5w30 in a car spec for 0w16

[JavierH19]

Sure .....but this is an ECO BOX hybrid, not an ecoboost truck making big HP, towing a 5k pound trailer up a mountain pass.

wow didn't know every ecoboost f150 owner did that and not just a very small few at infrequent excursions. So do you believe a semi pulling 70k using 15w-40 would be insufficient then considering a small pickup pulling 5k needs a 5w-30.

 

[TeamZero]

wow didn't know every ecoboost f150 owner did that and not just a very small few at infrequent excursions.

The point being they can. A prius is a lightly loaded engine for 99 % of the owners and that only runs prob about 70% of the time. Seems a waste to put a "thick" oil in something like this. As I said in another post I agree thicker is better for alot of cases...so i agree with you to a point. But not on this application.

 

[Fahrvergnügen]

So, to be clear, you’re calling members of the forum who disagree with you idiots.

It’s not about agreeing with me. Its all about not using viscosity, or any other lubricants that the manufacturer calls for Bc people have this idea that 0w20 or 0w16 is not sufficient protection or is not good for fuel dilution, so need to move up grades. Most of the people in forums here and others go on to other consumers saying to run this and that.

 

[Fahrvergnügen]

they also switched engines before 2021 like the 6.2L and a few others i believe.

Switched engines?

 

[Fahrvergnügen]

It's not super thin at -20C.

Oil gets thicker as it gets colder; considerably so. A 0w-16 at a tick below zero is thicker than a 20w-50 on a summer cold start.

"Back in the day" as I'm sure you are aware, being a tech and all, the OEM's used to have charts in the owners manuals that gave ranges for each grade that was appropriate for the engine. This started to go away in the Euro marques as a focus on extended drains and subsequently, approval processes, like LL-98, then LL-01...etc came into being. These approvals, which focused on extended drain intervals, necessitated a certain quality of lubricant to be able to adequately prevent and control deposits when operated over these sorts of intervals, which meant higher quality base stocks, robust additive packages and as these specs evolved there were limits placed on things like Noack volatility, capping it at 10% for example, cold temperature performance, minimum HTHS and similar. This naturally reduced the range of appropriate lubricant grades to one that primarily consisted of 0w-30's, 5w-30's, 0w-40's and 5w-40's all with an HTHS of ~3.5cP, a Noack under 10%, and not surprisingly, most of them carried a common list of approvals from BMW, MB, VAG...etc.

In other markets, things went quite differently. In North America, with CAFE, it was required that for whatever fuel economy figure the OEM claimed and the lubricant grade used to obtain it, that this must be the only lubricant spec'd. This worked to eliminate the charts in the manuals and CAFE regulations and rewards for increased fuel economy meant a pursuit of thinner oils, which resulted in 5w-20 being spec'd initially in many applications and even back-spec'd by Ford retroactively for those that testing deemed it was appropriate. This, coupled with increases in power density, longer drain intervals and the like resulted in specs like DEXOS being developed, quite similar to what had happened in Europe, and ultimately, where the Euro market shifted their focus, evolving their approvals and specifications towards thinner oils more recently as well.

In Japan, chasing fuel economy through a reduction in viscosity was serious business. They were developing grades thinner than 0w-20 before any of them were even ratified by the SAE. 0w-16, 0w-12 and 0w-8 were all a production of this process, and, it was discovered, that going this thin created some issues, such as volatility levels that didn't even pass the basic API limits, as well as bearing wear issues where there was insufficient HTHS, which resulted in design changes such as wider bearings. There was a Honda paper on that posted here many years ago. There were volatility exemptions for these grades early on, not sure if that's still the case.

Anyways, as you can see, the process to get where we are presently took three considerably different routes. The creation of DEXOS and more stringent controls was probably the biggest change in North America. It wasn't a huge change shifting from 5w-30 to 5w-20, now to 0w-20 as the 5w-30's sold as Energy Conserving all had an HTHS of ~3.0cP anyways, so shifting that down to ~2.6cP wasn't as big a change as the Euro marques going from lubes with an HTHS >3.5cP down to that 2.6cP range, and focusing their approval processes on that, both individually, and as part of ACEA.

The Japanese of course haven't traditionally had individual approvals (Honda's HTO-06 excepted) and just spec'd whatever the relevant API designation of the day was, for example API SN. This got weird when they started using grades that didn't exist domestically in an attempt to eek that last fraction of a MPG out. With the implementation of GDI, long-term durability will be interesting to watch, particularly with Honda, who has been struggling with massive fuel dilution issues, which exasperates the issue of razor thin viscosity margins and maintaining sufficient protection.

I'll close with one final thought:
Engineers don't write owners manuals, and the content presented therein is the result of being compliant with regulation and policy, hence the elimination of the viscosity table. Vehicles that are not beholden to CAFE limits, like GM's Corvette, have significantly different visc specs (and ranges!) than those that are. We saw the same play out with Ford's simultaneous spec'ing of 5w-20 and 5w-50 for the same engine in the Mustang GT, depending on whether you got the Track Pack or not. While it is indeed potentially dangerous to go too thin (running a 0w-16 in an engine that spec's 0w-40 for example), there's no real risk going heavier, provided the lubricant used is appropriate for the prevailing ambient conditions. The biggest casualty will be fuel economy, increasing MOFT won't be of detriment, though of course the oil still needs to be appropriate for the interval as well. Every engine will naturally be subject to higher viscosity as ambient drops, which is why designs simply cannot be that sensitive.

So to your info on the Honda and fuel dilution issues and long term durability. I have seen many Honda 1.5t with 200,000 plus miles being serviced at the Honda dealer I worked for at that time, using the Honda branded 0w20 which we know is ConocoPhillips. They come in when oil life monitor hits 15% and they have never had a wrench on them. I personally have an accord touring with the 1.5t, that I send off the oil every time I change the oil. I used to get 0.8% fuel in oil until I switched to 93 octane. I change oil at 10,000 miles, no more, no less. Oil life gets down to 0%. I use Mobil 1 EP 0w20. I do not let the car idle at all, only to allow turbo to circulate oil to cool and that’s it. Black stone comes back every time and says I can go 12,000 and the oil even when it had thr 0.8% fuel in oil. We did replace a couple of engines 1.5t but it was due to extended idling like hours of it everyday. Other than that the 1.5t and 2.0t are really great. Honda has been in the turbo game for a long time. There is a reason they use a basic single scroll Mitsubishi turbo and that is for purely reliability.

 

[ZeeOSix]

It’s not about agreeing with me. Its all about not using viscosity, or any other lubricants that the manufacturer calls for Bc people have this idea that 0w20 or 0w16 is not sufficient protection or is not good for fuel dilution, so need to move up grades. Most of the people in forums here and others go on to other consumers saying to run this and that.

What's wrong about going up a grade to give a bit more protection headroom if someone wants that, and the manual says you can, and there are absolutely no words anywhere in the OM that says doing so is going to damage the engine and void the warranty?

If Toyota or anyone else doesn't want certain viscosity used because it would actually cause engine damage, then they would be stupid to not say so in the manual. Toyota, or any other car manufacturer can't void the warranty for using a non recommended viscosity (key word, no manufacturer says a certain viscosity is "mandatory") unless they specifically say it will damage the engine and void the warranty. Has anyone seen such a statement in any OM or Warranty statement? If anyone can find such words from any car manufacturer then please show the link proving it.

 

[BMW Dom]

So to your info on the Honda and fuel dilution issues and long term durability. I have seen many Honda 1.5t with 200,000 plus miles being serviced at the Honda dealer I worked for at that time, using the Honda branded 0w20 which we know is ConocoPhillips. They come in when oil life monitor hits 15% and they have never had a wrench on them. I personally have an accord touring with the 1.5t, that I send off the oil every time I change the oil. I used to get 0.8% fuel in oil until I switched to 93 octane. I change oil at 10,000 miles, no more, no less. Oil life gets down to 0%. I use Mobil 1 EP 0w20. I do not let the car idle at all, only to allow turbo to circulate oil to cool and that’s it. Black stone comes back every time and says I can go 12,000 and the oil even when it had thr 0.8% fuel in oil. We did replace a couple of engines 1.5t but it was due to extended idling like hours of it everyday. Other than that the 1.5t and 2.0t are really great. Honda has been in the turbo game for a long time. There is a reason they use a basic single scroll Mitsubishi turbo and that is for purely reliability.

I'm still waiting for your answer how "0w-16 is super thin in the winter

 

[CKN]

I'm still waiting for your answer how "0w-16 is super thin in the winter

He is not answering. It's typical BITOG "Voodoo Science"

 

[ZeeOSix]

... still waiting for a detailed explanation on why using anything above 0W-16 is going to "damage" an engine. Should be the other way around ... how can oil that is too thin damage an engine if used under the wrong circumstances.

 

[OVERKILL]

So to your info on the Honda and fuel dilution issues and long term durability. I have seen many Honda 1.5t with 200,000 plus miles being serviced at the Honda dealer I worked for at that time, using the Honda branded 0w20 which we know is ConocoPhillips. They come in when oil life monitor hits 15% and they have never had a wrench on them. I personally have an accord touring with the 1.5t, that I send off the oil every time I change the oil. I used to get 0.8% fuel in oil until I switched to 93 octane. I change oil at 10,000 miles, no more, no less. Oil life gets down to 0%. I use Mobil 1 EP 0w20. I do not let the car idle at all, only to allow turbo to circulate oil to cool and that’s it. Black stone comes back every time and says I can go 12,000 and the oil even when it had thr 0.8% fuel in oil. We did replace a couple of engines 1.5t but it was due to extended idling like hours of it everyday. Other than that the 1.5t and 2.0t are really great. Honda has been in the turbo game for a long time. There is a reason they use a basic single scroll Mitsubishi turbo and that is for purely reliability.

My understanding was that the issues were primarily in cold climates where the fuel doesn't flash off. That's why there was that big scuffle with China. 0.8% fuel is super low, my M5 diluted way more than that, I recall the 1.5t seeing significant fuel dilution in northernly climates in the winter, though I do agree that idling would exasperate it.

 

[BMW Dom]

... still waiting for a detailed explanation on why using anything above 0W-16 is going to "damage" an engine. Should be the other way around ... how can oil that is too thin damage an engine if used under the wrong circumstances.

The only DAMAGE I see it doing is maybe fuel economy.

 

[john_pifer]

I just came here to say, “wow, this got to 17 pages?!”

 

[ZeeOSix]

The only DAMAGE I see it doing is maybe fuel economy.

Yep ... that's why the word "Recommended" is used in every OM (for the CAFE smoke screen) and not "Mandatory".

Here's an example of how a manufacturer would clarify not to do something that could cause engine damage ... this is for engine oil additives. I've never seen any similar statement relating to oil viscosity in any OM I've ever seen.

 

[BMW Dom]

I just came here to say, “wow, this got to 17 pages?!”

That's what happens when one is ignorant.

 

[BMW Dom]

I just came here to say, “wow, this got to 17 pages?!”

Maybe it will go as long as @Zee09 car buying thread

 

[Astro14]

I do precisely what it says in the **** manual.

I run a 5W30

 

[BMW Dom]

I like how the manual says "best choice for fuel economy and good starting in cold weather." But it doesn't say anything about the thinner oil giving better protection. Interesting

 

[wemay]

Maybe it will go as long as @Zee09 car buying thread

No WAY...well...maybe

 

[Zee09]

Maybe it will go as long as @Zee09 car buying thread

Never
I will be buying another truck and mower soon. The Napa 15w50 just sucked the lungs out of my Kohler

 

[BMW Dom]

Never
I will be buying another truck and mower soon. The Napa 15w50 just sucked the lungs out of my Kohler

You're gonna need to tell me that story. I have been having good luck with 10w30, but was planning on switching to 15w50