If you are on some stringent 6 month oil change regime then sure. If you only drive say 2000 miles over the winter for some reason are you still going to change the oil out to the "summer grade"? The 5W-30 is going to work fine year round, so if there is some reason you can't do an oil change to 5W-20 for the winter, it's not going to hurt anything to just run 5W-30 all year round. For me, it would be a complete hassle and a waste of oil to do low mileage OCIs just to switch grades for winter and summer use. How cold does it typically get in AL ?
Different Summer and Winter Grades
- Thread starter Gene K
- Start date
I would most likely be perfectly fine with 0W-20 or 15W-50 year round, yes. However are ihey both ideal for -10C or 120C oil temp? I'm trying to decide what the drawbacks to each are.
The higher viscosity oil will heat up faster in winter (and summer) and reach slightly higher temperatures. That could really help in getting rid of condensation and to a lesser extend fuel dilution.
Downside is you're burning fuel to get that oil temp to rise.
Downside is you're burning fuel to get that oil temp to rise.
Well, if your oil is hitting 120C then xW-20 has a drawback IMO ... not enough HTHS headroom IMO. Obviously, you want to choose the correct W rating for the -10C case. If you are just doing normal street driving in AL then 5W-30 is going to work fine all year round. If you were going to the track and running flat out for 30 minutes, then you'd probably want to go at least xW-40.
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That's the way I had always understood it but I'm not an engineer and wanted some confirmation that I wasn't missing something. I'm more of "well it worked on the last motor we built" kind of guy. It took me a while to gravitate from 50 grade and set up loose to 30 grade and a little less clearance. Luckily I always had friends that new how to literally "never mind outside the box, we are going to break the paradigm".
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I don’t even understand what is being asked here
I run 0w-40/5w-40 in the coldest months of winter and a thick (greater than 15 cst and HTHS of 4) 10w-40 in spring/fall or 5w-50 in summer. My main concern is how thick can I go before starting becomes a problem while getting the highest HTHS/base oil viscosity. I'm probably going to run 15w-50 all summer long this year and I might even try a 10w-60 just for fun
.Don't worry about the second number, just the first. If they made a 0w-50 or 0w-60 and it was shear stable and had an HTHS of >4.5 I'd run that year round.
Always about the dollar eh JJ?
The only time a Corolla complains is about a Civic...
Well cost with reasonable care for Quality.
