Car recommends 5W-30 outside US and Canada vs 0W-20. Run 5W-30 right?

[Danh]

Exactly. I think the problem here in the US is too many of us believe we should follow the insane oil viscosity / OCI recommendations in our owners manuals that are written by car manufacturers trying to evade CAFE fines. These car manufacturers don't care about our engine's longevity after the warranty runs out.

I think every OEM cares a lot about engine longevity. After all, it affects owner satisfaction and brand reputation. If Hondas, for example, started failing at 70,000 miles don’t you think that would reflect poorly on the brand, trash resale value and furniture sales, etc? And it doesn’t matter if we’re talking about first, second or third owners.

Granted, every product maker has to make trade-offs between cost and durability, but we’re sort of living in the golden age of auto durability right now. Well, some Kia/Hyundais excepted…

 

[TiGeo]

I think every OEM cares a lot about engine longevity. After all, it affects owner satisfaction and brand reputation. If Hondas, for example, started failing at 70,000 miles don’t you think that would reflect poorly on the brand, trash resale value and furniture sales, etc? And it doesn’t matter if we’re talking about first, second or third owners.

Granted, every product maker has to make trade-offs between cost and durability, but we’re sort of living in the golden age of auto durability right now. Well, some Kia/Hyundais excepted…

It's a conspricacy/cover-up by the gov and the auto manufacturers....they cover up all the engine failures from runnig 20W or lower grade oils. Come on man, BITOG is on it and knows. They take all of the cars that fail and destroy them paying out the owners hush money to continue their pro-thin agenda. Pretty soon 0W40 M1 will be illegal and we will hoard it like toliet paper. I'm sure special forces teams are on their way as I type to take out all the anti-thin crowd here.

 

[Bill7]

I'd say this site is full of commentary to answer your questions with some reading.

Bottom line for me: UOAs are a valuable tool to track how your engine is running/doing but without a lot of them to develop trends, they are nearly worthless as they used here on BITOG which is typically "I ran XYZ oil and here is a single UOA...I think I'll switch to ABC oil b/c my UOA showed JKH. XYZ oil is not a good oil based on a slight up-tick in wear metals etc." or thereabouts. What do you think UOAs tell you? You can search my name/posts and find some good info on how I use UOAs in my Sportwagen that has been helpful and actually showed (among other data such as a filter observations, noises, etc. a bad timing chain tensioner). I have some nice graphs showing trends across multiple oils. There is entire post in the UOA section that explains their use...have you read that?

Thanks, TiGeo. I'll take a look at some of your threads in the UOA section and also that entire post on their use that you mentioned.
This is an excellent URL, thanks:
https://bobistheoilguy.com/used-oil-analysis-how-to-decide-what-is-normal/

 

[TiGeo]

Thanks, TiGeo. I'll take a look at some of your threads in the UOA section and also that entire post on their use that you mentioned.

It's worth some of your time for sure. I'm stil learning but feel like I get it more than I did when I started here.

 

[Olinskis]

I think every OEM cares a lot about engine longevity. After all, it affects owner satisfaction and brand reputation. If Hondas, for example, started failing at 70,000 miles don’t you think that would reflect poorly on the brand, trash resale value and furniture sales, etc? And it doesn’t matter if we’re talking about first, second or third owners.

Granted, every product maker has to make trade-offs between cost and durability, but we’re sort of living in the golden age of auto durability right now. Well, some Kia/Hyundais excepted…

I'm glad you brought up Hondas, and of course the issues with the Kias/Hyundais. I have one of the Odysseys with VCM and didn't learn about the issues with that until after I bought it. It was on here that I learned you want a stout 30 or even better, 0w40 euro to keep it protected long term. This v6 should run perfectly for hundreds of thousands of miles as it's otherwise a very good engine. The fatal flaw of VCM has these motors sometimes failing well before 200,000. It seems a glaring oversight that they spec 5w20 conventional. The owners who have had to do that expensive motor mount replacement or even blown up their engine have certainly had their brand satisfaction affected. I'm ticked enough myself to know I'll never buy another VCM engine again.

And as for living in the golden age of auto durability, maybe someone can answer this! Which GM powerplant is superior, the old 3800 or the modern oil guzzling DI 3.6s? I'd bet money the 3800 outlasts it's modern counterpart. Automakers can do a LOT better than what we have now yet they don't for various reasons/agendas. That's why in my opinion you can almost never have too tough an oil, within reason. HM 30 weights, 40 weight euros, etc.

 

[TiGeo]

I'm glad you brought up Hondas, and of course the issues with the Kias/Hyundais. I have one of the Odysseys with VCM and didn't learn about the issues with that until after I bought it. It was on here that I learned you want a stout 30 or even better, 0w40 euro to keep it protected long term. This v6 should run perfectly for hundreds of thousands of miles as it's otherwise a very good engine. The fatal flaw of VCM has these motors sometimes failing well before 200,000. It seems a glaring oversight that they spec 5w20 conventional. The owners who have had to do that expensive motor mount replacement or even blown up their engine have certainly had their brand satisfaction affected. I'm ticked enough myself to know I'll never buy another VCM engine again.

And as for living in the golden age of auto durability, maybe someone can answer this! Which GM powerplant is superior, the old 3800 or the modern oil guzzling DI 3.6s? I'd bet money the 3800 outlasts it's modern counterpart. Automakers can do a LOT better than what we have now yet they don't for various reasons/agendas. That's why in my opinion you can almost never have too tough an oil, within reason. HM 30 weights, 40 weight euros, etc.

The part you are leaving out is power/performance. Which engine, the old gutless 3800 or a modern turbo GDI engine is more efficient/powerful? I realize many here are happy to drive a 20 year old gutless Camry but for me, no thanks.

 

[kevperro]

Most people come here because they care about engine longevity. I think it is safe to say that being conservative with both your choice of oil and its duration of use is better than the opposite behavior. It cost $30 for a DIY oil change, I can afford to err on the side of caution.

 

[TiGeo]

Most people come here because they care about engine longevity. I think it is safe to say that being conservative with both your choice of oil and its duration of use is better than the opposite behavior. It cost $30 for a DIY oil change, I can afford to err on the side of caution.

But is it? Again and again here folks say that using the higher grade oil for shorter duration is the way but I'm still waiting to see overwhelming evidence-supported information. Otherewise, this is 100% based on feel.

 

[kevperro]

But is it? Again and again here folks say that using the higher grade oil for shorter duration is the way but I'm still waiting to see overwhelming evidence-supported information. Otherewise, this is 100% based on feel.

Well.... nobody here is making decisions based upon rock iron evidence that applies in every situation. If there are four stars or better on the label and under the manufacturer's recommendations I'll sleep well at night.

 

[Jimmy_Russells]

I think one of the major points in the viscosity discussion is the actual temperature of the oil in operation. If the oil temp stays steady, then as the guys towing with 0W20 have seen, the oil will perform just fine.

I've posted this same thing before. It isn't just important, I would wager expected temperature range is pretty much the deciding factor into recommended oil grade.

Typical 20 grade will be about 45 cSt @ 40C and 8.5 @ 100C. Both of my vehicles typically operate in the low 90's. which according to the calculator linked below, is 10 cSt, which is basically ideal.

If you're doing something to get the oil temp up around 115-120C you probably want something thicker. But for the vast majority of people a cSt around 10 is perfectly acceptable and even preferable.

http://www.nimacltd.co.uk/viscosity...en-the-viscosity-is-known-at-two-temperatures

 

[Olinskis]

The part you are leaving out is power/performance. Which engine, the old gutless 3800 or a modern turbo GDI engine is more efficient/powerful? I realize many here are happy to drive a 20 year old gutless Camry but for me, no thanks.

gutless 3800? Have you ever had a car with one? Drove an '89 bonneville for a few years that had gobs of power. Maybe you just need cars with turbos? After all, power/performance is relative as well. My superhawk 996 could take me well north of 130 MPH, but in a car the 3800 never left me wanting more.

 

[TiGeo]

gutless 3800? Have you ever had a car with one? Drove an '89 bonneville for a few years that had gobs of power. Maybe you just need cars with turbos? After all, power/performance is relative as well. My superhawk 996 could take me well north of 130 MPH, but in a car the 3800 never left me wanting more.

Nothing about this screams "gobs of power" in 2023. My NA 2.0 Ford Focus 5-speed is quite a bit faster than this and it's not a turbo.

 

[OVERKILL]

The part you are leaving out is power/performance. Which engine, the old gutless 3800 or a modern turbo GDI engine is more efficient/powerful? I realize many here are happy to drive a 20 year old gutless Camry but for me, no thanks.

The 3800 was also inclined to dissolve its LIM gaskets which could bugger the engine if not caught.

 

[Revving2Redline]

This post made me think of my recent times in and around NYC. I see city vehicles of all sorts rattling, misfiring, smoking and generally poorly cared for. My 3rd world friends do far better than what I see in NYC.

And it could quite also be that they probably don't drive far enough or long enough to get it up to a proper temperature of 212 degrees. Cars are like anything else and the ones with the low miles that don't hardly go anywhere always the ones that are usually falling apart. That same car out in western Texas wouldn't sound like that. Number one I believe they have a faster speed limit and number two they don't have so much snow that it rots out and causes the body to literally start falling apart

 

[OVERKILL]

Nothing about this screams "gobs of power" in 2023. My NA 2.0 Ford Focus 5-speed is quite a bit faster than this and it's not a turbo.

View attachment 148757

I agree, an almost 18 second 1/4 mile is glacial.

 

[TiGeo]

I agree, an almost 18 second 1/4 mile is glacial.

I remember driving cars like this with those anemic GM V6s at that time.....I'll take a small GDI turbo anyday even if they aren't as smooth.

 

[PimTac]

Those old motors needed all the help they could get. Todays engines are far more durable running on fuel efficient oils.

 

[FMC]

I will say it again, i really like the way my 3.5L v6 runs on 0W20, the most important factor is OCI, im considering dropping back to 4000 mile interval, these DI systems are hard on oil.

 

[twX]

If you're doing something to get the oil temp up around 115-120C you probably want something thicker. But for the vast majority of people a cSt around 10 is perfectly acceptable and even preferable.

It really is all about oil temperature. The difference in viscosity between a 0W20 and 5W30 is equivalent to only around a 7 degrees C temperature change at high temperatures. A thinner grade will run a bit cooler, so the effective difference is even less than this.

All of the studies I seen that look at engine wear vs HTHS only show an increase in wear when the oil in the sump has an actual high shear viscosity below 2.6 cP, equivalent to the minimum required for a 0W20 at 150 C sump temperature. A 0W20 at 110 C has an HTHS of 4.8 cP, which is far higher than is needed for ideal engine protection. Even with a lot of fuel dilution in a GDI engine, it should get no lower than 4.0 (anybody know how to calculate this accurately?).

Also, in these studies, when engine wear does increase due to low viscosity at high oil temperatures, it only seems to go up by a factor of 2 or so. If an engine spends 10% of its life with very high oil temperatures that double the wear rate, that's only an overall increase of 10% over the life of the engine, which is insignificant. In fact, it's probably a lot less than that since most engine wear seems to occur during engine warm-up on vehicles with typical driving cycles, when low viscosity is not an issue.

IMO, when it comes to the importance of routine maintenance factors on engine wear for vehicles that see typical use, the order of importance goes something like this:
Oil Sump Level > Air Filtration > Oil Filtration > Oil Type and OCI > Oil Grade

 

[ZeeOSix]

I'm pretty sure nobody at Ford would wind that back for my Focus if they still sold the Focus here. Either way I didn't lose out as my car is happily bee-bopping' along at 10 years/125K on 5W20....pure luck I suppose running that 20W.

I believe Ford is saying 5W30 now for the 5.0 in the Mustang correct? Quite a different scenario a 450hp sports car vs. a 165hp economy car. Surprised Toyota recommends 0W20 for the GR Supra and Corolla....both power-dense sports cars. C8 Vette gets 0W40.

Also in the Coyote used in their trucks. That's a lot of trucks that Ford is missing out on CAFE credits. Those vehicles make up a big chunk of their overall production numbers.