trucks and many other Toyota cars...mine's from a Corolla.

 

10w-40 all the way baby! 355,000k no problems

 

BobIsTheOilGuy says use the lowest first number & highest second number synthetic you can get for the best protection (0w-40), so that's what I use (Amsoil). Gives great flow at start up but doesn't go below 40 weight viscosity when hot.

Here is an excellent quote from the link above:

"The gold standard is that all engines should have a pressure of 10 PSI for every 1,000 RPM of operation, not more, not less. After all, you do need some pressure to move that oil along, but only enough pressure, not more. More pressure is not better, it can only result from the impedance of oil flow. Remember that oil flow is the only thing that does the lubricating."

 

Hi, I'm Bob. But not the Oil Guy, more like the BBQ Guy.

Anyway, 0W-40 is what I use too (repeating here from thread p. 1) in road racing conditions that are extreme (7,500 rpm for hours on end during hot Summer days, about as extreme use imagaginable). I was influenced by TRD engineers who develop Toyota racing engines for everything from F1 to NASCAR and have never had an oil related failure. It's referred to as Mobil's European formula and the good news is that it costs the same as any other M1 weight and is suitable for year 'round use in any climate.

http://www.mobiloil.com/USA-English/...l_1_0W-40.aspx

 

355,000,000? Miles or kilometers?