I Was Speechless...

[C4Dave]

I was in the oil section at Walmart (my favorite part of the store

), and a shopper was telling me how great straight 30 weight was as he loaded his basket with SuperTech 30 weight. "Sure is hard to find nowadays, though."

I didn't know what to say! All my BITOG training left me.

I couldn't believe in these days and times that anyone would ever consider a straight weight oil except for a lawnmower. I just watched him fill the basket, and waddle towards the check out line.

 

[T-Keith]

If you wanted to inform all the people at Wal-mart your going to be there all day. Sometimes all you can do is

.

-T

 

[Schmoe]

Maybe he owned a boat or maybe he is just old school. That use to be the oil weight of choice many moons ago. Even me, I can't see going to a 5W-20 because of my past, however, lots of folks are. Old habits are hard to break.

 

[EmbarkChief]

Many a motor went over 250K on straight 30... 2 of them in my family.

 

[vvk]

I have been itching to try SAE 30 oil myself! My Subarus allow both 30 and 40 to be used. Theoretically, SAE 30 is superior to, say, 10w30. No VII improvers, very high flash point, very low volatility. To me the trick is to find the one with good high-VI base oil so that it still retains adequate film strength at high temperature.

 

[The_Jeff]

Saw a clapped out El Camino a couple (Maine) winters back with a couple of empty SAE-30 bottles in the back, mixed with chunks of ice, snow, and other trash...

Its balding raised white letter tires were a bit out of place too!

 

[TallPaul]

quote:

---

Originally posted by vvk:
I have been itching to try SAE 30 oil myself! My Subarus allow both 30 and 40 to be used. Theoretically, SAE 30 is superior to, say, 10w30. No VII improvers, very high flash point, very low volatility. To me the trick is to find the one with good high-VI base oil so that it still retains adequate film strength at high temperature.

---

Well I think Redline has straight weights. Expensive though.

 

[tpi]

quote:

---

Originally posted by vvk:
I have been itching to try SAE 30 oil myself! My Subarus allow both 30 and 40 to be used. Theoretically, SAE 30 is superior to, say, 10w30. No VII improvers, very high flash point, very low volatility. To me the trick is to find the one with good high-VI base oil so that it still retains adequate film strength at high temperature.

---

Is Mobil 1 10w30 VI improver free? I've been under that impression.

 

[nanney]

A buddy of mine runs straight 30 Castrol HD. I asked him if he ever had problems cranking in the winter and he said never, even on the coldest days here in North Carolina. It rarely drops below 20F here.

His rusted out beater mazda pickup(200,000+ miles) that he purchased a couple of years ago for $300 leaks oil. So he just adds and hasn't changed the oil since he bought the truck.

His late 80's model Chevy pickup (daily driver with around 150,000 miles) leaks a little and burns a little. He changes every 5,000 miles and adds a quart or more during this interval.

He runs the straight 30 because it is thicker and helps control the leaking and because of the higher detergent package. He spent his younger years working in his father's garage and has worked on many cars and changed lots of oil.

If he has no problems craking in the winter with 30W, then I should have no problems with 15W40.

 

[dickwells]

Up here in Northern Ill. where it used to get cold in the winter, I can recall hearing the rods knock for 15 to 30 seconds when the temp was -20 or lower. Those are the days when a car was pretty much shot at 100k. Now my Silverado does not make a sound on the GC0w30 when it is 0.

 

[Flimflam]

quote:

---

Originally posted by C4Dave:
........ I couldn't believe in these days and times that anyone would ever consider a straight weight oil except for a lawnmower..........

---

If I have to be in Texas or Louisiana or Mississippi or Alabama, I would use Straight 30 (Castrol HD-30) in my car/truck.Don't knock the monograde stuff. It works great.

Back in the mid-1990's when I worked in New York, I used Castrol HD-30 year round in my Ford Bronco 351. Never had a problem with cold starting, piston slap, or rod knock even when I had to use a shovel to tunnel through a snowdrift before I could open the driver's side door.

 

[MAJA]

Or maybe this guy has a bunch of old tractors somewhere. Whats interesting is I am semi-restoring an old Allis Chalmers tractor, and got an operators manual for it yesterday. For oil use it states:

Above 90 F, use SAE40
Above 32 F, use SAE20
Above 10 F, use SAE20W
Below 10 F, use SAE10W

It also says to change the oil when it darkens, or every 200 hours. I was also surprised that some of the drain plug have magnets.