New Shell hybrid oil...

[drm7]

I read on the front page of the Money section in USA Today yesterday that Shell is planning to release a new 0w20 synthetic oil "designed" for hybrid cars (gas / electric). It's meant to handle the frequent turning on and off of the gas motor in city driving. Sounds like hype to me. I can't imagine what would make it different than any other synthetic oil. Maybe Castrol can relabel the start-up oil for hybrids.

 

[T-Keith]

So if I put this in my normal car it will become a hybrid right.

I think this just a marketing gimmick to label their new 0w20, which is recommended by at least Honda in their hybrids.

-T

 

[Ray H]

Would frequent off-on cycling be any worse on a motor than frequent acceleration-deceleration with conventional cars during city operation? In either case the motor oil's subjected to fuel dilution effects.

 

[farfel]

quote:

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Originally posted by drm7:
It's meant to handle the frequent turning on and off of the gas motor in city driving. Sounds like hype to me.

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Agree. There's no difference between revving 1000 to 2000 rpm... or 0 rpm to 1000 rpm. The engine doesn't care, and neither does the oil.

I just use standard 5w-20 amsoil in my hybrid. Works beautifully.

 

[Johnny]

You can use what ever you want, but it's no gimmick. Go to your Honda dealer and look in the manual. Honda has their own 0W20 synthetic for these cars and it is made in Japan for Honda. It's not Mobil 1 either. Again, no gimmick. Just trying to meet a demand and get into the market.

 

[ekpolk]

quote:

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Originally posted by farfel:

quote:

---

Originally posted by drm7:
It's meant to handle the frequent turning on and off of the gas motor in city driving. Sounds like hype to me.

---

Agree. There's no difference between revving 1000 to 2000 rpm... or 0 rpm to 1000 rpm. The engine doesn't care, and neither does the oil.

I just use standard 5w-20 amsoil in my hybrid. Works beautifully.

---

I'd disagree. When you rev from 1k rpm to 2k, the engine enjoys a relatively constant oil pressure. Unless the engine has something really strange going on, this would be an almost zero wear event. On the other hand, when you start from 0 rpm and go to 2k, there is a brief window of time in which oil pressure is building from none to operating range. I would think that over a great many on-off cycles in a hybrid, wear during these "extra" starts would become significant.

 

[the_oil_dealer]

Hybrid engines tend to be very small displacement, and not running nearly as much as a conventional gas engine, thus they can never really get quite as hot as a regular engine. Partly due to both the partial duty, low RPM's, and small displacement. Shell Hybrid oil is probably using an additive package that becomes active at lower oil temperatures as well as a nice shot of Gr.V (possibly charged to stick to metal). I don't know however, but those are reasons that would seem to make sense to me. If the oil is just regular 0w20 then.. marketing gimmick for sure

 

[farfel]

My hybrid runs just as hot (~190F) as any other engine. In fact, its designed to be hot, because of activating the catalyst & minimizing dirty cold emissions. It won't turn off until it becomes hot.


You have a good point about "zero oil pressure" between 0 and 1000 rpm though. I suppose a city driver with lots of auto-stops would see excess wear.

I searched & found three hybrid oil analyses. IMHO they don't look any higher in wear than a normal car. What do you guys think?


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[ November 04, 2004, 03:58 PM: Message edited by: farfel ]

 

[JeepZJ4.0]

I would think that an engine in a hybrid has an electric oil pump or something like a oil primer(something like that) that are used in dragsters that release oil at pressure before it starts so the parts are lubed.

 

[farfel]

The new Accord has an electric oil pump, but the older hybrids (Prius/Civic/Insight) use the traditional belt-drive pump.