Been following the 0W/20 etc. saga...

[dailydriver]

Originally Posted By: AEHaas
These may help you understand viscosity grades, the first one is more complete:

http://ferrarichat.com/forum/faq.php?faq=new_faq_item#faq_haas_articles

Original article, but somewhat changed by others:

http://www.bobistheoilguy.com/motor-oil-101/

I have used 20 and 30 grade oils where 40 and 60 grades were spec'ed and tested against the recommend OEM oils and found that the thinner grade oils had less wear and tear. Do a search for my vehicles.


aehaas


The way you use your 'vehicles', that is not in the least bit suprising, it is even to be expected.

Use them as they were built and intended to be used (or beyond that) and your results might have 'varied'.

There IS such a thing as going too thin in HTHSV for some apps, as much as most on here refuse to admit it.

What's next, flaming/ridicule for going too heavy for using a 0W-5 spec oil??!!

 

[CATERHAM]

dailydriver, I know Ali Haas loves to claim he's running a "20 and 30 grade oils where 40 and 60 grades were spec'd" but what ther good doctor fails to mention is that the 0W-20 and 0W-30 grades are RLI bio-ester oils with HTHSV of 3.0-3.3cP and 3.6cP-3.8cP respectively which makes them really more a kin to 30wt and 40wt oils.

He also doesn't often mention that he has oil pressure and oil temperature gauges in the cars in question which virtually eliminates any chance of running an oil that is too thin.

 

[4x4chevydude]

In a non heavy duty towing application or extreme driving distances in very hot weather a 20wt oil is fine for everyday car driving to and from work it is most likely a better choice. If you have a v10 f-350 towing regualrly max tow weight and going through Texas in the middle of the summer at 110 degrees...a ow20 is not a good choice at all. Its not one size fits all its do what works best for your driving habits, engine and climate. Running a 20w50 in Canada in the winter is motor homicide.

 

[4x4chevydude]

Example of a very good 0w20 UOA just posted

This is my latest run using Castrol Syntec (SM version) on my 2006 Lincoln Mark LT (Lincoln version of an F-150) during the past 7 months. Previous run was Valvoline Synpower. Oil was changed to Quaker State U.D. 0W20. Comments are welcome and appreciated.
Comments from Blackstone Labs were as follows: We were hoping for lower wear metals, and that's what we found-sort of. Iron improved nicely and the other wear metals essentially held steady. Iron typically tracks with time on the oil, so it's certainly unusual to see it lower after a longer run, but it's nothing to complain about. All in all, this engine appears to be in great shape at 74868 miles. No fuel or coolant was present and air and oil filtration couldn't be much better. The TBN was strong at 2.6 showing plenty of active additive, less than 1.0 is considered a low reading. Try 7,000 miles on the next oil.

Code:
Miles on Oil: 4713 2773
Miles on Unit:74868 70155
Sample Date: 10/17/2011 03/11/2011
Make up oil: 0.0 0.0

Aluminum 2 2
Chromium 1 3
Iron 10 16
Copper 2 2
Lead 0 0
Tin 3 0
Molybdenum 71 13
Nickel 0 0
Manganese 0 0
Silver 0 0
Titanium 1 0
Potassium 2 0
Boron 5 8
Silicon 12 8
Sodium 61 299
Calcium 1858 1899
Magnesium 9 10
Phosphorus 570 694
Zinc 661 820
Barium 0 0

SUS Viscosity @ 210 55.7 53.6
cST Viscosity @ 100 8.97 8.37
Flashpoint 415 410
Fuel Antifreeze 0 0
Water 0 0
Insolubles 0.2 0.4
TBN 2.6 4.1
TAN
_________________________

 

[OldCowboy]

Hi, Merkava_4

Yes, it's true that you can find an occasional UOA of 20 wt oil that shows high wear metal numbers. And you can find an occasional UOA of 40 wt oil that shows low wear numbers. And you can find UOAs of 20 wt oil that show low wear numbers and UOAs of 40 wt oil that show high wear numbers.

But, when you look at a large number of UOAs, an entirely different picture emerges:

20 Weight vs. 30 Weight Iron Levels in UOAs

The bottom line is that there is no advantage, from a UOA perspective, in running more viscous oils in engines that spec lighter oils.

 

[shrooms]

Quote:
Oil was changed to Quaker State U.D. 0W20.


BTW, is there a VOA on QSUD 0W20?

 

[chevrofreak]

Originally Posted By: 4x4chevydude
Example of a very good 0w20 UOA just posted




5w-20 is not 0w-20

 

[CATERHAM]

Originally Posted By: chevrofreak
Originally Posted By: 4x4chevydude
Example of a very good 0w20 UOA just posted

5w-20 is not 0w-20

What's you're point?
There are light 5W-20s, like most dino's and heavy 0W-20s like M1, Amsoil, RL and RLI to name a few.
Whether an oil is a 0W or a 5W has no bearing on how thick or thin it is at hot operating temp's. You need to look at the oil's HTHSV to determine that.

 

[Nick R]

I'd stick with 5W-30, because that's what toyota specifies (unless it's been back-specc'ed). In all honesty, it probably wouldn't really hurt it, but I'm a believer in using what the Mfr says in most circumstances.

 

[45ACP]

Quote:
There IS such a thing as going too thin in HTHSV for some apps, as much as most on here refuse to admit it.



Correct!

Originally Posted By: CATERHAM
dailydriver, I know Ali Haas loves to claim he's running a "20 and 30 grade oils where 40 and 60 grades were spec'd" but what ther good doctor fails to mention is that the 0W-20 and 0W-30 grades are RLI bio-ester oils with HTHSV of 3.0-3.3cP and 3.6cP-3.8cP respectively which makes them really more a kin to 30wt and 40wt oils.

He also doesn't often mention that he has oil pressure and oil temperature gauges in the cars in question which virtually eliminates any chance of running an oil that is too thin.






+1

My biggest thing is how a dino 5W-20 can be as good as a full synth (OTS or mail order) 0W-20 (?) in most apps. Supertech 5W-20 comes to mind. Ive also never seen ST 5W-20 synthetic.

It is perhaps the most readily available, inexpensive to obtain, and quality manufacturer produced 5W-20 the conventional at Walmart Supertech, IMHO.

 

[tdpark]

Merkava and other 20wt haters, how long do you think an engine will last on a 20wt were the engine is specced for it? 50K, 100k, 150k, 200k at what point do you feel you will have a failure or diminished performance? Is there evidence of engines grenading? I have yet to see any oil related failures using 20wt.

 

[CATERHAM]

Originally Posted By: dailydriver
Originally Posted By: AEHaas

aehaas

There IS such a thing as going too thin in HTHSV for some apps, as much as most on here refuse to admit it.
What's next, flaming/ridicule for going too heavy for using a 0W-5 spec oil??!!

Running an oil too thin in most street applications is more difficult to do than you'd think. Running a HTHSV 2.6cP 20wt oil where a 30wt is specified won't do it, even when a 40wt specified still won't do it unless the oil temp's are well above normal.
The reason is, oil temp's rarely hit even a 100C let alone exceed it in most applications and that's not even braking a sweat for a 20wt oil.
Could you run a 1.7cP HTHSV 0W-5? No problem, just keep the oil temp's below 85C and bearing wiping won't happen but the safety margin wilol be zero. And that's what it's all about, safety margin. What happens if the cheap oil you buy shears 25%, and you're down a couple of quarts, and the engine has an injector problem resulting in big fuel dilution and the engine over heats because of a coolant leak? That's why you need a big safety margin and is also why it is so easy to run a very light oil when everything is perfect.

 

[tig1]

I used M1 5-20 in 1978 in engines that spec'd 40wt oils. No problems except the 20wt used a little more oil.

 

[45ACP]

Originally Posted By: tig1
I used M1 5-20 in 1978 in engines that spec'd 40wt oils. No problems except the 20wt used a little more oil.


Why did it use more? Did oil consumption ever get to normal? And would you say that was a fault of the engine, or oil?

I know oils "use some" when you first switch to them from another brand.

 

[dailydriver]

Originally Posted By: CATERHAM
That's why you need a big safety margin and is also why it is so easy to run a very light oil when everything is perfect.


Ah yes, but (by your OWN admission; "BIG safety margin"), just how quickly can EVERYTHING go south from being "perfect"??

The other operative word/condition is "in street use" exclusively, even with every gauge know to man for track use.

 

[CATERHAM]

With oil gauges it of course very easy to monitor the situation and I always recommend the installation of at least an oil pressure gauge if you are contemplating deviating from the recommended grade. Things don't go south very quickly outside of engine failure. Oil temperature is the single biggest influence on how light an oil you can run. With any engine an oil temperature or oil pressure pattern becomes apparent and anything even slightly out side of normal is noticed immediately. That why even if you have optimized the oil viscosity for conservative use such as typical street driving and are running a light 20wt oil, if you change your driving behaviour such as taking you car to the track you'll know immediately if the higher heat imputs from the much greater percentage of full throttle usage results is higher oil temp's and therefore lower oil pressure or not, and you would either adjust your driving (slow down) or increase the oil viscosity to compensate.

The point is, it is impossible to knowingly run an oil too light if you have a fully operational OP gauge.

 

[tig1]

Originally Posted By: 45ACP
Originally Posted By: tig1
I used M1 5-20 in 1978 in engines that spec'd 40wt oils. No problems except the 20wt used a little more oil.


Why did it use more? Did oil consumption ever get to normal? And would you say that was a fault of the engine, or oil?

I know oils "use some" when you first switch to them from another brand.


My guess was that tolerances were not as close then as today. However my engines ran fine on the lighter vis oil.

 

[chevrofreak]

Originally Posted By: CATERHAM
Originally Posted By: chevrofreak
Originally Posted By: 4x4chevydude
Example of a very good 0w20 UOA just posted

5w-20 is not 0w-20

What's you're point?
There are light 5W-20s, like most dino's and heavy 0W-20s like M1, Amsoil, RL and RLI to name a few.
Whether an oil is a 0W or a 5W has no bearing on how thick or thin it is at hot operating temp's. You need to look at the oil's HTHSV to determine that.


My point is that the UOA being quoted is 5w-20, not 0w-20, and thus not relevant.

 

[Jim Allen]

Originally Posted By: CATERHAM
[
Running an oil too thin in most street applications is more difficult to do than you'd think. Running a HTHSV 2.6cP 20wt oil where a 30wt is specified won't do it, even when a 40wt specified still won't do it unless the oil temp's are well above normal. The reason is, oil temp's rarely hit even a 100C let alone exceed it in most applications and that's not even braking a sweat for a 20wt oil.
Could you run a 1.7cP HTHSV 0W-5? No problem, just keep the oil temp's below 85C and bearing wiping won't happen but the safety margin wilol be zero. And that's what it's all about, safety margin. What happens if the cheap oil you buy shears 25%, and you're down a couple of quarts, and the engine has an injector problem resulting in big fuel dilution and the engine over heats because of a coolant leak? That's why you need a big safety margin and is also why it is so easy to run a very light oil when everything is perfect.


Very well said! Like you, I proved this concept to myself watching oil temp and oil pressure for the past three years.

 

[440Magnum]

Originally Posted By: Merkava_4
Originally Posted By: cchase

Unfortunately 2 data points with no comparison to other viscosities is rather meaningless. I also think you're putting too much stock in "wear metal" readings in a single pass $20 UOA and trying to make a connection to increased wear.


I've seen some fantastic UOA's, but none of them have been with 20 weight
oils. Some of the best UOA's I've seen have been BMW's with 40 weights.


Then you just haven't looked enough. There are plenty of stellar UOAs with 5w20 and 0w20 oils in the UOA section. And there are some horrendous ones with 40-weight oils, too.

I'm not a big fan of going thinner than recommended, unless the engine has been back-spec'd to a thin oil. Thin-oil engines ususally have a lot of oil pump capacity, a large oil FLOW volume, and sometimes even depend on the low viscosity of the oil to make things like timing chain sprayers work correctly. Too *thick* of an oil in those engines may in fact do more harm than good, IMO. After watching an accurate (mechanical) oil pressure gauge on my Dodge 4.7, running 0w20 in the 113-degree heat while towing a travel trailer at 70 mph last summer, I'd *never* put a thick oil in that engine. The 0w20 hot idle oil pressure *never* wavered from how it behaves just driving around town un-loaded. That engine, like the Ford Modulars, is obviously very well-tailored to a 20-wt oil.