Originally Posted By: edyvw
Originally Posted By: skyship
I don't understand why people think that one particular major brand will knock the UOA results socks off another major brand oil and I would like to stress that the proof of a puding is in the eating, so rather than facts and figures on an oil, a series of UOA results is much more interesting to read.
I might be a Liqui Moly fan, but the main reason I use their products is the same reason that most folks living in Germany use LM oils, that is because they are cheaper than Castrol, but are just as good. Some local experts think their top of the range synthoils are slightly better, whilst the LM conventional and HC synthetics are not as good as the older Castrol classic oils, namely GTX 5/30 and Magnetec 10/40.
Germany is the only country where engine oils are really pushed to the limits by many drivers, because the OCI's are often 20K km for oldish cars and 30K km for newer ones. If the book says the recommended or max OCI is X km, then 90% of all Germans will use that figure, not some 3K miles figure from Iffy lube in the US. I know some folks in the US use 5K miles for an OCI, but few US cars are using real long OCI's. Many German cars have to suffer both traffic jams and prolonged blasts down the autobahn at near full power and that results in many owners paying much more attention to engine oil and filter quality.
Mobil are in 3rd place in terms of sales in Germany and they must make good oils because my 10 year old 1.9TD Volvo was run on cheap Mobil 10/40 in summer and 15/40 in winter with an OCI of 20K km. When I checked out the engine fully after I bought my V40, it was in near perfect condition and subsequent UOA results have shown wear metals half of the average figures and an oil consumption of 0.3 ltrs in 10K km.
Shell and Valvoline are in 4 and 5th place in terms of sales of engine oil, but I don't know why Valvoline seems to be the only US made oil popular in Germany.
I do not understand why you using 10W40 in summer and 15W40 in winter?
I'm not, that was before I bought the car, I was rather shocked to see some 20 to 25K km OCI's with the cheapest Mobil oil and one stamp in the log book from a Ford dealer showed that Mobil 15/40 truck oil had been in use during the winter.
I use LM 5/40 High Tech Synthoil at present, but I will be changing to something cheaper next year, as I am using it to ensure the engine is completly free of sludge, although I could not see any when I put an optical scope down the dipstick hole and into the sump plug hole to see if it needed more serious physical cleaning.
