FYI Winter Oil Temps

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nicholas

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Hey guys,

Some food for thought on winter driving oil temps - I changed the oil in two cars this past weekend and in both cars, after 30 mins of highway/city driving the oil was warm not hot.

Here the ambient temp was -15c -

FYI - It can take a lot longer for your oil to reach operating temp in the winter months.

Drive safe out there>:)
 
I have noticed the fuel dilution in my F150 Ecoboost is very high in this cold weather ( no scientific methodology , I can smell the gas on the dipstick). As such I am going to shorten the OCIs to 3500 miles from my normal 5000.

And your observation of the oil never hitting any high temps is correct; heck as big as the radiator is on that thing there's no doubt it's a battle for the thermostat to maintain 195 even with my drive to work being 38 miles one way.
 
I have always known that oil took longer to reach operating temp in the winter, but I never thought it could take over 30 mins.

We also block 3/4 of the radiator off in the winter as well.

Transmission oil must take eons to come to temp!
 
Originally Posted By: double vanos
I have noticed the fuel dilution in my F150 Ecoboost is very high in this cold weather ( no scientific methodology , I can smell the gas on the dipstick). As such I am going to shorten the OCIs to 3500 miles from my normal 5000.

And your observation of the oil never hitting any high temps is correct; heck as big as the radiator is on that thing there's no doubt it's a battle for the thermostat to maintain 195 even with my drive to work being 38 miles one way.


That dilution must be brutal to be able to smell the gas on the dipstick. Have you done a UOA for a winter run to confirm? Winter is hard on all engines and oil, but I never was able to smell gas on the dipstick.
 
very nice to know..

I checked my oil level when it was about 10*F and the 4,000 mile old 0w-30 GC was pretty thick. Almost like watered-down ketchup..

Wasn't sure if 0w oils were supposed to be like that or the winter conditions were tough on the GC in the nissan vq35 engine..

but oil taking 30+mins to warm-up? i figured after 5 miles into my 15 miles commute, I should be warmed-up.. i guess not.. the coolant hit it's operating tick on the dashboard within a mile.. i figured oil temp will soon follow after 5 mins or so...
 
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Originally Posted By: supra911
very nice to know..

I checked my oil level when it was about 10*F and the 4,000 mile old 0w-30 GC was pretty thick. Almost like watered-down ketchup..

Wasn't sure if 0w oils were supposed to be like that or the winter conditions were tough on the GC in the nissan vq35 engine..

but oil taking 30+mins to warm-up? i figured after 5 miles into my 15 miles commute, I should be warmed-up.. i guess not.. the coolant hit it's operating tick on the dashboard within a mile.. i figured oil temp will soon follow after 5 mins or so...


Oh he ll no! My F150 in ambient temps around 50F takes about 10 miles to reach 180F. 12 mile trip with temps in the teens (F) and I'm in the 160's.
 
Originally Posted By: Clevy
Yesterday was -30c here. I've got a digital oil temp display. It took 35 minutes of city driving to attain 190f oil temp.

That is cold!
I'm surprised you even managed to attain 190F (87C) although low speed city driving does help. If you got it on the highway at speed I wouldn't be surprised if the oil temp's dropped somewhat, they do in my cars.
At even less severe temp's of around 32F my oil temp's rarely get much above 80C.
 
Originally Posted By: nicholas
I have always known that oil took longer to reach operating temp in the winter, but I never thought it could take over 30 mins.

We also block 3/4 of the radiator off in the winter as well.

Transmission oil must take eons to come to temp!


The correct statement is it will take longer for the oil in the pan to reach operating temp and truth be known it will probably never reach temps that are common in warmer months... In below freezing temp, the oil pan is a fairly good cooler...

In reality oil pumped into the block will be at coolant temp within a couple seconds from heat in the block... Coolant isn't magically hotter/cooler than the block, neither is oil...
 
At -7F like it was here this AM, engines take a long time to reach operating temperature. I had a 84 Accord when I lived in far northwest Colorado and would completely cover the radiator, and even with the car plugged into a block heater, I wouldn't have warm enough coolant to defrost the windshield adequately.The Camry I have now has a much better HVAC system.
 
I've had the SRT out in some sub-freezing weather recently, and its oil temperature runs within 2-3 degrees F of the same temps as it runs in summer. It only takes a few minutes longer to get there, too. But then I'm convinced that its oil-to-water cooler acts as a water-to-oil heater in the winter, too.

For what its worth, even in triple-digits in August, it would take a good 20-30 minutes for the oil temperature to stabilize at its max. It would reach 190-200F in about 10 minutes (as soon as the coolant was to full temp), but would take another 10+ to reach its usual 215 to 230 (depending on driving conditions).
 
Originally Posted By: CATERHAM
Originally Posted By: Clevy
Yesterday was -30c here. I've got a digital oil temp display. It took 35 minutes of city driving to attain 190f oil temp.

That is cold!
I'm surprised you even managed to attain 190F (87C) although low speed city driving does help. If you got it on the highway at speed I wouldn't be surprised if the oil temp's dropped somewhat, they do in my cars.
At even less severe temp's of around 32F my oil temp's rarely get much above 80C.


This car has been kinda funny as far as oil temps. When I first got it and used M1 5w-20 for my mos2 mileage testing the oil temp was 213f on the highway at 70mph cruise enabled.
When I switched over to liqui-moly 0w-40 in the fall oil temps immediately dropped to 190f. It was instant.
A couple weeks ago oil temps started creeping up to 200f so I changed out a couple quarts and added a can of mos2 and boom,190f again.
Believe it or not on the highway the oil temp held steady at 190f.
I'm still learning the quirks of this car. I didn't want to drive it this winter but my truck needs a new front end and it's been way too cold to even think about turning a wrench.
Oh. The quarts I pumped out were replaced with devlac elite 222 0w-30.
 
440Magnum your experience is the exception and yes the heat exchanger is part of the reason plus I suspect the car doesn't have an exposed (to airflow) finned aluminum oil pan.

Ask anyone with a M Series BMW (they have heat exchangers too) and maximum oil temp's are a good 15-25C lower in sub-freezing temp's.
 
I suspect this may be a reason why we get such long engine life in our fleet.

All our 3500 chassis' pump the oil and the trans fluid through the radiator. This is as much to accelerate winter warmup as to cool them in the summer heat...
 
Originally Posted By: supra911


but oil taking 30+mins to warm-up? i figured after 5 miles into my 15 miles commute, I should be warmed-up.. i guess not.. the coolant hit it's operating tick on the dashboard within a mile.. i figured oil temp will soon follow after 5 mins or so...


I bet your gauge is buffered, reading the actual temps from the engine coolant sensor while watching my water temp in my BMW, the gauge will be at normal operating temp at about 170F and not move even when the actual coolant temp is 210F.

When recording oil and water temps in my BMW with AutoEnginuity software, even on 80 F July days it took about 20 minutes at about 55 mph for my oil temp to hit 200F.

Here is a graph from Feb. with the outside temp around 10F (started in the garage at about 50F:
attachment.php


Point 400 on the bottom axis is after 20+ minutes at 55-65mph.
 
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I found for winter changes that a few hard accelerations would get the oil warmed up pretty quick. I don't know what the temps were exactly but hot enough where I didn't want to hold my hand for any amount of time to the pan. 70-80C is enough to get the oil to drain quickly.
 
I noticed on my last UOA the oil cooler thermostat was not opening after a highway run and the oil temp was mush lower.
 
Originally Posted By: CATERHAM
440Magnum your experience is the exception and yes the heat exchanger is part of the reason plus I suspect the car doesn't have an exposed (to airflow) finned aluminum oil pan.

Ask anyone with a M Series BMW (they have heat exchangers too) and maximum oil temp's are a good 15-25C lower in sub-freezing temp's.


Oh, I know- some of my other cars will never fully warm the oil even in our mild winters. That was my point- oil/coolant heat exchangers are a wonderful thing, and I'm starting to think that protected oil sumps are as well. The Chrysler LX/LC cars have a fully enclosed belly pan below the engine, so the air flow over the oil pan is what comes through the radiator. Of course they're notorious for the belly panel becoming unusable after it snags a few curbs, so if I ever toss mine I'll be interested to see if there are wider swings in oil temp.
 
Originally Posted By: Carbuff
My rule-of-thumb for winter warm-up is 45 minutes of cruising (NOT idling).

That is pre- direct injection, though, where fuel dilution is less of an issue.


I wonder if there's less fuel dilution with DI. The dilution comes from blow-by past the rings, and the unburned fuel is because of quenched combustion against cold combustion chamber surfaces. I doubt that DI offers any real advantage over port EFI as far as cold-start dilution, since it will still exhibit those behaviors to about the same degree.
 
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