quote:
Originally posted by Last_Z:
{snip} Yes, I am saying that a lot of the energy conserving thing is balloney! There are thicker oils out there with the same coefficient of friction as thin oils. Additives make the difference. Thin oils do have their place, especially with the smaller engines, but a lot has to do with goverment regulations which are mere fantasies at best. The dream of saving any significant amount of fuel by going thinner quickly dissipates when the data comes in. I'm willing to bet a decent amount of $$$ that the difference between 5W-20 and 15W-40 is minimal, if any......in a streeet driven car/truck.
One more thing.....can we please stop talking about GC and the very goofy green elves story.....it's begining to get overwhelmingly old!!!
First, you'll have to take the elf thing up with pscholte. I just said the stuff is "legendary," which I think is fair, given how it's taken on a life of its own here at BITOG.
Second, it's important to put this issue into perspective. The real focus of CAFE and things like "energy conserving" oils is not on the individual vehicle and personal results, but rather on the entire "fleet" of cars that are on the road. As insignificant as the marginal gain in mileage from thin oil may seem to the individual, it adds up when multiplied across the tens of millions of cars that are out there burning gas every day. Moreover, the supporting data
must be there or these layers of federal regs could not have withstood the multiple challenges the car makers have made against them.
Turning back to the case at hand, I doubt that SSB has harmed his engine by using the thicker M1 (that's a good UOA). Unfortunately, his ultimate mileage performance is probably a product that is the result of dozens, if not hundreds, of factors, not just the oil's coefficient of friction or its add pack. This is going to make it exceedingly hard, if not impossible for either of us to make an airtight case that can be proven to certainty. We will also never know, obviously, what his mileage
would have been had he used thinner oil over this interval. That said, I am convinced that, all other things being equal, thicker oils DO "waste energy and decrease horsepower". The real question is whether they do so to a significant degree. The answer to this question probably does vary from driver to driver and car to car. That in turn, would explain how we have different members reporting different experiences in this regard.
