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Engine Oil - A slippery subject Part 2
Here's the spot for all your engine oil questions
and answers. If you're looking for Part 1 of this
topic, it's right here.
carlady/roving host
and answers. If you're looking for Part 1 of this
topic, it's right here.
carlady/roving host
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I was a die hard 10w-30 user until about a year ago and finaly gave up and went with 5w-30 like my owner's manuals said for both my Accord and Explorer. I actually picked up some gas mileage, but I do believe the greatest benefit to the engine is upon start-up - flows better in a cold engine.
Even though I have nothing against it, I still am too much of a die hard to go with synthetic. I'm one of those who uses Quaker State dino and changes every 3,000 miles. My engines last very well.
I've always changed at 3-4K also, depending on manufacturer recommendations. Don't know if it's really needed, but I'm not going to second guess the engineers who designed my car.
ghtrap--just out of curiosity, do you notice better starting all year or just in winter?
INKY
sporin--I don't think I would ever use a synthetic blend. I checked out the numbers, and they are virtually identical to conventional oil. I've seen posts here where the amount of synthetic oil in the blends is MAX 25% (some only 10%--I know that number for sure). You'd be economically better off to buy a quart or two of synthetic for your next oil change and mix it with the conventional oil (they're all fully compatible, but you could get Castrol Syntec and Regular Castrol, if it gives you greater peace of mind), and you'd get a higher % synthetic (that's all the manufacturer does--there's nothing special about the blends. Just more money.
My question--anyone know anything about Motorcraft oil? It seems to be more expensive, and I wonder if it's actually made by Ford or if they just slap their name on it.
i noticed when i put syn in my f150 that it just "sounded" better at startup. could be a placebo effect.
comment on syn blends. frankly, worst of both worlds, imho.
I can't actually say that I can tell the difference between 5W-30 and 10W-30 upon start up whether its summer or winter, I just believe in the theory that the 5W-30 should flow better to the upper portions of the engine when cold.
I live in Kansas, so I don't even have the winters that you do in Ohio. You may or may not be able to tell a start-up difference with the 5W-30 at very cold temperatures.
INKY
I am figuring to go to Mobil 1 5W-30 at 20k miles, with 7500± mile changes.
btw...my car is a 99 Passat 1.8 Turbo. Owners on www.vwvortex.com and www.clubb5.com have reported...
• better mileage
• easier startup in cold weather
• cooler running temps
...when switching to Synthetic.
As far as the choice between the two viscosities, I thought the 50 weight would be better in hot temperatures/long hard driving conditions. Since the 50 refers to the high end temps. I have not read or heard of any manufacturers recommending it but it seemed logical to me. 4 cylinder engines do have to work harder, get hotter, so should need more protection. Since I am not an expert on motoer oils, I will defer to those who know more. But I do think that a synthetic 5W-40 at least should be a good bet in a new engine (I just turned 850 miles on my 2000 Tiburon). I Would appreciate any additional comments on this subject, maybe someone who has actually tried 5W-50. Or maybe a mechanic.
http://vger.rutgers.edu/~ravi/bike/pages/pages/docs/oil.html
Synthetic oil is known to flow much better at low temperatures and therefore there has to be less wear during the warm up.
Comments?
Changing regular oil gets rid of it.
Further on in the same article, they say that they couldn't complete the tests for synthetic due to mechanical failure of the vehicle not related to the oil.
With the extreme oil changes at 3k as advocated by myth, marketing, fear, etc, the synthetic is clearly not worth the extra cost. However keep in mind that you are using 2x to 5x the product. So if you go from 7.5k to 15k between oil changes, it starts to offer scale of economics also.
The synthetic is turning dark just as quickly as conventional was.
But I do think the word synthetic sounds better than the word conventional.
Don't ya think?
That is a pretty significant difference. The question is, is it relevant to our situation? None of us rev as high or run at the temps racers do. And they don't give a rip about cold start attributes.
I can tell you that I decided to go to synthetic about 12-15 years ago, and none of my vehicles have EVER needed to add oil between changes. Some of those vehicles were well over 150K miles.
I just don't feel that $20 for an oil change (I change my own) is too much to spend every 3,000 miles, when you look at the expense of the vehicle. Conventional oil would save me a whopping 0.4 cents per mile. AAA says we pay something like 35 cents per mile to operate a vehicle, so the "expense" of synthetic is just not that burdensome.
And finally, I do feel that the cold start thing is big here in Minnesota, where occasionally I have to start at -20F or lower. If you have never had the pleasure, your car sounds like a coffee can full of rocks at that temp, until it warms up after 15 minutes or so
12,000 miles annual
conventional oil change - 3000
synthetic oil change - 6000
6 qts per change
Syn: 6 x $3.65 x 2= 43.80
Con: 6 x $1.25 x 2= 30.00
Less than 15 bucks over the year. My view is that synthetic may not be noticeable when an engine is new, but at 60-100k I hope to see engine performance remain rather than start to taper off because of worn engine parts. Same could be said for using synthetic lubricants in other mechanicals like trans, rear-end, PS pump. I need about 10 years of reliable service out of my vehicle.
dave
weekends? What effect does moisture and acids play on oil life? At what point does the oil/filter combination lose the ability to protect the engine? Is it 3k or is it closer to the factory recommended changes approaching 6k or 7.5k (some are even longer)? Posts on other topics have said that oil life, measured by contaminate suspension, is around 5k. I'm not sure this is definitive and is certainly effected by driving conditions. If suspended contaminates are the real evil causing oil changes then logically air quality conditions would effect this - then why is stop/go city driving touted as a major reason for oil change - seems to me it would be harder on transmissions (hince ATF) than engine oil, but I don't see or hear about 3k ATF changes. I use to change air filters with oil changes, but factory schedules are showing 15k or a year between changes. My understanding of combustion engines would lead one to say that a dirty/inefficient air filter allows more dirt into the engine than anything else (the only other avenue is internal wear of components).
There is suppose to be less wear with synthetics
so therefore there should be less contaminates in
the oil with synthetic. Should air filters be
changed more often? I ask these questions because
of my experience with the Army's oil analysis
program. The two major reasons for the program
were to get an early identification of engine
failure either through component wear or dirty air
filters. You did not want an analysis returned
indicating dirty air filters (trust me). Component wear ID allowed better logistics planning, service schedules and ultimately better readiness. What I am trying to think through on this post is a 3k oil change with conventional oil better than 7.5k oil change with synthetic oil. If I believe the 3k oil change story then logically I should look at more frequent changes for other fluids that also get contaminated. If I believe the factory recommended schedules, but just want to use IMHO a better quality lubricant then I should also get a satisfactory service life. I'm not sure there is an absolute answer to this question, but I love my truck and want to keep it that way.
on the TRANS AM.it includes CASTROL SYNTEC. Thought maybe someone knew why they didn`t use MOBIL 1 as in the CORVETTE.
Guitarzan
Community Leader/Vans Conference
I don't think air quality affects suspended contaminants in the oil. I believe most of it comes as a byproduct of combustion.
Stop-and-go driving is more stressful on an engine than cruising on a highway. Maintaining a constant speed uses a small fraction of an engines power, while accelerating from a stop uses the majority of your engines power. This is aggrevated by the lack of air movement for cooling in stop-and-go, increasing heat stress on the engine.
Combustion by itself does not create contaminants. The contaminates come from the organic compounds of the fuel or dirt in the air (which is why you filter air before combustion. If what you say is true then why filter the air?). I can't do anything about organic compounds, but keeping as clean an airflow as possible will reduce contaminates, thus keeping your oil cleaner.
A properly maintained cooling system will keep an engine within designed limits of heat stress. My question is why is it more stressful for an engine to go from idle to 3000 rpm to idle for an hour or hold 2200 rpm for a 1 hour trip. Both are within the design parameters of the engine, both cause the engine to "work" for the same length of time, so wear should not be different. Power, in the terms that I know of, is not a measurement of engine wear. Again, I am looking for a more scientific reason that stop/go driving is harder on your engine.
This is analogous to an engine, which also "breaths". The main danger in a severely dirty filter is that the pressure drop becomes too great due to clogging of the filter, and the filter actually ruptures and dumps its full load of accumulated crap into the engine. Also, a clogged filter, though very efficient at filtering, is actually robbing the engine of its ability to breath, thus hurting power and fuel economy.
Regarding suspended contaminant sources, I was referring to properly filtered air. Of course filtering is necessary, no one wants abrasive particles dumped into their engine. I just think (opinion, not fact) that for most of us, the quality of air we are driving in doesn't significantly affect the quantity of suspended contaminants in our oil. Of course, driving in a dust storm or something is a different story. After all, a certain percentage of particles below a certain size will get through ANY filter.
Regarding stop-and-go vs. cruising, I thought I did explain that issue, but I'll try again, with some numbers thrown in. Cruising at highway speeds uses only something like 15 or 20 horsepower (this goes higher the faster you go due primarily to wind drag). Accelerating from a stop uses a good deal more, depending on how fast you are accelerating and how big your engine is relative to the weight of your vehicle. The higher the output, the greater stress on the engine. And even though the cruising output occurs over a longer time period than the acceleration peaks of stop-and-go, the low stress of cruising is easy on the engine. That is why you will see people advertise used vehicles as having "all highway miles" or the like, meaning that the actual wear and tear on the vehicle is lower than the odometer reading indicates.
In other words, the wear on an engine does not increase arithmetically with stress (such as where X work for Y time = 2X for 0.5Y), but geometrically (such as X for Y = 2X for 0.25Y). The formulas are examples only, and not from actual conditions.
This is all tied into the scientific principle of INERTIA. Remember, an object in motion tends to stay in motion; an object at rest tends to stay at rest. Stop-and-go is working against inertia, and cruising is working with inertia.
Well, I've rambled on too long already. Hope I havn't muddied the waters too much.
Steve
Now for engine wear. Let's separate engine wear from vehicle wear. I won't argue that stop/go driving is harder on the vehicle. Brakes, transmissions, u-joints all take a beating in changing the inertia of the vehicle. My point is that for the engine and engine alone it is a mute point whether you are doing stop/go or highway driving. Most wear in an engine is going to be the piston rings or in the valve train. These parts wear based on cycles, not necessarily load or stress. An engine is not stressed if operated within the design parameters. I'd say driving style plays a bigger part in stress than whether it is highway or stop/go. A gentle application of throttle in town is much less stressful to an engine than hammering it into passing gear on the highway because stress would be measured as a function of the change in reciprocating mass velocity over time. I can come up with all kinds of scenarios where highway driving is much worse on your engine than city driving.
My point is to debunk the myth that oil changes alone will keep your engine running a long time. You must look at the total system and regular changes of all filters (including fuel) and lubricants offers the best opportunity for longevity of the total vehicle.
Anyway, I have to disagree that engine wear is base primarily on cycles. If that were true, everybody would drive around in the highest gear possible all of the time. Any mechanic will tell you that is the worst thing you can do to an engine.
Compare an engine under no load, turning 2000 rpm versus the same type of engine at 2000 rpm under heavy load using all of its available horsepower. Will there be a difference in wear? Yes. Will the difference be significant? Impossible to tell, there are too many other variables. On average, however, the loaded engine will definitely wear out first.
Regarding air filter (and other fluid) changes, I think it is important to change regularly. I change my air filter a couple of times a year, certainly more often than every 15K miles. Your engine management computer depends on good airflow to maintain proper fuel/air ratios. A clogged filter cheats you out of some hp, and we can't have that!
Conventional:
4 changes per year X 25.50(dealer)=$102.00
5 years to payoff loan = $510.00
Synthetic:
4 X 50.71(my office mate's oil change from Jiffylube)= $202.84.
5 years = $1014.20
Cost is double!!!!!!
I could change my self but I hate the lubrication part of the oil change.
Your case and practice presents an interesting dilemma. On the one hand, common practice and most professionals will tell you not to do what you did and do at home. What most argue about is the practice of intervals, not the practice of never changing the oil. So getting 202,000 with topping off synthetic oil and changing filters is no easy feat.
While synthetic oils have the lowest ash %; (high ash % in conventional oil is the weak link that lets sludge build up) say that this is a sludge problem to the max, that is the bad news. The good news is that there are hot chemical wash systems, such as "bilstein system" that will clean that puppy right up. All I can say is WOW and hmmmm. Best of luck in the future.
Using 3k intervals and 6 qts of oil for 202k you should have had 67 oil changes? So if you change the filter each say 7-7.5k you have gone from a consumption rate of 67 oil filters to 26-28 oil filters, and from 402 qts of oil to app 34 qts. (Should be 26-28 qts but counting a baseline fill of 6 synthetic qts.)
As opposed to a new filter with better airflow, but less filtration?
The K&N filter probably does get better when it gets dirty, because I don't think it stops particles as small as a paper filter does, UNTIL it gets real dirty. That is the magic of the K&N filter, it has higher air flow because it does not stop the very tiny particles, they pass through along with the air. As the bigger particles pile up in the oil soaked fibers, they start trapping the smaller particles, hence, start working better.
A K&N filter uses a different principle to achieve its filtration. The pores are larger, but are much longer and are convoluted to force the air through twists and turns, and also are sticky from the oil. As the airstream travelling through a pore turns, the inertia of particles carries them to the sidewall of the passage, where they impact in the oil, which traps them. This does not result in restricted airflow, at least for a much longer time, due to the larger pore size.