Brand New Car - What oil to use?

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Greetings, various and sundry oil gurus! I have owned several cars in my life. To my knowledge, none have experienced any oil-related failures. However, since I have been wandering around the Charger forums, I have noticed that there's a fellow there who sells something called Quantum Blue custom blended lubricants and making quite a few remarkable sounding claims. He seems to enjoy sort of a mix of very good will from some customers and dubiousness from some past customers and non-customers on the board. This made me wonder a few things:

A). I have in the past generally used Mobil 1, of whatever weight was recommended by the manufacturer of my vehicle(s), but if I changed this... would there be a difference in the performance/reliability/longevity of my engine?

B). Assuming the answer to the above is either yes, or maybe... (and this is where you guys who know your oil come in)... what should it be? I read through the oil university sticky (and several of the others in that series) and they were cool, but... I was left with more knowledge of oil than I know what to do with and no certainty about how to apply that knowledge. However, I was pleased to see after all the mentions of engines running at 212 degrees and oil generally being designed to run at that temperature, that when I watch my oil temp, it mostly stays right around 212 degrees as long as I don't do anything crazy. I also saw the sticky that outlined a few questions to answer when asking "what's the best oil for me?" and so here it is:
1. What kind of vehicle you have - 2016 Dodge Charger R/T road and track... 5.7 liter V8
2. What your owner's manual says -- not just viscosity, but certifications (look for acronyms like API SM, ILSAC GF-4, etc.) and change intervals as well Dodge recommends 5w20 FCA MS 6395.
3. Where you live Charlotte, NC
4. How you drive (easy? hard? fast? slow?), When I'm not stuck in traffic, I drive with moderated aggression. I'm not running NASCAR, but I do make regular use of the gas pedal to increase the enjoyment of my car.
5. What your daily drive is like (short trips? long trips? city? highway?)my daily commute is 11 miles in stop and go traffic.
6. Whether your car has any known problems - better not. It currently has 500 miles on it.


C). And the last question: Do you have any knowledge about the Quantum Blue product? There's an older post about it here from someone like me which seemed to have been met largely with skepticism about the claims made. Here's the website about the product if you'd care to see what the story is: http://bndautomotive.com/quantumblue-products-2/ . The basic gist of what has been said is that the Quantum Blue custom blended oil will reduce wear by a not insignificant amount vs. any other off the shelf oil, and that ti will improve gas mileage by some percentage near 5%. The rub is that it is expensive for oil, though they claim that you can extend your oil change interval so much (while still maintaining wear reduction) that it basically pays for the difference in cost. For myself, I am dubious of ignoring my car's oil change interval on the word of someone I don't know well enough to be sure that they're not selling me snake oil. So... what do you all think of this stuff?

Anyway, thank you in advance to anyone intrepid enough to try to help me determine what oil I should go with. I should not have been, but I was surprised to find that there was a forum dedicated to this sort of thing. So thank you also for both collecting and sharing the knowledge that you have of lubrication technology (is that the right term?).
 
Motor oil 101 is more opinion than fact. Just use any major name brand oil with the specs that is recommended in your owners manual and you will be fine. Synthetic,conventional what ever ,todays oils are that good.You don't need some magic blend to make your engine last . Well unless it makes you feel better then why not. It would be hard to prove that boutique oils offer any advantage over the off the shelf brands. syn oil if you want to push the oil change to the limits Conventional oils if you like to change the oil sooner .
 
You need 5W20(syn or blend or dino) that meet MS 6395 spec, at least during warranty. After warranty I would go with name brand synthetic 0W20 or 0W30.
 
A good name brand oil that meets your specs ,and that you can buy locally. Not some fly by night hardly known oil product.
 
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Originally Posted By: HTSS_TR
You need 5W20(syn or blend or dino) that meet MS 6395 spec, at least during warranty. After warranty I would go with name brand synthetic 0W20 or 0W30.


I pretty much agree with HTSS_TR above. In warranty you need an API SN oil that also meets MS 6395 spec.

Looking at that QuantumBlue page, I see a lot of cherry picking of convenient facts and ignoring other facts that get in the way of selling a product. For example they mention the reduction of Zinc / ZDDP in modern oil as a big negative, but they fail to mention the development that has gone into these additive products. ZDDP was both an anti-wear and anti-oxidant agent in the old days and so higher doses were needed especially with leaded fuel. In modern oils the anti-oxidant properties have been handed on to other (often ashless ) additives while the ZDDP has been refined to have stronger anti-wear properties for the same zinc does. That's just one example, almost every line I read has some hand-sweeping statement that I am not happy with.

Same when they describe their own product, lots of hand-sweeping statements, but few solid facts. To me it looks like a Group 3 based oil with a heavy traditional (metal) add pack and a high does of friction modifiers. All backed up by testimonials, cheap Used Oil Analysis (UOA) and lots of big words or loose analogies. No Thanks.

Sorry, let me be clear, Do Not Use QuantumBlue in your new car. I'm not selling anything, so I have no profit in what you do, but I would not personally buy QuantumBlue.
 
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Chrysler product calling for 5W20, under warranty, use an oil that meets the MS6395 spec. Pennzoil comes to mind and is the factory fill for Chrysler. Take your pick PYB, PP, PUP. I'm currently using PUP. Mobil 1 doesn't meet the spec, their Super does.
 
I recently changed dealers for service on my '13 Challenger, and asked the service manager for recommendations about oil. The old dealer used 5W20. New dealer said:

Him: "I use all synthetic in my own hemi, and we use a mix of synthetic and 5w20 in our customer's cars"

Me: "Okay, let's do that then - the mix"

I got the bill and the put in all oil. Huh?
 
Originally Posted By: demarpaint
Chrysler product calling for 5W20, under warranty, use an oil that meets the MS6395 spec. Pennzoil comes to mind and is the factory fill for Chrysler.

This. Use Pennzoil Platinum and call it a day. It may not be as sexy as some boutique oil but at least you know it's a quality product. And you can find it pretty much everywhere at a good price. Don't overthink this.
 
Originally Posted By: JennyHemi
I recently changed dealers for service on my '13 Challenger, and asked the service manager for recommendations about oil. The old dealer used 5W20. New dealer said:

Him: "I use all synthetic in my own hemi, and we use a mix of synthetic and 5w20 in our customer's cars"

Me: "Okay, let's do that then - the mix"

I got the bill and the put in all oil. Huh?

By 'we use a mix' I assume he meant 'we use dino unless a customer asks for synthetic'. I sincerely doubt they are actually mixing the two oils.
 
For the QB until your warranty period is expired. Then you can decide if you want to risk your engine on a mix of properly tested brand name oils with certs (like the ones others have mentioned above) and Quantum Blue. Understand that once you put in an additive there's no way to say if your original oil will even maintain the original certification.

You will get far more benefit using a quality oil and filter, and changing it at least as often as the mfg/OLM suggests. Because synthetic oils are often discounted on price during the year from retail outlets, there is no effective price difference between top name synthetics and conventional oils. So use the synthetics. PP and QSUD are fine oils. So are M1, Valvoline, Castrol, etc. There's plenty of reading material around here to help you fine tune your choices.

While this is a 5w-30 set of samples - it shows you what add packs are in them
 
Originally Posted By: SR5
Originally Posted By: HTSS_TR
You need 5W20(syn or blend or dino) that meet MS 6395 spec, at least during warranty. After warranty I would go with name brand synthetic 0W20 or 0W30.


I pretty much agree with HTSS_TR above. In warranty you need an API SN oil that also meets MS 6395 spec.

Looking at that QuantumBlue page, I see a lot of cherry picking of convenient facts and ignoring other facts that get in the way of selling a product. For example they mention the reduction of Zinc / ZDDP in modern oil as a big negative, but they fail to mention the development that has gone into these additive products. ZDDP was both an anti-wear and anti-oxidant agent in the old days and so higher doses were needed especially with leaded fuel. In modern oils the anti-oxidant properties have been handed on to other (often ashless ) additives while the ZDDP has been refined to have stronger anti-wear properties for the same zinc does. That's just one example, almost every line I read has some hand-sweeping statement that I am not happy with.

Same when they describe their own product, lots of hand-sweeping statements, but few solid facts. To me it looks like a Group 3 based oil with a heavy traditional (metal) add pack and a high does of friction modifiers. All backed up by testimonials, cheap Used Oil Analysis (UOA) and lots of big words or loose analogies. No Thanks.

Sorry, let me be clear, Do Not Use QuantumBlue in your new car. I'm not selling anything, so I have no profit in what you do, but I would not personally buy QuantumBlue.


Thanks. This is kind of what I was thinking, except that I don't have any actual knowledge of oil or how it works, so I was hoping someone would either say "yeah, all that stuff sounds legit, go for it" or "man, that's a bunch of snake oil sales pitch, you should stay away". So thanks for being the voice of nay.
 
Originally Posted By: demarpaint
Chrysler product calling for 5W20, under warranty, use an oil that meets the MS6395 spec. Pennzoil comes to mind and is the factory fill for Chrysler. Take your pick PYB, PP, PUP. I'm currently using PUP. Mobil 1 doesn't meet the spec, their Super does.


Thanks, I did not know this either. I think the Pennzoil will be what I go with.
 
Originally Posted By: Bottom_Feeder
Originally Posted By: demarpaint
Chrysler product calling for 5W20, under warranty, use an oil that meets the MS6395 spec. Pennzoil comes to mind and is the factory fill for Chrysler.

This. Use Pennzoil Platinum and call it a day. It may not be as sexy as some boutique oil but at least you know it's a quality product. And you can find it pretty much everywhere at a good price. Don't overthink this.


Agreed. Thank you!
 
Thank you to everyone else I did not specifically quote. I appreciate your knowledge and experience! Now to start figuring out what other fun things to do to my car!
 
Originally Posted By: The_Sock_Monkey
Thank you to everyone else I did not specifically quote. I appreciate your knowledge and experience! Now to start figuring out what other fun things to do to my car!
Drive the car.
 
Originally Posted By: CT8
Originally Posted By: The_Sock_Monkey
Thank you to everyone else I did not specifically quote. I appreciate your knowledge and experience! Now to start figuring out what other fun things to do to my car!
Drive the car.


Ha! That's definitely a given!
 
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