Hi everybody!
I just wanted to give you guys a Brief overview of the history of engien oil for european cars, which diffred quite a bit from US engien oils! Beginning in the 1970s we had mostly 10w50 and 20w50 oils apart from straight grades the multigrades had so much viscosity improvers that they broke down after a few thousand Kilometers to 10w30 and didn´t lubricate very well! Castrol offered the first 15w50 with GTX2 in 1975 and all other companies like MOBIL Shell Total ... followed! Mobil offered the first full synthetic named SHC in 1973. More syntzetics of the 70s were AGIP SINT 2000 10w50, ELAN ester Super GTE 10w50, CASTROL RS 15w50 and MOBIL 1 5w20 the first fuel economy oil in 1977! The Goal of more fuel economy were the 10w30 so called "Light Running oils" in the 1980s which were also available in 10w40! Typically Brands were Shell TMO, BP STRATO; Fina EKOFINA, CASTROL TXT and many others in 10w30 and 10w40 grades! The typically premium oil of the 80s was in 15w40 grade the first was mMOBIL super FORMULA and CASTROL GTX2 TURBO approved! 15w40 was the grade for all cars in the 80s and early 90s! One of the most poular oils in europe was CASTROL GTX3 15w40! Beginning in the 90s was the synthetic oil wave with the super oils and grades like MOBIL 1 5w50, Castrol RS 10w60, Agip Sint 2000 10w40, Castrol TXT 5w40! The viscosity was lowered to 5w30 for Synthetics in 1995 and CAstrol SLX was the first 0w30 grade for best fuel economy! A year later Mobil offred the first 0w40 Motor oil, ARAL;SHELL,Agip, BP Esso and all other Brands offered 0w30 and 0w40 full Synthetics as their premium oils! Until today we still have 10w40 in use but the most recommended oils are 5w30s in different shapes like high peerformance cars or especially for Diesel particulate Filters! The CCMC specification which was introduced in the late 70s for european engines and was much thougher than tthe API Rating was dropped in favour of the ACEA SPecs in 1996! The 10w30 viscosity which is still popular in the USA I guess was dropped here in europe beginning in 1990 in favour of 10w40! If you have any comments or Information I would appreciate your Messages, I hope this was a Little interesting Information![/ht