Oil Change Time

[Olivas]

Zlog -
Yes, 45K miles is still young, but it is past the half-way point to 70k which the SynLube site tries to lead you to believe how long your engine will last on 5w20.

Never knew that following regular oil changes intervals was considering baby your car. Thought that was what everyone that wanted their car to last did. There are few and far between that change their oil earlier. Most go 4-5k miles on synthetic.


ntechnic -
I see that these other, high profile, mar manufactures call for heavier oils, but that does not automatically mean whats good for one must be good for the other (it's an apple to oranges comparison you're making there). I sure there are engineering / design elements of their engines that would then call for the heavier weight oil (high compression ratio possibly for one).

One of the first threads I found over at BTOG. Seems most the users over there are fine with 5w20, and are defending it as well.

Fact is 5w20 is not going to do any harm, if you follow proper oil change intervals (as you would with any other weight).

[ntechnic]

Fact is 5w20 is not going to do any harm

Sorry dude, I have to disagree. Register at BTOG and search for "52-20 junk" and you will many posts from guys you had their motors damaged on 5w-20, some very quickly. You will find posts on engines that start to knock on the 20 stuff.

A reciprocating engine has certain minimum needs, regardless of whether it is a hard worked 4-cylinder, a loafing big block V8, a Lycoming ait cooled 6-cylinder. That minimum need is about what we call "30" on the oil bottle label.

Let's play some numbers. Let's say that 5w-20 is 99% as much protection as 5w_30. That would mean that in 40,000 miles you will have driven 400 miles with insufficient oil protection. Would you ever do that on purpose? No, of course not.

Look, the single highest cause of engine wear is starting it up. There's no oil in the system, the bearings are "dry" and it takes a couple of seconds for oil to flow through the engine. Unfortunately, we can't do much about that. I did have a race car in the 80's that I put a pre-oiler on. It was a pressurized tube (like an oversized shock absorber) with a floating piston, an air chamber and a check valve. When you shut the engine off, it trapped about a quart of oil under pressure. When you were ready to start it again, you flipped a switch, gave it 2-3 seconds to see about 10 lbs of pressure on the oil gauge, and then started the engine. Of course, that was not practical for street cars.

Other than an accumulator, the next best protection you can give your engine is to have high levels of zinc in your oil (manganese is good too), this added oil in the form of zinc phosphate. Unfortunately, a little oil is burned by even the healthiest engines, and phosphates degrade the performance of catalytic converters. In 2004, under US law, manufacturers had to start warrantying cats for 120,000 miles. So manufacturers changed their oil requirements to drop most of the zinc. You can add zinc to your engine oil, but you do risk shortening the life of the cats. (I do run a smidge of a zinc additive in my oil, but it's still under what was in good oil say back in 2000/2001.)

The second highest cause of engine wear (assuming you're NOT the type that leaves oil in a car without changing until it dies), is oil film break down at higher oil temps. In August, inching along in 100 degree heat in heavy traffic with the A/C on, you are a prime candidate for oil film breakdown. Even our "little" 2.5's stress the oil hard enough to experience the conditions that can exceed the protection of a 5w-20 oil.

It's not like 5w-30 costs more, so you have nothing to lose. OK, maybe you get 0.2 less mpg, but I'm willing to pay that price. I'm not willing to pay the price of those 400 miles of insufficient oil protection in 40,000 miles.

And like I said, it doesn't even cost more!

[ntechnic]

Oh, and in answer to Zlog's original question, I haven't found anything detailed on the Mobil1 Advanced Fuel Economy oil. It must be pretty new. I'll keep looking though.

[ntechnic]

Well, apparently Mobil1 "Advanced Fuel Economy" oil used to be known as "Mobil1". There's no change in the product, it's just their regular Mobil1 0w multi-viscosity oils (0w-20 and 0w-30) oil with a new name.

So it's as good as Mobil1 always has been.

[Zlog]

Awesome, although in that case i wont be expecting a boost in my mpg, not that i honestly did in the first place

[Olivas]

Ok, I know that this has gotten a little off topic from the original question, but the claim that 5w20 will wear your engine faster is utter nonsense. You have no evidence to back up that claim.

All I'm finding over on BTOG is threads like the last one I posted and like this one as well - Are engines really engineered to use 5W-20?

No one is chiming in to say that 5w20 will wear the engine quicker, or breakdown faster at high temps. Modern synthetics (5w20 included) are engineered to withstand the harsh environments of everyday driving (100+ degress, stop and go traffic, ect.) without breaking down. The first four years that I had my mustang I was living in Phoenix, where it will hit 115 regularly during the summer, and I would think if my engine was wearing faster due to using the 5w20, I would have started to see some accelerated oil consumption by this point, which I have not. And, yes it is my daily driver.

I think if you're going to continue this claim that 5w20 will wear your engine quicker, you're going to need some factual evidence to backup that claim.

[ntechnic]

In 2007 Chrysler's Caliber/Compass/Patriot vehicles came from the factory with 5w-20 oil. The owners manual showed the preferred oil to be 5w-20 oil. All of the design and testing of the car was done with the idea that 5w-20 oil was to be used for the slight improvement in Chrysler's CAFE.

The warranty claims for engine failures in these vehicles went through the roof once they were in real world use by owners. Chrysler rapidly came to realize that they were going to take a bath on these vehicles due to astronomical warranty claims and that they would probably end up with a huge PR black eye if the main stream press got wind of the high failure rate of these engines on 5w-20 oil.

Chrysler began a crash testing program, assigning a tiger team of engineers to work 24/7 on this issue. The engineers quickly realized that the marginal protection properties of 5w-20 had not been exceeded in thier pre-production testing, but that in the real world 5w-20 oil was breaking down with just a few hundred miles, and causing engine failures.

The test engineers ran torture tests on the engines with 5w-30 oil, and discovered that the this oil did not break down, kept it's oil film intact, and provided the protection they needed that 5w-20 oil did not.

The result was Technical Service Bulletin #26-001-07, dated January 12, 2007 telling it's dealership network that they were to drain the factory 5w-20 oil out of customer cars and all cars on their lots that hadn't been sold yet and replace it with 5w-30.

When questioned by a car and a consumer magazine about this TSB, Chrysler responded that the 5w-20 oil was a "thin" oil intended only for engine break in, and not for long term usage. Of course, Chrysler didn't address why they had put 5w-20 into the owners manual, but oh well.

So there's a real world case study of documented engine damage from 5w-20 oil so severe that it caused engine failures in a large number of cars.

As I said, it's your car, your choice. I choose not run 5w-20 in any of my cars.

[Olivas]

Poor engine design on Chrysler's part does not mean 5w20 is a bad oil. Seems 5w30 was just a bandaid quick fix for that particular engine because changing the oil is cheaper than an engine redesign.

Many other car manufactures have been running 5w20 without any issues like this.

[Olivas]

You can read what Mobil 1 has to saw about 5w20 olis here.

More from Bob - Mazda 6 oil change, 5w-20 or 5w-30

Seems most reputable source indicate that 5w20 does NOT cause increased engine wear.

[ReD-DrAgOn]

What if you used an Oil Stablizer like Lucas?
Lucas Synthetic Oil Stabilizer : Lucas Oil

I used it in my 97 Neon and it stopped the cold start knock(which I have heard on a bunch of other neons)

Would that help these "5-20 blues" of no lube and what not?