Honda i-VTEC and oil viscosity

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Jul 17, 2003
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I don't want to debate thick/thin. I'm just wondering if oil viscosity would have any effect on the functioning of i-VTEC in the current V6 engines.
 
Care to go into what effect going thicker or thinner would have ?
Assume you have no clue, but thanks for contributing.
 
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I was working at a transportation operation that had a newer Honda Odyssey minivan in the fleet with the v6 and they told us to change the oil with what the other hd vehicles use and it was 15w40… it still ran fine after this oil change and vtec still was very operational lol. Even years later I see that van around so it did not explode or ruin the engine by not running 5w20 in it.
 
I was working at a transportation operation that had a newer Honda Odyssey minivan in the fleet with the v6 and they told us to change the oil with what the other hd vehicles use and it was 15w40… it still ran fine after this oil change and vtec still was very operational lol. Even years later I see that van around so it did not explode or ruin the engine by not running 5w20 in it.
I’m probably going to throw in 5w-30 in ours on it’s next oil change coming up soon.
 
I can not see how since cold oil is orders of magnitude thicker at startup than at operating temp and somehow the valvetrain has to function properly under this condition - 20 vs 30 vs 40 ain't going to make much of a difference for most applications.
 
This all makes sense and is what I was thinking but wanted some confirmation from others. I'm still not sure whether I'll stick with 0w-20 or not. I might switch to 5w-30, even if just during the summer months.
 
I have used 10W30 for a few oil changes and to top off on my '12 TL when it was consuming oil before the engine warranty work. It did slow down the oil consumption a bit and made no difference to vtec performance or gas mileage. I am back to 5W20 after the repair.
 
I have run 5W-30 through my Ridgeline with no issues or cause for concern. Will run it again once my stash of Idemitsu 0W-20 runs out.
 
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