High mileage oils / newer engine

[Swift]

Looking back we have seen that many of the high mileage formulas look real good with their additives/ antiwear pkgs.

So is there any forseeable problem running one of these formulations in a newer engine?

If these oils are so good why should/shouldn't we be running em in our newer rides?

[ February 04, 2004, 08:41 PM: Message edited by: Swift ]

 

[Drew99GT]

I wouldn't hesitate one bit. However, their cold weather properties are significantly not as good as their "regular" counterparts. I would definetally run high mileage in the summer, as each viscosity grade has slightly better HT/HS viscosity and they are lower in volitility, not to mention they are simply thicker in viscosity.

 

[Swift]

So cold weather performance is not up to snuff, ok I'll buy that.
We have stated in the past that these oils contain amounts of additives, esters, PAO that make them more desireable than the blends on the market.
So why aren't we running them especially since the price seems to be good for what you are getting.

 

[Swift]

Come on I'm really curious!

 

[TallPaul]

Valvoline Maxlife seems to compare quite well with its regular counterpart on cold weather properties.

 

[Drew99GT]

How do you know? I've never seen a valvoline data sheet. Pennzoil for example: 5w-30 HM -27 F pour point, regular 5w-30 -44 F pour point. Unfortunatelly, they still don't give an actual CCS number, just the spec for each "W" rating, so for that, both 5w-30s look the sdame, but I garuntee the 5w-30HM is not up to snuff with regular 5w-30. If you look at Chevron's data sheets, the actual CCS for 10w-30 HM is higher than their regular Supreme 10w-30. All things considered, it wouldn't really matter unless your trying to start in temps below like -10 F.

 

[TC]

Here's the numbers for Valvoline All Climate and MaxLife. I also threw some Citgo Supergard and Mobil Drive Clean numbers into the mix. (I double-checked all numbers after entering them.)

Valvoline Low Temp Pumpability, MRV TP-1 cP
5w-30 All Climate: 37,000@-35C
5w-30 MaxLife: 18,000@-35C
10w-30 All Climate: 24,000@-30C
10w-30 MaxLife: 15,000@-30C

Citgo and Mobil Low Temp Pumpability, MRV TP-1 cP
5w-30 Citgo: 17,400@-35C
5w-30 Mobil: 17,000@-35C
10w-30 Citgo: 21,000@-30C
10w-30 Mobil: 20,000@-30C

Cold Cranking Viscosity, CCS cP, max.
5w-30 All Climate: 6,000@-30C
5w-30 MaxLife: 6,600@-30C
10w-30 All Climate: 6,000@-25C
10w-30 MaxLife: 7,000@-25C

Interesting cold temp pumpability differences between the All Climate and MaxLife oils. But if nothing else, MaxLife in either weight performs in the same rough ballpark as Mobil Drive Clean: If one feels comfortable with MDC in cold weather, they should feel almost as warm & fuzzy if they switched to MaxLife. Some consolation, I suppose. Except maybe for truly cold environments, I'd suspect that MaxLife would do just fine, although I had no idea of this issue with cold temps -- thanks for pointing this out, Drew.

 

[TallPaul]

Drew, I don't know what is the difference between actual and category CCS data, but the Valvoline data sheets give the following (C) pour points for 5w30, 10w30, 10w40, and 20w50 respectively:

___Maxlife: -39, -36, -36, -33
All climate: -36, -33, -33, -24
_Durablend: -39, -39, -39, -33

Perhaps it is not fair to compare Maxlife with All Climate as Maxlife is a blend (though not marketed as such), but it compares well with Durablend which, being marketed as a blend, I believe has a higher amount of synthetic. I should add the pour point says "max" for the All Climate, but not the others.

CCS for the same weights at -30, -25, -25, -15 C respectively:

___Maxlife: 6600, 7000, 7000, 9500
All Climate: 6300, 6400, 6500, 7300
_Durablend: 5400, 5700, 5700, 7200

In this case Maxlife CCS says "max" but not the others.

So all in all, Maxlife looks pretty good to me, but I am a novice. What do you think?

 

[novadude]

TC... where did you get those numbers? Are they recent? I know the MAxlife formulation has changed recently to include PAO. Do your numbers reflect this oil?

 

[TC]

Both sheets were downloaded within the last 5 months -- it's possible they may have changed since then, per your comment, although once a particular cert is achieved (such as "SL"), it seems that in general these sheets typically go for several years before updating.

My All Climate spec sheet is dated 4-18-02, and the MaxLife sheet dated 7-8-03. Let us know if either has recently been replaced. (Thanks!)

For what it's worth, the Citgo and Mobil sheet dates are 12-02 and 6-03, respectively.

 

[Swift]

So ARE there any reasons why you would or would not want to run the HM oils in a newer engine?

 

[TallPaul]

quote:

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Originally posted by Swift:
So ARE there any reasons why you would or would not want to run the HM oils in a newer engine?

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Use them to avoid the starburst and "Energy Conserving" ratings. Who needs these ratings? SL is good enough for me. The other stuff is just politically correct CAFE stuff. I don't want oil that's been doctored up please the greens. IMHO!