oil?

are we suppose to use sae 5w-30 or 10w-30 ?

 

check the owners manual, and if you dont have one run a quick search

 

5w30 but I use 0w30 synthetic.

 

Yeah...5w30. It should be on the oil cap and in the manual. And general feeling is unless you have a VERY good reason to use something else....Stick with the book.

 

bingo

the manual will tell you to use the 5w or the 0w depending on the temperatures you encounter...

 

yea it says 5w but i was asking cause i read everywhere people use 10w and most shops use 10w

 

what does that do?

 

0w30,better fuel milage.easy starts in real cold climates.less friction for synthetic.amsoil is awsome stuff.jmo.

 

Basically the first number xW is the weight at start up. The next number is the operating weight. Basically they all operate at the same weight (30) but the OW vs 5W is the weight they run cold

 

Less friction with synthetics is a myth. They do have advantages over dino oil, but less friction isn't one of them.

 

so dino oil would be considered regular castrol 5w30? how much better gas milleage is the synthetic? can u tell?

 

Basically, there are three different types of oil. Conventional ( dino ), semi-synthetic ( sometimes called blended oil ) and full synthetic.

And there are 5 different groups of oil.

Group 1, dino oil that is refined to a certain point. This would be considered poor quality oil, don't see much of this anymore.

Group 2, dino oil that has been highly refined and filtered. Good, basic oil, like your Castrol you referred to.

Group 3, hydrocracked dino oil, refined even further. Many oil companies consider this to be synthetic oil, and market it as such. Pennzoil Platinum and Valvoline Synpower are a couple of them. The Amsoil XL line of oils are hydrocracked.

Group 4, PAO stock oils. Truly synthetic base stocks with proprietary additives. The more expensive Amsoil products are made from this.

Group 5, ester oils. Redline uses a lot of ester oils.

Group 4 and 5 are the true synthetics.

Synthetics let you run your oil longer, they generally have a lower pour point for easier cold weather starts, and they generally clean better than dino oils because they have a more robust additive pack.

But they are not more slippery, and you won't see any measurable MPG gains if you use them.

I use synthetics because it lets me "fudge" my OCIs. I try to change my oil at 6k, but that's not always possible. Because I run a good syn oil, I can safely wait a couple weeks or so after I hit 6k to get it changed out. It gives me an extra margin of time/safety to get it done.

 

well thanks for that breakdown. fully understood now.

 

Unless you've done oil studies, 6000 is an arbitrary figure, just as arbitrary as my changing mine out at 5000. Saying you can "safely wait a couple weeks or so" is a little disingenuous since, for all you know, you might be able to wait a month or a year or whatever.

And this is why I love oil threads.

 

The UOAs I get back from my own samples say there is plenty of TBN and additives to safely 7k before changing the oil, but I change it at 6k.

Could I possibly wait even longer to change my oil? Possibly, maybe even probably. But I choose not to.

Like I said, I like to have that margin of safety.

If that makes me disingenuous, so be it